Digital Story...Final (Lesson Plans)

I’m excited about my lesson plans because they are able to help me plan for the future in how I want to use technology with my class. The first lesson plan I decided to pick a seventh grade book called, The Outsiders. As I am teaching important English objectives at the same time, I’m teaching technology. For the book, I plan to show my students a digital story that I create from the book, The Outsiders. The students will have a good example and then I will teach them how to make their own digital story about another book they read. In the future, I plan to use technology with several book reports as I did in this lesson. Also in this lesson plan, I had students, blog about what they thought the theme of The Outsiders was. I think it is important for students to learn about blogger especially in English. It is a way to publish writing. I want to use technology as a vehicle to teach ideas such as theme. I also want my students to know about other countries and have assignments communicating with others who live far away. I fulfilled this goal by requiring my students to use snail mail in this particular lesson plan. I also realize that when communicating with other countries and unknown people that safety precautions have to be followed. In the future, I plan to use technology to help my students learn from others and other cultures. (Such as, I did in this particular lesson plan)

I am even more excited about my next lesson plans on careers. I really would like to teach my students about goal making and careers. (This idea applies to writing because they can research careers) My lesson plan takes my students on a scavenger hunt over seven weeks where they will have opportunities through technology to learn about careers. The first week they choose from fifteen different digital stories about careers and they pick five of them to watch. Then the next week they blog about their favorite career and explain why. In the future, I want to give my students similar activities. I want them to learn using digital stories because the learning is a visual education they could not receive otherwise.

For the fourth week, I have my students get into groups of four where they will make their own digital story on a career. (One that was not one of the fifteen) I want my students to think on higher levels and to accomplish my goal I will use technology. This activity on digital stories will help my in my goal. Overall, I want to use technology in my lesson plan because it is an effective way to learn for students. I want to challenge them and use it as my vehicle to teach important objectives.

Video: Millennial generation

In the video, it is clear that the young and rising generation is using technology. They are even asking why questions. For example, questions like “why can’t I watch television on my phone.” I feel that the technology that we have today is only the beginning. Someday we will be able to watch television on our phones and it will be easily assessable. (Also, I feel the cost will be reasonable at one point in time) As I have noticed that all things eventually go down in price such as IPod’s and digital cameras. I want my students to be asking such questions as the students in these videos. They were informed about technology and knew about it without being afraid to use it. I want to teach my students about technology and show them the benefits that it brings to learning. I plan to create assignments that make them think and use technology. I do not want my students to be afraid of technology, I want them to be ready to dive in and use it.