Internet Resources

My unit plan revolves around my essential question of how and why we use tools to evaluate the world around us, and my unit questions are based on social studies, science, and math TEKS. The exact activities haven't fully taken shape, but I've been looking at communication tools I can use to enhance them. The social studies TEK involves map reading, so images of Texas maps will be useful, and I've used the Handbook of Texas website as a research tool before, so I would like to use that in researching Texas explorers (since 4th grade has a unit on Texas history). With the science unit, I think covering the Scientific Method, in conjunction with science fair projects would work really well with blogs (students are sometimes required to keep a log of their observations) or video recording of them performing their experiments. The video clips could even be uploaded to their blogs. I have a few other ideas here that might change as the semester goes on.

I mentioned in my last post that I was intrigued by using blogs in the classroom, and particularly liked the idea of having a collaborative blog written by the students in my class. Other tools could also be useful. Definitely search engines and internet research have definite possiblities. Students can gleem so much more information from those than a hand full of encylopedias from 20 years ago. Once they learn how to recognize when a site can be trusted, they have access to frequently updated verified information. Wikis and Google Docs are also tools that I'd like incorporate. The possibility of students being able to collaboratively work on a single document at the same time from different locations lends itself to a multitude of ideas. These are just a few of the many communication tools that I am considering.