Unit Plan and Technology

The unit plan that I have created focus on the Social Studies GLCS centered around developing citizenship. It is my hopes that this plan will offer a critical thinking approach to determining what makes for a good citizen and how you define greatness. The plan will integrate recording technology, digital camera usage, video camera usage and website and blog development. The following is the outline I have created as a lesson/unit plan entitled "Redefining Greatness". I also encourage you to listen to the sermon delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that inspired me to create this lesson/ unit plan! Please Click Here

Unit Plan
Monday, February 25, 2008
Listening Response
Today we will start this unit of developing a new definition of greatness by brainstorming what greatness does and doesn't mean to us as a class. Also we will brainstorm ideas about different people whom we think are great based on our class definition.

After our class has discussed meanings of greatness, the class will watch the video composed to illustrate Langston Hughes' "Dream Deferred". After viewing this video, students will independently record their reactions to the meaning of having a dream and what it means to let the dream go unfulfilled.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Read Biographies
Today, students will be split into groups and each group will be responsible to researching one person in the world’s history that had a passion for change. Each group member will first construct a K-W-L chart and compose a list of items they believe they know about the person they are researching. Each student will then use a tape recorder to document what it is that they think they know and what it is that they hope to learn about the person they are researching; these two recordings will be accompanied by a digital picture of the students holding their "knowledge" and their "inquires". These will be uploaded onto the classroom website creating a digital story of the students "knowledge" and "inquires" as to what greatness is.

In the remaining time, the groups with visit the social book-marking site that holds the biographies and other information about the person their group is researching. Each student will get 10 minutes of silent exploring time in order to surf the site and to become comfortable with the media that is showcased. Finally, the groups will have the remaining 10 minutes to read the biography sections created about their person.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Information Activation
Today students will spend the first half hour discussing what they remember about the biographies they read about their social leader. Their conversation will be recorded and their effort will be focused on recreating the information to the best of their ability; this recording will allow for a record of misconceptions that will be altered after the second reading of the biographies.

Revisiting Biographies
In this hour, the groups will reread the biographies provided on the socially bookmarked websites. During this reading, the group members are encouraged to take notes of what they feel is important information about their person. After 15 minutes of read and think time, the groups will get together and compare notes; this portion will also be recorded. The students will have 15 minutes to discuss.

Next the groups will listen to their initial recreation of the biographies and make marks in their notes about information they correctly reconstructed and that which needs to be revised. Now that group members will return to their K-W-L charts and see if they have gathered enough information to answer their "inquires". At the end of this revision portion the students will research more in order to answer their "inquires".

The King Center
Now that the students have had time to predict, question, and learn new information they will have time to make connections because their person and their actions and what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the new definition of greatness". The following website ( http://www.thekingcenter.org/ ) houses a flash media, along with a recording of MLK giving a sermon about "greatness". After the students watch and listen to the words they will have 14 minutes to make an "inference" as to what they think Dr. Martin Luther King was talking about. In the remain time of this period the groups with get together to talk about their thoughts about the meaning of greatness and will start to outline the aspects of their person that makes them great. Students will be able to use their initial brainstorm criteria as a guide.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Operation: Brainstorm
In this hour, groups with get together and brainstorm ways in which they can use the technology available to them as a way to teach the other groups within the classroom about the person that they researched and how they fit the definition of being a "servant" to greatness. The students can create a digital story similar to the pre-learning activity every group did, can write a poem similar to "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes that we listened to when starting this unit or create a social bookmark page with links to websites that represent what made that person a "servant" to greatness.

Technology Creativity
Now that the groups have brainstormed and decided on a technology presentation, they will have an hour and a half to work on record, video taping, taking digital pictures and creating a social bookmark page around the topic of their person's greatness.

Friday, February 29, 2008
Technology Creativity (cont.)
This session is meant as a work period to finish the group’s technology presentation centered on what they have learned about their person and the issue of greatness. When groups finish their presentations they will begin to upload them to the classroom website so that their classmates and parents are able to see how they have redefined greatness.

The New Definition of Greatness
Once the presentations have been completed and uploaded onto the classroom website, as a class we will revisit our predictions about what it means to be great. The class will have a discussion about revisions that should be made about greatness. The last 5 minutes of the period will be used write a quick response about whether or not they are capable of greatness, giving their reasoning for why. These will be tape recorded and uploaded to the students' classroom blogs along with the text of their response.

My Apologies and my continued thoughts About Technology in Classrooms

First, I would like to apologize for having only one post, I did not realize that two was required for the original assignment. With that being said I would like to discuss an idea that I had about technology, the fifth grade classroom that I am in and Martin Luther King, Jr.

As I was listening to a recording of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech "I Have a Dream", I myself had a dream about how to incorporate Dr. King's dream and the dreams of my fifth grade students into that vision. With this thought in mind, I thought that after having the students listen to Dr. King's speech I would have the students write their own dreams for their world and then record those dreams. After recording these dreams, I would like to create an audio file of the children's dreams streamed together so that the voice of Dr. King would be in the background while having the students dreams in the foreground. I think that this would be a meaningful project in that it would illustrate the vision of Dr. King while flashing forward forty years to see how life is the hopes have either become realized or where things need to go still.

If you are reading this and you know how or where I can go to attempt this project please let me know. Your insight is greatly appreciated!