Intrigued by the list of educational web sites found in my Integrating Technology textbook, I thought I would look for some lessons on early presidents of the U.S.A. The search was important because I need to practice using educational web sites to help with my teaching the Digital Native students, (still trying to speak their language) and this is the topic I will be dicussing next week.
The first web site I visited was bensguide.gpo.gov. This web site caught my attention because it is dedicated to teaching about how that US government works. The information was very current and had plenty of lessons but felt that some of the graphics would turn off my 8th grade students. They want to feel like they are ready for the “real” world and I am not sure this web site had the artistic appeal for the students.
I traveled on and searched www.google.com/educators. I was excited by all the lessons that were on the site for teachers. These lessons seem to be set up for the Digital Natives to complete projects in their language. Then in opening some of them they also seemed very elementary based, but I can always add little piazzas and make it my own.
I was slightly upset when I went to awesomelibrary.org and it had nothing for the topic that I was looking for. I moved on to www.education-world.com. This web site then had a link to the Smithsonian quiz. I was able to take U.S. American history quizzes and if you did not know the answer it gave you a link to look up the answer in the Smithsonian records. Wow what a find, this will truly help teach my students how to research and continue reading non fiction works.
I hope everyone had as much fun searching on some of these educational web sites as I did.
I also found that the websites listed were extremely helpful and I actually found myself, getting lost in time while exploring. I am right at the edge of when students become mature enough to use the Internet. I teach fifth grade, which their cell phone is their lives, as it has become the same for many adults. I find myself using more of the resources for myself however, then with the students. I teach reading and am pretty bound by the continuous reading block, but have been able to pass on much of the information to my colleagues.
ReplyDeleteI too thought the graphics were outdated on the bensguide.gpo.gov website. The core information was useful. I went to the 3-5 part. This wouldn’t be a very exciting lesson to teach with, but it would be good for showing students how to use the Internet for researching a specific topic, which is government. The age group that I teach, would most likely find the vocabulary links useful, as they still may need to have a reminder, or even get a first look at some things like “Founding Fathers”.
I liked the Google powered educators engine, it was quite thorough with the amount of choices, although some sights seemed outdated and checking the validity of the site was a must. Education-World’s site has always been helpful and I have used it for quite some time now. Both of these sites are useful in finding topics for students that may not be interested in reading, and need reading selections based on their interests. Last the sites helped me to find new examples for different genres that are important for students to be exposed to in preparation for middle school and the fifth grade FCAT.