Shared Reading with Technology!

On Thursday I am doing my technology lesson. I will be incorporating technology into my shared reading lesson. The students are going to be doing a choral reading of a poem from You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together. I will have the words on a PowerPoint and project the words and some of the images from the book onto the screen. I am going to have a pointer so that the students read altogether and stay reading at the same rate. Although it is helpful for all the students to be able to see the words at the same time, I felt like this was not using technology to the greatest advantage. I have linked some of the words in the poems to outside articles or images. After we read the poems, we are going to discuss them and I will have students click on the links that interest them. I've started creating the PowerPoint, and I am pretty excited about this lesson. My mentor teacher also is excited for me to teach this, and I hope the students will be engaged in the lesson and learn from it as well!

Shared Reading Idea

One idea for a technology-enhanced lesson that I might be able to do involves technology and a shared reading. I would like to create a powerpoint with slides for each page of a book. In order to incorporate the students using the technology, I would like to create a link from some of the words to either an activity or some kind of image that would help reinforce the text. This would make technology essential for the lesson and would add value to the lesson by extending the understanding of the students. I will first need my mentor teacher to give me text that she would like me to use for a shared reading, but I think that this activity would benefit the students.

Classroom Technology Inventory

The classroom technology inventory was quite informative. I found that the school has two computer labs that we can schedule and that my mentor teacher has used it before for special lessons so she could help me figure out what kind of technology would be good to use for lessons. Also, the grade has a laptop and projector that is shared between the classrooms, so I could easily use that for in my lessons. I also thought that it was interesting that the school has software that helps the students publish their writing. That will help them feel more like authors, which is really important. After seeing the technology available, I am excited about the possibilities for my lessons.

Virtual Tour Link

Here is a link to my Lincoln virtual tour!

301 Applied Lesson Plan: Social Constructivism

My lesson plan is based on three different types of faults that cause earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. This lesson plan can also be taught from the Social Constructivism perspective. I have decided to teach this lesson using an instructional conversation. In an instructional conversation, the teacher is the more knowledgeable other. The teacher is the one who leads the conversation, providing instruction on the topic when necessary. This instructional conversation would start by asking the students if they have ever been in an earthquake, and if they have, what it felt like. It is important to activate and use background knowledge in any good teaching, but it is also a key component of a good instructional conversation. The conversation would then turn to what causes an earthquake and asking how the Earth moves during an earthquake. This helps establish the thematic focus for the lesson. Then the instructional part of the instructional conversation comes into play. This is when I would share the first type of fault that causes earthquakes, or the lateral fault and model the fault with my hands. Then I would have the students participate and do the same thing with their hands. I would then ask the students where they felt pressure when they did this demonstration and how their hands reacted. I would ask them why they think the demonstration worked the way it did. I would ask them what they think the connection between the model we made with our hands and how the Earth responds to this kind of fault. Because I am doing an instructional conversation, I would ask these questions to encourage general participation and allow them to express their thoughts instead of just telling the students about the lateral faults without the students' involvement. I would have this kind of conversation for the next two faults as well.

At the end of this activity, I would have students work in pairs and discuss diagrams of the different types of faults. They would label the faults and discuss how they know which kind of fault to classify the diagrams. This is a good way for the students to apply their knowledge to a new situation.

In my lesson, I used cultural tools by having the students look at diagrams. These kinds of tools help them to break down the knowledge they learned in the instructional conversation and apply to a different setting. I also tried to make sure that this lesson would be able to take into account the students' zone of proximal development, which is what a student can do with help that they cannot do on their own. Although all the students will not be at the same level, it is important to try and reach as many of the students that I can. I tried to do this by realizing that most students would have a difficult time just reading about faults and trying to figure out what they actually look like. By having the students model these faults themselves, they are hopefully able to understand the concepts better than if they had tried on their own to understand them. This lesson also has opportunities for teachers to scaffold student learning. This can be done by reminding the students of the characteristics of each fault before students work in pairs to identify the faults in diagrams. By doing this the teacher supports their learning and helps them be ready to work by themselves. The relationship between the learner and the more knowledgeable learner, the teacher in this case, is important to consider also. It is important that this relationship is built on trust and understanding. When teachers and students have this kind of relationship, there is a safe learning environment and students are more willing to take risks in order to understand the concepts. While part of the goal is for the learner to gain knowledge from the more knowledgeable other, it is also important for the teacher to take advantage of opportunities to learn from the students. There is always more to learn and different perspectives and explanations that are good to consider. This is why it is important to have a solid relationship of respect and an attitude of learner between the learner and the more knowledgeable other.

TPACK for Virtual Tour

The content that I am using for this virtual tour is found under the 5th grade social studies core. It is standard 4, objective 3 indicator a which states that students will identify the key ideas, events, and leaders of the Civil War using primary sources (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, news accounts, photographic records, diaries). This activity focuses on a key leader of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. Students will use primary sources when they read or listen to the text of Lincoln's first inaugural address and the Gettysburg address. In addition, they will learn more about Lincoln's life and how much the American people mourned his death. This content will help the students understand the background of the Civil War.

The pedagogy for this activity is to teach the students about Lincoln and his life in a way that makes him real, not just some old President. By going to places that he lived, students will learn more about the things that he did and how he impacted history. A tour of a person's life gives insight into that person and establishes a connection between the learner and the person being studied. This is why teaching about Abraham Lincoln through a tour of main events of his life fits well with the content. The boring facts on a textbook page come to life when using this method to teach about Abraham Lincoln and his role in the Civil War.

For this activity I am using Google Earth to create a virtual tour. This technology fits well with the content and pedagogy. By creating a virtual tour, students can personalize the content more than if they were reading the text by themselves. Google Earth has Wikipedia articles that are helpful for students to do their own research. This helps them become owners of the information, because they discovered it for themselves. Also, by creating a path, students will see the connection of events through Abraham Lincoln's life. The content of the Civil War comes to life when it is learned through the technology medium of Google Earth.

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site	Read Wikipedia article- What was the Lincoln's farm called?	Wikipedia research
2. Washington, D.C.	Look at pictures of Lincoln's first inaugrual address- What is one thing he said in his speech?	Outside link to pictures and address
3. Gettysburg National Military Park	Listen to Gettysburg address	Link to Gettysburg address
4. Ford's Theatre National Historic Site 5. Lincoln's Tomb State Historic Site	View pictures of interior and read wikipedia article- What play was Lincoln watching when he was assassinated? Read article and measure distance that the funeral train traveled to bring Lincoln to his grave	Wikipedia research Measure pathway
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	Pathway between Ford's Theatre and Lincoln's tomb, overlay of pictures of Lincoln's tomb