Online Instructional Strategies for My Class

This blog outlines assignment option #3: "Find 5 pre-existing Internet-based instructional activities that you believe would be “worth it” in your educational context. Post a blog that provides a link to each activity, why you feel it fits with your context and how you plan to use each."

E-pals is a telecollaborative activity that offers several ideas, grouped by age, for students to connect and collaborate with students from around the world. In my classroom, I would choose activities for students age 6-11. The Flag Projects give a chance to get acquainted as both partners complete a chart about their flags. Then they design a flag together. I could incorporate this in several units including “Christmas Around the World”, “Communities”, and “Race Week” which is a unit that ties in our local Gran Prix race.

One virtual field trip I plan to take my class on is Explore the Planet Mars. This gives a lot of information visually as well as in writing so all reading levels can get something out of this. Students will be able to explore and react to life in a Mars colony. I can’t wait to hear what they think of the bathrooms!

The weblog strategy is one I am anxious to employ. I am having to jump through a few hoops, but the idea is to have students post one new thing they have learned. My students are just learning to read and write, so I figure two to five sentences will be sufficient to explain a new fact. I would set up the blog like Ms. Howard's Class Writing Blog so that individual students’ entries would all appear on the same page.

Looking at the hotlists strategy, I found that this may be a very useful school-to-home connection tool. Mrs. West’s Early Literacy and Basic Skills hotlist includes lots of things to have the students do as well as links parents will find interesting.

Since my students have a low reading level, the subject sampler strategy would be useful for their first foray into Internet searching. Since we will be working on a space unit and learning about force and motion, I have tapped NASA’s resources. Centennial of Flight: Rediscovering the Challenges of Flight is a subject sampler with lesson plans for all age groups.