Jen's+Wiki

I currently teach fifth grade at Cunniff in Watertown, MA. This past school year was my first year teaching at Cunniff. I am taking this online technology course because I would like to use technology as a tool to store and showcase student work. I find that students are extremely motivated by the visuals and ease of technology and I want to utilize this interest to enhance the curriculum. I also have an interest in learning how to use technology as a communication tool with students and betwteen/among students for them to reflect on what they are learning. I feel it will motivate them to push their thinking forward. Currently, I have used technology mainly for publishing writing and for presenting projects. I would like to take this course for credit. Thanks for reading.
 * Jen S' Biographical Information**

Googlenewstimeline will be a fabulous tool for fifth grade students who are researching information to support and refute their topics for their persuasive writing. Last year students chose a topic to persuade others to think about. There were a broad range of topics that students chose, from advocating vegetarianism to raising the standard for substitute teachers. Many students chose extending the school day as their topic. Some students were in favor of it, others were not. Many students went on to form a debate club on other topics of interest. I chose the most popular topic of extending the school day of last year to perform a query. The Better Searches.Better Results poster by Google was helpful in narrowing my search. Thanks for the modifiers! [|Op/Ed newstimeline topic]

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media type="custom" key="10035865"This is a map of the Freedom Trail walking route in fifth grade. Hi Jen, Love the map.... I will not miss this field trip! Erin

Lesson Plan: During a genre study of Persuasive Writing/opeds, students will need to have clear opinions that are supported by research/personal experience. I would use two tools for this project. They would be used during the same time frame. The graphic organizer ( persuasive map) would be altered as more research is done using the googlenewstimeline. [|persuasion map]

[|googlenewstimeline]

Students would be assessed on the clarity of their arguments with supporting details from research found on their googlenewstimeline.

UdTechToolkit Wiki is an amazing resource. Thank you. I had no idea what is out there! There were three very different and very exciting tools I could use in my classroom for fifth graders. The first one will help when I try to show the link between math, art/animation technology and nature often. So many students claim to not be good artists or terrible in math or not enjoying either. I found a great resource on Kerpoof to help students see the connection of math and art through technology by looking closely at Escher's art, which we use often through animations on utube and art books during geometry. [|KerpoofEscherlessonplan] Another tool is [|easybib.com]. In fifth grade students do at least three large research projects. When they have easy access to how to site sources, they will remember to use it! Last, I think [|amathictionaryforkids.com] will be a wonderfuul tool to link to my website. Many times students say they forgot a definition or the difference between two math concepts. They can always check my website. Parents will find it a useful tool also.

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