Websites

Website Assignment Egypt Research - This lesson provides students with a variety of technologies as a way to research different Egyptian beliefs (tombs, mummies, and pyramids). Through several websites and video's, students research different aspects of Egyptian culture and learn to grow and appreciation for these people. I always stress to my students while studying Egypt that these people had no cell phones, internet, or text messaging. They knew the true value of hard work. I would add to the end of the lesson - in addition to writing out their own hieroglyphic sentences - that the students would have to present what they learned in some sort of fashion; PowerPoint and Glogster are the two mediums that I would find the most effective. Who are our Presidents? - This lesson challenges the students to not only do the research, but to place their information in a presentable form that one would find in the real world, such as baseball trading cards or an informational pamphlet. With software programs like Microsoft Publisher available to the students, they will learn a new way to present their information. Programs like these also force the students to be more concise in their writing and creative in the way they display and present their information. In addition, it makes the students make some tough choices about what information to include in a report and what to omit, prompting discussions of how to determine the importance of information. It's All About Me! - This lesson could very easily go along with the personal narratives that my students are just beginning to write. Students have to take digital camera and snap pictures of themselves and their friends. After completing that task, they have to upload the pictures and create a slideshow about themselves and their friends. This lesson creator also included the possibility of importing Inspiration based brainstorms into the PowerPoint. What I think goes a little unnoticed here is the fact that the kids are learning about digital cameras, memory cards, uploading photos, where to save the photos, how to import them into different programs, and if needed, save it all to a flash drive. These may all seem like small tasks, but we all had to learn how to do them at some point in our life. Might as well get them these basics while they are with us as well!