ECOMP 7010: Final Project

Directions: You will choose one current, or emerging technology, or Internet resource, and incorporate it into a lesson using a constructivist approach. Your final project needs to include the following:

1. A brief statement of your goal for this lesson.
2. A description of your school setting as it relates to your lesson, including curriculum requirements, technology access, the number of students involved and anything about your students that would be relevant.
3. Three of the standards (state or national) the lesson will address.
4. A description of the existing lesson, or proposed lesson, that you’ll be infusing additional technology into, including goals, time frame, class groupings, technology used.
5. The questions you will pose to your students and the tasks you will ask them to do. This is the most important part of your project and will demonstrate your creativity and imagination.  You will reference the specific use of the technology or Internet resource, and how your students will do their information gathering, research and problem solving.  Include annotated links where needed to cite resources.
6. A sample project.  This will be created by you, and will serve as a model for your students.  The link to the project, or the attached document, must be included in your project.
7. Include at least 2 screen shots or other images. Annotated references should be listed at the end.

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Student Exemplars: 4 Ways to Link QR Codes

ECOMP7010: Google Reader & RSS Feeds

Google Tools in the Classroom

Directions: Post an entry with one RSS website that you would recommend and examples of three feeds at that site. 

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FreeTech4Teachers

Source URL: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/freetech4teachers/cGEY

Story Recommendations:

Say Goodbye to iGoogle and Hello to Symbaloo

It is disappointing when a service we get to know and used to using is discontinued by the provider; iGoogle is one such example. Thankfully, Richard Byrne’s blog is an excellent resource for finding alternative resources and services. iGoogle is a popular organizational tool used by both my teachers and students in the 1to1 laptop program, so Richard’s blog post will be a valuable communique to forward to them.

Welcome to Online Textbooks

Guest blogger Cristina Conciatori, a Biology and Chemistry teacher in New York, talks about the the debate between traditional and digital textbooks and how you can make the transition to digital a little bit easier.

21 Must-Read RSS Feeds

Blogger Richard Byrne shares his RSS feed list that he checks on a regular basis and uses as a source for his own blog topics. Richard divides the list into feeds that focus on education topics and those that deal with technology integration.

ECOMP 7010: Google Lit Trips

Google Tools in the Classroom

Directions: Think about a Google Lit Trip that you would create for YOUR students and report on it.

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1. A Google Lit Trip that inspired me:
My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier

2. The book that I would write a Lit Trip for is: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Jean Lee Latham.

3. Besides sending my students to the locations…there are a lot of possibilities for extensions and other innovations. Students could do research on the various tools that Nat Bowditch uses in the story, investigating whether or not they are still used today and if not, what tool(s) have replaced them. After reading each chapter, students could go to a WallWisher page and brainstorm different titles for the chapter and explain how that came up with them. Students could also select a character from the book and create a Historical Facebook profile page, where in addition to entering in biographical data they would have to determine what social groups they would belong to, who would be in their ‘friend’ list, and several examples of posts we might see on their Facebook wall.

ECOMP 7010: Google Earth

Google Tools in the Classroom

Directions: Post an entry describing one Google Earth application that you would recommend, and an idea for using it in YOUR classroom.

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Title: Hiking in Maine Tour

1. Download project file

2. Explanation:
There is a lot of potential in creating your own Google Earth Tour with special consideration needed since your presentation relies heavily on visual imagery. I found myself spending a good deal of time (maybe too much time) on the zoom and orientation for each of my place markers. I also thought that this could be influenced based on what types of locations you are visiting (natural formations versus man-made or are there 3-D effects available at the sites?). In any case, I think this is a valuable tool for a teacher’s toolbox as another format for students to demonstrate knowledge and understanding through technology integration.

3. Ideas for the classroom:

• As I wrapped up my tour, I wondered if our 7th grade science classes could use Google Earth Tours for their Life Signs projects. Students travel out to local streams, rivers, and tidal pools collecting samples of the biological organisms present for analysis. Students could document these field trips and include images from their visits, links to podcasts or movies documenting their cataloging of the biological samples, and comparisons to previous years results.
• Math classes could use Google Earth Tours and the 3-D Buildings layer with their geometry studies. Students can search the globe for buildings that show certain geometric shapes and discuss why they were incorporated into building designs.
• Science classes could create Tours not just on Earth but in the Google Sky, Moon, and Mars. Students could plot out the landing locations of probes and any distances they traveled while there. Students could create a fictional vacation tour for the Moon or Mars, highlighting the planetary features that any tourist will want to see during their visit.

ECOMP 5004: Write To Learn Paper

Access product via Google Docs.