Blogs

If you are looking for information literacy/technology literacy integrated reserch projects todo with your 4th-6th grade classes, please look at the projects I have posted, ready tobegin the first week of October. I just finished editing them, and theyare ready for registration. Any teacher-librarian wanting to get involved with their classroom teachers in any of these projects, leave me a message or email me.


Thereare various opportunities for sharing and collaborating with theseprojects. Here are the links to the projects and a brief summary:

1. Federal Holidays: This project is designed for upper elementary and middle school students studying themeaning of American culture, United States symbols and core values ofthe Americandemocratic system. Federal Holidays proposes two main tasks: 1) students willteach their class about an existing federal holiday by creating a PowerPointpresentation; and 2) student teams will imagine a new holiday that represents thespirit of America and then write a persuasive argument which will be supportedby a poster that visually represents their proposed holiday. Using VoiceThread,student teams will comment on and persuasively argue why their holidaybest represents the spirit of America. The site includes linksto all the required resources and rubrics. Originally created in 2002,Federal Holidays was a response to 9/11, to help students deal with thefeelings generated by that horrible event. I am running the projectagain, with updates.
   
2. Explorations: This project is a 4th grade social studies project where students will study explorers from "The Age of Discovery." Students are asked to become "docents" - knowledgeable guides who willvirtually guide "visitors" through our "Age of Discovery Museum" bycreating photostories. Students will place a marker on our Google WorldMap, showing the area their explorer discovered. The marker willcontain a link to the student/docent PhotoStory. The PhotoStory(vodcast/podcast) will inform "visitors" about the explorer theyresearched with narration and images. It would be fun if anotherteacher wanted to do this project as is, or modify it to have theirclass research other types of explorers...for example, 'explorers ofthe sky' or explorers of the arts, etc. etc.
3. On the Trail of the First People - I have posted about this one before, we do have some teachers who signed up for it! Thanks librarians! Would love to have more!