My Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

I am interested in doing a lesson with the thermometers like we did in class. In the first-grade classroom that I am in, we are currently doing a water unit. I have discussed with my teacher what my ideas were. She told me about doing water centers. By doing water centers, I wouldn't need to have many computers and thermometers. I could just use one laptop with a thermometer and use it in one of my water centers. Thus, the lesson plan for this center would use a laptop and thermometer. The objective would be to observe and measure characteristics of water. I would have a cup of room temperature water with the laptop and thermometer. I would also have a cup of ice cold water. I have created a worksheet where children can look at a pictures of thermometers and write down the temperature. At the end of the worksheet, they will be asked to read the thermometer and measure the temperatures of the room temperature water and the ice water. Afterwards, they will be free to play with the thermometers as we did in class. Perhaps they can try to write the first letter of their names with the thermometers. I will do my water centers this Friday in the morning. I look forward to this activity as all other activities and experiments done with water were a hit!!!

Technology-enhanced lesson

Right now in my first grade class, we are doing a water unit. The students have had an introduction to water and have learned about the water cycle. The water unit will last for a couple weeks. To enhance a lesson with technology, I think it would be fun to let children use the temperature thermometers that hook up to a computer. (We used these in class.) The students will need to learn about water as a solid, liquid, and gas. They will also need to know how water can change states. Thus, I can teach about water as a solid, liquid, and gas by showing water in each of these forms. Then, we can discuss how water came to be in that form. Afterwards, we can use the thermometers to measure the temperature of water in each of the stages. We can also perform experiments such as seeing how ice, the solid, melts into water, the liquid. During this time we can measure the temperature and see how quickly it changes. Children can also do activities like we did in class and see if they can make fun pictures with their thermometers. In this process, we have taught the content with technology. The teacher can continually teach as she models. (Review what children already know and have learned about water. Introduce different states of water with example so that children can see them. Talk about what happened and why. Model how to use the thermometers. Model and explain how children will do the activities/experiments. Have children make some sort of graph or table or write a paragraph where there show and/or explain their findings.

Tech Inventory

I was quite surprised by the lack of technology that I have at my cohort school. There are many schools surrounding my school, many of which are quite new and very nice, but very lacking as far as technology goes. I was also surprised at how uninformed the teachers are as to what is available. I do not think they know much about what they can do and therefore do not use it. As far as I know, there are no smartboards. There are also no Macs (thank goodness!:-) Every classroom has at least one student computer and one teacher computer. They also have an overhead. I noticed in the technology room that there was access to a projector, TV, VCR/DVD player, and opportunities to visit one of two computer labs that they need to sign up for. One of the labs is normally in use by the students who go there for specials. I hope that schools will continually try to improve in their technological resources as that is becoming more and more useful with time.

My Google Earth Virtual Tour

So, I am not the most computer savvy person, but I put my link under the "my links" on the left hand side of the blog. So, to get to the virtual tour I made, you have to go there and click on it. It will then take you to where the saved file is. Enjoy:-)