HOW DO YOU INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY?

Language Arts | Social Studies

Language Arts

Credit: GLEF

How do you integrate technology into your language arts curriculum? The easiest way to begin integrating technology is to look at lessons and projects that have been developed by teachers whose students are using technology tools. Another way is to look at the lessons posted on the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) Web site. Still another way is to go to Web sites such as Apple Learning Interchange or Intel's Innovation in Education, where you can find lessons created by teachers to be shared with other teachers.

Many Web sites can help you begin to integrate technology into your program. Here are just a few:

1. National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS): Connecting Curriculum and Technology
On this Web site you will find the table of contents from ISTE publication NETS for Teachers: Preparing Teachers to Use Technology, which has lessons for grades K-12 that integrate technology into the curriculum. The lessons can be downloaded as PDF files or viewed on the Web. The language arts lessons you will find include:

Grades PreK-2

•   Awesome Authors
•   Brrr, It's Alive

Grades 3-5

•   Wall of Fame
•   You Were There!

Grades 6-8

•   Birthstone Project With a Multimedia Twist
•   Creating a Heroic Character

Grades 9-12

•   Discovering Ourselves in Literature and Life
•   What Makes the Writer Write?

2. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Digital Edge Learning Interchange: We've Got Mail
Kindergarten students develop letter-writing skills for Valentine's Day. (Grade K)

3. Intel Innovation in Education: Monster Swap
Students learn descriptive writing skills to describe the unique monster they have created. (Grades 1-3)

4. International Education and Resource Network (i-EARN): Sunnyside Elementary School, Pullman, Washington, WRITE to Care Framework
Kristi Rennebohm Franz has developed a process for integrating reading, writing, and technology. (Grades 1-2)

5. Intel Innovation in Education: Where in the World is Cinderella?
Students read Cinderella stories from different cultures and send emails to students in a social studies class within their school. The students interact as characters from the story, keeping true to the culture of the particular Cinderella story. (Grades 2-5)

6. Apple Learning Interchange: Chasing Metaphors
Students demonstrate their knowledge of metaphors first by writing and then by creating videos. (Grade 4)

7. Apple Learning Interchange: HOTT Writing Skills
At-risk students are engaged in writing and higher-order thinking with the help of technology. (Grades 4-6)

8. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Digital Edge Learning Interchange: Y2K Books: Choosing Books in the Internet Age
The Internet is used to help students develop strategies for selecting books to read. (Grades 9-12)

9. Additional Projects from the Apple Learning Interchange:

Elementary:

•   Idioms in Everyday Language
•   Miwok Storytelling

Middle and Secondary:

•   Book Advertisements
•   Take a Second. Make a Difference

10. Additional Projects from Intel Innovation in Education:

Elementary:

•   Seasoning the School Year

Middle:

•   Don't Trash the Earth
•   Frozen Worlds

Secondary:

•   My Journey into Nature

Social Studies

Credit: GLEF

"Social studies educators are all about change. We teach about the past, while urging our students to reach for the stars of the future. ... Their curiosity should be encouraged, their interests accommodated, and their idealism pursued."
-- Stephen Johnson, president of the National Council for the Social Studies

The purpose of a social studies program is to teach students the content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values necessary for fulfilling the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy. What better way to begin this educational learning experience than by allowing students to fully participate in their learning.

How do you integrate technology into your social studies curriculum? Many Web sites can help you begin to integrate technology into your program. Here are just a few:

1. National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS): Connecting Curriculum and Technology
On this Web site you will find the table of contents from ISTE publication NETS for Teachers: Preparing Teachers to Use Technology, which has lessons for grades K-12 that integrate technology into the curriculum. The lessons can be downloaded as PDF files or viewed on the Web. The social studies lessons you will find include:

Grades PreK-2

•   Celebrating Our Nation's Diversity
•   Postc@rds from the Net

Grades 3-5

•   Navigating by Landmarks
•   You Want to Sell Me What? The Many Forms of Advertising

Grades 6-8

•   Into the Next Millennium
•   Walk in My Shoes

Grades 9-12

•   Commemoration of the Gettysburg Battlefield: The Gettysburg Address
•   Population Growth and Urban Planning

2. Apple Learning Interchange: Preserving Memories: Creating iPhoto Books
Students interview their grandparents or people older than themselves to find out what Kindergarten was like in "their day." (Grade K-3)

3. Apple Learning Interchange: HOTT Map Skills
Students build a better understanding of map skills by focusing on the relationship of cardinal directions. (Grades K-6)

4. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Digital Edge Learning Interchange: African-American Contributions
Students see the importance of African-Americans in American culture and history. (Grade 5)

5. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Digital Edge Learning Interchange: Colonial Times
This project uses the KWL approach. It asks students what they KNOW about colonial times, what they WANT TO KNOW, and upon completion of the project, what they LEARNED about colonial times. (Grade 5)

6. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Digital Edge Learning Interchange: Mayas, Aztecs, and Indian Civilizations
Students study the Mayas, Aztecs, and Indian civilizations of North America and then create multimedia presentations. (Grade 6)

7. Intel Innovation in Education: Destination America: Our Hope, Our Future
Students simulate what it was like to be a Western European, Hispanic, or Asian immigrant in America. (Grades 5-7)

8. Intel Innovation in Education: Sixteenth Street: Civil Rights at the Crossroads
Students study the civil rights movement, construct working definitions of civil rights terms, and hold a mock trial for one of the accused in the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. (Grades 6-8)

9. Intel Innovation in Education: Roll the Presses
Students "study the social changes and technological advances that led to the development of the printing press, and after studying pivotal historical events on which the printed word had some bearing, they stage a reenactment in the style of 'You Were There' for their classmates." (Grades 6-10)