Our teachers have created wonderful lessons plans to integrate technology in their instruction. Here are some they’d like to share.
Comic Life Story Retell - uses Comic Life software application
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will read the short story “Dragon, Dragon”, complete a Story Map worksheet, and then retell the story using Comic Life. They will also share their opinion of the story.
Lesson Plan ComicLifeDragonRetell.doc
C0mic Life Dragon Retell Student Dragoncomic.doc
The Berlin Wall - using InterWrite Pad, document camera
BRIEF OVERVIEW—Students learn about the construction of the Berlin Wall, life behind the wall, escapes, and the events that led to its fall. They also learn about the effects of the Wall on the people and the impact of the fall. They do this through visuals such as maps, photographs, and artifacts.
Lesson Plan: TiltLesson1BerlinWall.doc
Using iPods/iTouches for Reading Comprehension
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Teacher uses GarageBand to record and splice his or her own comprehension questions with an audio track of a reading selection. Students will listen to the new track on ITouch headphones as they are reading and work at their own pace, following prompts to answer questions.
Lesson Plan: Using iPods:iTouches for Reading Comprehension.doc
Using Clickers to Grade Writing Work Samples
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Student pairs will read a student writing sample downloaded from the ODE website. Students will use the six-point grading rubric to assess the writing sample for all six traits. They will use clickers to project their answers, which will be discussed as a class.
Lesson Plan: Using Clickers to Grade Writing Samples.doc
The Bracelet - podcast
BRIEF OVERVIEW—Students learn about the Japanese-American experience through composing and performing a fictional piece. They also practice their writing and speaking skills.
Lesson Plan: The Bracelet_podcast.doc
Using Franklin Spellers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: The students will try to read poorly spelled writing. Then, they will learn how to use the Franklin Spelling Ace as a tool to help in the editing process.
Lesson Plan: Franklin spellers.doc
C0mparing Fiction and Non-fiction
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use a graphic organizer to show the difference between fiction and non-fiction using two stories as examples of each. After completing a graphic organizer, students will write an essay comparing fiction and non-fiction characteristics with the literature examples.
Lesson Plan: Comparing Fiction and Non-Fiction.doc
Using Inspiration in a lesson about Africa
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This cross-subject area lesson will introduce students to information about the climate and physical environments of the African continent, while giving them practice in note-taking and organizing information.
Lesson Plan: Inspiration-Africa.doc
The Fertile Crescent
Brief Overview: The students will show mastery of the Fertile Crescent with the use of the clickers. They will be showing an understanding of vocabulary, comprehension questions and critical thinking. They will also be doing group/pod work to create their own Sumerian city using details that they have learned from the book/lectures.
Lesson Plan: The Fertile Crescent.doc
Africa - Natural Resources
Brief Overview: This unit is part of a greater project to meet the Social Studies benchmarks for 6th grade. Building background knowledge about Africa and its ancient civilizations link the past with the present and give students a greater knowledge of the world around them.
Lesson Plan: Africa_Natural Resources.doc
Asian Empires and Their Religions
Brief Overview: The students will show mastery of the Asian Empires and their religions in a review for a test through a Jeopardy game. They will be showing an understanding of vocabulary, comprehension questions and critical thinking. They will also be doing group/pod work to help each other understand the major concepts in a fun review. They will be moving to the front of the class to choose their answer on the smartboard by touch their point value category to get their question or by having the airliner brought to them so they may be more comfortable but still able to choose their question
Lesson Plan: The Fertile Crescent.doc
Greek Mythology - Gods and Goddesses Project
Brief Overview: The students get to create themselves as Greek gods/goddesses. They will write their own story/adventure and present this to the class with a visual of what they will look like (paper mini-me versions) and a family tree of their relatives on the computer using Inspiration.
Lesson Plan: Greek Mythology-Gods And Goddesses.doc
Activity Sheet: Gods-Goddesses activity sheet .doc
Inspiration Outline: Greek Gods_Chaos.isf
Persuasive Writing Lesson Plan
BRIEF OVERVIEW
This lesson introduces the use of Google Documents for the Language Arts classroom for generating, editing, saving, and revising students’ work. The essays produced are 4-paragraph persuasive essays.
Lesson Plan: Google Document Persuasive Essays.doc
Essay Outline: Outline for Persuasive Essay.doc
Poetry
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a writing class where students will produce an anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and ballads. At the end of the class, a group of students decide the pieces of writing selected for the anthology.
Lesson Plan: Poetry.doc
En Busca de Los Jardins
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a Language Arts class in Spanish where students will produce a Keynote presentation as a reaction to the the story “En busca de los jardines de nuestras madres.” (In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker)
Lesson Plan: En busca de los jardines.doc
Vocabulary Review Using Context Clues
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use clickers to review 25 words learned in the last three vocabulary lessons. The vocabulary words to be reviewed will be used in a sentence. Students will look at context clues.
Lesson Plan: Vocabulary Review Using Context Clues.doc
Vocabulary Review Using Clickers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use to clickers to review 20 of 60 possible words learned in 3 previous lessons using the Sadler-Oxford vocabulary book.
Lesson Plan: Vocabulary Review Using Clickers.doc
Tobacco, Drugs and Alcohol
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a “report” where students work in pairs to create a fact sheet for one of the previously mentioned drugs. They will be using comic life to present their work. They did not access the internet for this assignment, I gave them all the information they would need, they just needed to sort through it and pull from it what they needed.
Lesson Plan: Tobacco, Drugs, and Alcohol.doc
Chapter Review - Crispin
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use clickers to review the quiz questions for section 5 of the novel, Crispin, and participate in a discussion of the correct answers.
Lesson Plan: Chapter Review - Crispin.doc
Vision of our Nation’s Youth: 19th Century U.S. History
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Each student will create and orally present a collage of pictures both produced and researched that represent U.S. history to them.
Lesson Plan: 19th Century U.S. History
Poetry and Keynotes
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will create a Keynote presentation of two of their original poems. The Keynote will subsequently be presented to the class.
Lesson Plan: Poetry_Keynotes.doc
Esperanza Rising: Background Knowledge
BRIEF OVERVIEW: The students will explore links on the Pam Munoz Ryan website.
Lesson Plan: EsperanzaRising_BackgroundKnowledge.doc
Mock Talk Show Podcasts
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will work in groups to create a mock interview talk show centered around the characters in the novel “The Whale Rider.” They will create a podcast including their voices recorded through GarageBand and images of themselves (in character) taken with PhotoBooth.
Lesson Plan: "Talk Show" Podcasts.doc
Vocabulary Review using Clickers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use to clickers to review 20 of 60 possible words learned in 3 previous lessons using the Sadler-Oxford vocabulary book.
Lesson Plan: Vocabulary Review with Clickers.doc
South American Art - Virtual Tour
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a humanities lesson that is centered on the art of South and Central America, but could be adapted for any culture by identifying a different set of websites for students to explore. Students will visit a series of websites focused on South American art. For each website, they will draw some representative examples of the art they found on the site, make a personal assessment of the art/objects they viewed, and choose one piece/object for which they will write a richly-detailed description, so that the reader can envision the piece through their words.
Another observation to be drawn from this lesson is the utilitarian value of art in many cultures, especially non-Western ones. Some of the websites ask students to look at clothing, baskets and pottery that are both beautiful and useful.
Lesson Plan: South American Art - Virtual Musem.doc
The Amazing Race Project
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This lesson is one segment of a Project-based Learning project. In the project, students explore the cultural geography of a Latin American country by planning/designing an episode of the popular television program, The Amazing Race. Their end product is an iMovie that incorporates images of the country and culture, and Garageband recordings that direct the “contestants” through the challenges the students have designed.
In this lesson, students watch segments of a tutorial on iMovie HD, and practice working in the application to complete a short movie of their own. They will later apply what they’ve learned to the end product of the project.
Lesson Plan: Amazing Race Project.doc
Abarat - novel warmup activity
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will listen to one chapter of the story per warmup as it is played using an ipod. Pictures from the book will be shown during the reading using a document camera.
Lesson Plan: Abarat-warmup.doc
Lit Circles Using iMovie
BRIEF OVERVIEW—Students learn about how to express themselves through the iMovie medium. They learn the how to focus the tech skills to create a meaningful product relevant to the curriculum.
Lesson Plan: Lit Circles using iMovie.doc
Athens vs Sparta - Keynote
BRIEF OVERVIEW—Students view a side-by-side comparison of the two Greek city-states.
Lesson Plan: Athens vs Sparta.doc
Spanish Name Tags Activity
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Today’s goals are built on prior goals from the lesson before, which is to illustrate a name tag with their name and adjectives that describe them as students/people. Our goals for today will be to share these ideas with the class, answer the four questions that were written by me (see handout), and start on food vocabulary
Lesson Plan: Spanish Name Tags.doc
Spanish Menu Activity
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Groups will work cooperatively towards completion of their menu project.
Lesson Plan: Spanish - Menu Project.doc
Spanish Adjective Noun Agreement - Food
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will write about foods and adjectives that will describe the foods taste.
Lesson Plan: Spanish Adjective-Noun Agreement - Food.doc
Inspiration Character Sketch
BRIEF OVERVIEW Students will create a graphic organizer (“mindmap”) to outline a character sketch, using a set format of six “bubbles” radiating from a central bubble. Everyone’s graphic organizer follows the same pattern for the first two “rings,” and then individuals create unique mindmaps which, using Inspiration, can then be converted into an outline.
Lesson Plan: Inspiration Character Sketch.doc
Soldier’s Heart Poster
BRIEF OVERVIEW: After reading Soldier’s Heart, students will use Pages to create a poster illustrating the change Charley undergoes throughout from the beginning of the story until the end of the book and write a reflection paragraph. The two items will be printed and glued side-by-side on complimentary colored paper to be displayed on the bulletin board.
Lesson Plan: Soldier's Heart Poster.doc
Active Listening Through Graphic Organizers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students choose a topic from the 1800’s, research the topic, write a paper, and give an oral presentation to the class. One of the components of the project is for each student to create a graphic organizer to be given to classmates for note taking during the oral presentation. After each day’s presentation, all students will place the most important event from each presentation on a timeline to reinforce chronology.
Lesson Plan: Active Listening Thru Graphic Orgnizers.doc
The Outsiders Poster
BRIEF OVERVIEW: After reading The Outsiders and completing a flapbook of key information, students will use Pages to create two posters illustrating characteristics of the Socs and the Greasers.
Lesson Plan: Outsiders Poster.doc
Using Keynote to Enhance Oral Presentations
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students choose a topic from the 1800’s, research the topic, write a paper, and give an oral presentation to the class. One of the components of the project is for students to create a keynote slide show to enhance their oral presentation. Students may work with a partner with the understanding that the presentation must be double the length. After each day’s presentation, all students will place the most important event from each presentation on a timeline to reinforce chronology.
Lesson Plan: KeyNote and Oral Presentations.doc
Social Studies Review Using Clickers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a Social Studies class where students read and discussed the material being taught in addition to taking notes. Students have two worksheets to demonstrate comprehension and understanding of the material.
Lesson Plan: Social Studies Review Using Clickers.doc
Student Podcasts of Rikki Tikki Tavi
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a Language Arts class that is thought in Spanish. Students read Rikki Tikki Tavi and the teacher explains material with new vocabulary using pictures from the Internet e.g. bungalow, a mongoose, a weasel, etc. Students will demonstrate comprehension of the story by producing a padcost with pictures retelling the story on their own words.
Lesson Plan:Student Podcasts of Rikki Tikki Tavi.doc
“This I Believe” Student Podcasts
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will study “This I Believe” curriculum, completing activities focusing on values and beliefs. They will read, listen and study published “This I Believe” essays, then write their own. As a final project they will create a podcast, adding music(optional), to accompany their reading of their essay.
Lesson Plan: This I Believe Lesson Plan.doc
“This I Believe” iMovies
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will read and study/discuss a variety of published “This I Believe” essays, then write their own “This I Believe” essay. As a final project they will create an iMovie with photos/drawings and music to accompany their reading of their essay. Final projects will be displayed on a curriculum night open to the community.
Lesson Plan: This I Believe - iMovie.doc
People of Power - research project
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Using a consensus definition model the students will define what “hero” means. They will read about various people whom the world considers heroes. The students will choose a person to research and write a report on that person's accomplishments and how they helped other people.
Lesson Plan: People Of Power.doc
People of Power - iMovie Project
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a follow up to the People Of Power lesson. The students will have a research paper to use for an Imovie with photos/drawings and music to accompany their reading of their essay.
Lesson Plan: People Of Power IMovie.doc
Vocabulary Review Using Clickers
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use clickers to review 25 words learned in the last three vocabulary lessons. The vocabulary words to be reviewed will be used in a sentence. Students will look at context clues.
Lesson Plan: Vocabulary Review with Clickers.doc
Using iTouch or iPod for Reading
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will use an iTouch or iPod to follow a narrated version of the story “Black Cowboys, Wild Horses” while they read it from the textbook.
Lesson Plan: Using iTouch or iPod for Reading.doc
Field Trip Comic Life Report
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students make comic life documents about their field trip to the coast (or wherever). Final product includes pictures of friends AND science vocabulary (i.e. backwash, dunes, tide pool, etc).
Lesson Plan: Field Trip Comic Life Report.doc
Finding Meaning Using Context Clues - document camera
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Teacher models locating vocabulary words for a class novel buy placing the novel under the document camera and showing students the sentence containing the word. Students follow teacher’s guidance to find the word/sentence in their own copy of the novel and copy the sentence onto their paper. Teacher leads students to decide if they have enough information to understand the meaning of the word, or if they have to go “above” or “below” the sentence to get enough context.
Lesson Plan: Finding Meaning Using Context Clues - Doc Camera.doc
Digital Storytelling - storyboards
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This lesson is one segment of a Project-based Learning project. Students will explore the cultural geography of a Latin American country by planning/designing an episode of the popular television program, The Amazing Race. Their end product will be an iMovie that incorporates images of the country and culture and Garageband recordings that direct the “contestants” through the challenges the students have designed.
In this lesson, students will create a storyboard for their episode, and write the accompanying script for the voice recording.
Lesson Plan: Digital Storytelling.doc
Personal Timeline Podcast
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will create personal time lines of at least 10 significant events in their life. They then will choose 1 of the events and write a one page story of that event. Next, they create a storyboard to prepare for their podcast. Finally, they use Garage Band to create their podcast.
Lesson Plan: Personal Timeline Podcast.doc
Communicating with Overseas Troops using Skype
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Students will brainstorm questions to ask soldiers who will be stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad, Iraq.
Lesson Plan: Communicating with Troops Overseas (Skype).doc
Modeling a Speech
BRIEF OVERVIEW: The class will review the rating system for the state’s scoring speeches. After viewing examples of youtube videos showing bad, average, and great speeches, students will begin practicing their speeches by videotaping themselves using Mac laptops and saving the recordings in PhotoBooth. Students will need to save three recordings: a bad version (this should be done first to get rid of the nerves and to ease into the process, a version of an average speech (some mistakes, but okay overall), and finally a recording of a great speech. Each student will edit the three versions into one video using Imovie afterward. These finished products can be used to show students the levels of rating a speech based on the same speech/material, and it can also be used as a personal reference for practicing as well.
Lesson Plan: Modeling a Speech.doc
