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Module
7: Lesson Plans and Scavenger Hunts
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| Readings |
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| Curriculum and the Internet |
| Up to this
point, the course has been focused around Internet tools such as e-mail,
listservs, newsgroups, HTML and search tools. We've looked at the mechanics
of the tools and reflected on how those tools can be brought to bear on
curriculum activities.
Now we are changing directions a bit. With this module we begin to focus more on the curriculum than the tools. We'll examine a variety of online resources ranging from activities to lesson plans to unit plans to full-fledged curriculum support facilities. The culminating events of this course are the curriculum project and a reflective essay. For now, let me just set the stage by telling you that your project needs to focus on an important curricular problem in your own setting and it must address how the project can be carried out in your particular technology situation. Your essay will be an opportunity to tie together the many threads of this class especially those not explicitly utilized in your project. As we look at the various types of curriculum resources in the next few classes, please reflect on both the curriculum content and the classroom management that is addressed. Start by reading Working the Web for Education. This article was originally written to help teachers who are going to use Wired Learning in the Classroom and Library's tool Filamentality. Follow the links to the various kinds of lessons to understand the classifications he is using. This is one way of classifying the kinds of things teachers and students can do on the web. The next article, An Online Inquiry Instructional System for Environmental Issues, gives you some insight into how curriculum designers are thinking about harnessing and extending the capabilities of the Web for classroom instruction. Finally, this might be a good time to revisit Harnessing the Web, that we read in the first class. |
| Lesson Plans |
| As educators
began to see the possibilities for using the Internet, one of the first
things that appeared were lesson plan collections. As we think about the
curriculum projects you'll be developing, let's start by taking a look at
other lesson resources on the web. The links below will take you to a variety
of sites that post lesson plans. Some of them are lessons that are completely
offline, but the plans themselves can be accessed from the web. Others use
Internet resources but all of the work is done offline. Still others use
Internet tools and resources integrally in the lessons. Some are carefully
reviewed while others are simply all-inclusive.
Take some time to explore each site and think about the way they publish the lessons and order resources. As you create your own project, some of these lessons can serve as models for you. Others will provide activities and resources you can include.
One new database makes use of videos that were created in the 1990's and have now been updated, turned into appropriate sizes for the Web, correlated with the standards and made available via the Web. Take a look at what's available on the PBS MathLine video site. |
| Scavenger Hunts | ||||||
| When teachers
begin to use the Web in their classes, they often begin by telling the class
something like "Today we are going to learn about animals. Now everybody
get on the Web and search for an animal." This kind of thing generally leads
to complete chaos and very few, if any, students really find some useful
materials. While it is useful for students to learn to search, turning every
lesson into searching lessens the coverage of the curriculum.
The teacher then realizes that this was a little like bringing the kids into the New York Public Library and giving them the same task. So now the teacher goes home and does the initial search herself. She'll come up with a list of 10 or 20 sites that contain useful information and are at the right level for her students. Then she'll type up the list of URLs and pass them out in the classroom. These classes usually become large scale typing exercises. A simple approach to solve some of these problems is to set up a scavenger hunt. Take a look at some of these different models for teaching students to using the Internet to find information.
As you can see, these end up being mostly reading comprehension exercises. The Beyersdorf article, Vacationing with the Michaelsons, illustrates a more sophisticated and elaborate version of this. Notice how she stresses the difference between online and off-line reading. |
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| Copyright © 2002 by Pat Sine. |