Technology Lesson Ideas

To be honest, I have had a little bit of trouble thinking of ideas that I could use technology with the lessons which my teacher and I have planned out to teach for the rest of this month. However, as I was contemplating further on the topic today, I was thinking that using a Photo Story could make a shared reading or read aloud a lot more exciting for the kids. I think that listening and watching the story could help the students to remember it better, as well as the fact that it is something a little different so that could be way fun for them. I think that doing a Photo Story is probably my best idea that I have so far. I would prepare the students for the Photo Story just like I would to read a book, introducing them to a comprehension strategy we are working on, and then we would listen and watch the Photo Story, and then afterward, we would discuss how the comprehension strategy worked in the Photo Story. My classroom has a computer projector available so the Photo Story would definitely be a feasible idea!

Classroom Inventory

In my classroom, there isn't a whole lot of technology available to the students. The teacher has a computer at her desk which she does grades and attendance on, and there is an overhead projector, but other than that, the students do not interact with technology a whole lot. They go to the computer lab every Monday and seem to enjoy that, but there is not a whole lot of technology to evaluate. One cool thing though is that the three ELL's in the classroom are set up on a program called Imagine Learning which helps them to learn more effectively in the classroom. I thought it was pretty cool that they had access to this resource to help them to learn and to accommodate their hindrances in their learning.

Virtual Tour

Check out my Revolutionary War Tour!

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1.Lexington/Concord, MA	In the first activity, I will have the students measure the distance of Paul Revere's ride with the ruler.	I will have them look at the ruler as well as a picture from Wikipedia of the different paths the British and Americans took in the battle.
2. Philadelphia, PA	Students will complete the linked Declaration of Independence Word Search.	I will have them look at a link for the word search, as well as a picture of the Declaration of Independence.
3. Saratoga, NY	Students will read an article about the Battle of Saratoga, considered to be the turning point of the Revolutionary War.	I will have them look at a link for the article, as well as a picture of the battle of Saratoga.
4. Yorktown, VA	Students will read and respond to a short article about the Treaty of Paris which happened at Yorktown.	I will have them look at a link for the article, and type a response to the colonists demands and whether they think they were fair.
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	The thirteen colonies will be highlighted in a polygon so that students can clearly see where the Revolutionary War and colonies were.

TPACK:

The content which will be used in this lesson is from the Utah State Core, under Standard 2, Objective 2--"Evaluate the Revolutionary War's impact on self-rule." Through viewing the key events of the Revolutionary War and where they are actually located, students will be able evaluate the Revolutionary War, and with their knowledge from other lessons, they will be able to evaluate its impact on self-rule. From this activity, students will understand the key events of the Revolutionary War and will have a better picture of where the Revolutionary War was fought.
The pedagogy which will be used is viewing the events and places for themselves. The activities will be self-directed, with the teacher acting as a facilitator and making sure that the students are viewing the articles and doing the activities correctly.
The technology which will be used is Google Earth, as well as some links to the web, and pictures so that students will receive a better understanding of the events of the Revolutionary War. This technology is effective because students from Utah cannot travel to where the events took place, so seeing pictures and seeing the places geographically through Google Earth helps them to realize that the War actually happened and was a defining part of our nation's history.

Breakfast in Bed Story

Storyboard and TPACK Questions

For our digital storytelling activity, we chose the poem "Breakfast in Bed" by Kenn Nesbitt. It is a humorous and fun poem, and the story will depict pictures of the different scenes.

• CONTENT: We are using a poem that has rhyme at the end of each line--the rhyme scheme is aabbccdd...and so forth. From this, student's will learn about rhyme and the sounds that different words make. Also, the poem uses some creative vocabulary, so student's will see the words with the pictures so that their literacy will be improved. Overall, our content is largely literacy and word focused, as we are using a poem.
• PEDAGOGY: Hearing the story read aloud will strengthen student's listening abilities, a big part of their literacy. The pedagogy used will be the storybook itself, and seeing the pictures as well as hearing it read aloud which appeals to auditory and visual learners.
  
• TECHNOLOGY: We will be using PhotoStory3 to create our digital storybook, which will help our story come to life technologically. We will create the story using audio, pictures from the web, and music in the background. This technology is a perfect fit for the pedagogy of reading the story aloud because it allows students to be able to go back and listen to it again and again. This technology fits with the content because it allows students to hear the rhyme and see the vocabulary words.
  

TPACK Questions

The content we are focusing on in our science experiment is how heat can be created by rubbing two objects together, such as hands or cloth. We are also exploring whether lubricating the two objects (lotioning the hands or wetting the cloth) will affect the temperature change. In order to explore this scientific content area, we are using the pedagogical tool of exploring and experimenting to find out what happens--instead of just being told that two objects rubbed together creates heat, students have the opportunity to actually experience it which will help them to remember it easier. Scientific content is always better when it is a hands-on experience, because that is how the scientists discovered it, and so it helps the students to discover it the same way. We used probes in our experiment because we are dealing with temperature change, and this helps to tell the temperature and the temperature change. The graph the technology creates is also helpful in seeing the temperature change and how the heat is created by rubbing the objects together.