Smartboards in the Classroom

 

One of the most important roles we have as educators is to stimulate our students' curiosity and get them talking/writing about interesting ideas.  The challenge, of course, is to interject these ideas at key points in the curriculum pacing calendar! 

 

Here's a very interesting video I found on the History Channel that would fit in the seventh grade pacing calendar (around October) when the investigation of European Explorers begins.  

 

The video asks "Did Christopher Columbus actually see a USO - an Unidentified Submerged Object?" 

• Use your SmartBoard to present the video. 
• Embed it into your six slide lesson.
• Preview the video for vocabulary and introduce the new language before you show the video (ELL/ESL Standard #1). 
• Use a chat to capture the conversation as the video progresses. 
• Divide into teams using a google.doc to develop their ideas.  
• Have them create a podcast of that they learned.
  

Let's use Web 2.0 tools to reach our 21st Century learners...and have fun along with them!

Enjoy!

 

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=92a97840-9672-44c6-8e8b-93aaddf502fc

 

 

Technorati Tags: Social Studies; European Explorers; Christopher Columbus; USOs; UFOs

Designing curriculum is a fluid, on-going process that requires a collaborative community of learners.  Click the link below to access my portaportal account.  Use the guest access code "newsomlang" to enter the portaportal.  Go to the category called "Curriculum Maps" to see the live links.

Together We Learn!

Technorati Tags: Curriculum; Curriculum Maps  

Attachment(s): http://www.portaportal.com

Portaportal.com is a free content management system that enables teachers to save and categorize appropriate websites that can be used with their students.

• It provides a system of collecting and categorizing websites that are useful in your teaching practice.
  
• It enables you to guide your students directly to a site that has been reviewed and approved by you beforehand. 
• It decreases class time wasted in getting an entire class to the same website, thereby increasing instruction time. 
• It minimizes distraction to other websites.
• Its use promotes improved classroom management in a laptop environment. 
  

Be sure to set up your own portaportal and take the tutorial.

 

The link to portaportal.com is provided below.  Be sure to use the guest access code "newsomlang" to see my portaportal.

Attachment(s): http://www.portaportal.com