TPACK for Virtual Tour

Content:
In this activity, students will learn about the Civil War. They will visit Gettysburg and read the Gettysburg Address, and see the cemetery there. They will see the border between Union and Confederacy, and learn about the economy and industry of the North and South. Students will learn about the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States, and learn about the generals of the Union and Confederate armies during that battle.

Pedagogy:
There is a variety of activities to keep the students interested, and to help them learn information from the Utah Core Curriculum. Standard 4: Students will understand that the 19th century was a time of incredible change for the United States, including geographic expansion, constitutional crisis, and economic growth. Objective 2: Assess the geographic, cultural, political, and economic divisions between regions that contributed to the Civil War. b. Compare how cultural and economic differences of the North and South led to tensions. Objective 3: Evaluate the course of events of the Civil War and its impact both immediate and long-term. a. Identify the key ideas, events, and leaders of the Civil War using primary sources (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, news accounts, photographic records, diaries).
Technology:
Google Earth was used to take the students to sites of the Civil War that they could not go to otherwise. There are pictures and documents overlaid.

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. Union and Confederate Border	Look at statistics comparing the North and South. Number of people, soldiers, supplies, etc.	Terrain, chart of statistics.
2. Gettysburg, PA	Picture of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. Read the Gettysburg Address	Picture of Gettysburg Cemetery, copy of Gettysburg Address, picture of Lincoln at Gettysburg
3. Antietam, MD	Learn about the generals of the battle, look at pictures of battlefield, and that it was the bloodiest day in the history of the USA	Link to information about Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan. Panoramia: pictures of Antietam Battlefield.
4. New York City, NY and Fredericksburg, VA	Pictures of Factories in the north, information about the economy and industry in the North. Pictures of a plantation, information about the economy and industry in the South.	Pictures of factories and a plantation, and links to informative websites about the industry and economy of the North and South during the Civil War.
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	Overlay: Pictures, Gettysburg Address, links to informational websites

Digital Storybook

TPACK for Digital Storybook

Content:
The content we will use in our digital story is the poem Oh my Darling Valentine by Kenn Nesbitt. Students will be expected to listen to and interpret the poem. After their interpretations, students will create their own art to go along with each stanza of the poem.

Pedagogy:
The teacher will read the poem to the class with enthusiasm, and will direct the students in the different aspects of the assignment. She will guide the discussion of the class interpretation of the poem. She will then walk around the room as the students create their own pictures to go with the poem, helping students when needed.

Technology:
For our digital storybook, we searched for poems on the internet, then searched for pictures to accompany the poem, and we will use freeplaymusic.com to add musical accompaniment to the storybook. To create our storybook we will use PhotoStory.

Storyboard

TPACK in Science Activity

Content:
This science activity focused on the 4th grade Utah Science Core Standard 1: Students will understand that water changes state as it moves through the water cycle, Objective 2: describe the water cycle.

Pedagogy:
The teacher had to know how to lead a discussion, and how to get the information across. Also, the teacher must be able to teach how to use Kidspiration. This is a good fit with the content of the lesson because it contrasts in order to teach to different learning styles, auditory and visual.

Technology:
This activity is done on the program Kidspiration. The activity allows students to organize and reorganize, and to visually see the information. Using technology makes the activity a lot more fun that doing it as a worksheet, it allows students to feel that they have created something. It allows students to interact with the information, and therefore internalize it more.

The Tech Savvy Teacher

The use of technology in the classroom is one of the best ways to help students progress in their education. Technology allows for a great deal of variety in the classroom, and therefore, all teachers should remain up to date on technology that can be used in the classroom. Because students are exposed to so much technology outside of school, they are better able to relate to lesson plans that incorporate technology in some way.

The Utah Science Core Curriculum for 4th grade requires teachers to teach about the water cycle. Standard 1 says, "Students will understand that water changes state as it moves through the water cycle. Objective 2: describe the water cycle." The class began by discussing the different stages of the water cycle and learning about the forms that water takes throughout the cycle. In order to incorporate technology in the study of the water cycle, we used the program Kidspiration to create an interactive activity for the class to show their knowledge of the water cycle. Kidspiration is a program which has a wide variety of computer activities the students can do to help reenforce their knowledge of a subject, from science to language arts to history. There is also the option for teachers to create activities that relate to their lesson plans. In the assessment, the students were given pictures and labels of the four different stages of the water cycle, (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and accumulation) in a random order on the side of the screen. They were asked to put the pictures and labels in the correct order on the screen.


As the students go through the activity, they will drag and drop the pictures and labels in the order of the water cycle.

Step 1

Step 2



Step 3


Step 4

In the text box where the pictures had been, the students write the forms that water is in at each of the four stages of the water cycle.

This activity helps students remember the process of the water cycle, and what form water is in throughout the cycle. It allows them to be accountable for the information, but gives them a more interactive way of remembering it. This activity would be very beneficial in any classroom, and allow students to learn the information on a deeper level.