This technology lesson plan uses collaborative and discovery learning to research technology terms in elementary school. It uses a bulletin board in an ongoing, evolving display of current terms that interest students. They choose areas of interest to explore and present about computers.
Technology Terms Bulletin Board Display
Create a bulletin board using a crossword puzzle setup with various words in technology linked together. Use COMPUTER as the main word to build the other words from.The words can be displayed vertically or horizontally. Use a background of two different colors representing the sky and ground, with the main word displayed horizontally on the horizon. The title for the display can be "Computers Expand Your Horizons".
Words such as:
- Network
- Blog
- Twitter
- Ebook
- Website
- Bing
- Google
- Xbox
- Ipod
- Linux
- Facebook
- Chip
- Blackberry
- Wikipedia
could be included on the display.
Use words relating to hardware (flatscreen, chip, Smartboard), software (Word, Flashplayer), communication (blog, ebook), networking (Facebook, Twitter), search engines (Google, Bing), brand names (Ipod, Xbox), company names (Apple, Microsoft, Google) and operating systems (Linux, DOS). Leave space on this display for more words to be added as students discover terms they would like to do research on. Different grade levels may want to use different colors for terms they are discovering. You may want to create a different display for different grade levels.
Technology Bulletin Board
Technology Terms Research
Students choose among the words to research and present (teach) to the rest of the class what the term means and provide examples. For example, if it is the word “website”, the student could define and create their own website rather than just listing examples. They could present using a Powerpoint slideshow, a video, or a word processed document, depending on the application and grade level. Teachers should check on the technology allowed within the school environment.
Technology Terms Online Display
Create an online video using kinetic typography to connect the computer terms as a way to display the words together online. Examples of kinetic typography videos, songs, and commercials could be shown to the class as a technology lesson plan by itself. Students could discover the connection of words to displays. This medium of expression combines art and expression in animated text. An example of the Quicktime movie of an excerpt from "Renaissance", called sky, is found at : Sky. Definitions, history and the Kinetic Typography engine to create your own display can be found at the What is KineticTypography? website. 15 stunning motion typography videos is awebsite including the famous Abbott and Costello version of "Who's on First?" presentation.
Technolgy Terms Presentations
Students, as part of their presentations, could create a blog, a facebook account, or a twitter account to show how each works. Hardware examples such as Ipods, Xbox, Blackberries and gaming systems could be demonstrated and compared with each other. Blogs created by students could be designed to discuss the best application for a system or game, the best price, the best feature of the system, or the most popular use of it. Once the blog has several responses from the class or from the internet, the student summarizes in a document or final blog entry the findings from his or her daily blog.
General terms such as network, website, search engine or operating system should be defined, displayed, and described in easy to understand ways. The definitions could be collected in a glossary of terms in one large display or file for the entire class to access. It would be similar to a Wikipedia definition which could be changed and added to as more information is found.