MICROSOFT EXPLORAPEDIA

LESSON PLANS

The class that the following lesson plan is designed for, is a grade 3/4 class made up of 24 students, 12 boys and 12 girls. In the class there is one gifted child who has his own negotiated work program, and two girls are on a special learning program where they work with a support teacher.

Over the year the class has spent a lot of time using CD Rom's for research and games. They are also quite familiar with the use of Netscape Navigator. Recently the class completed a project where they used the internet and CD's to find out about Australia's flora and fauna.

The levels of competence varies greatly in the class however the mixture of off and on the computer activities allows for all children to demonstrate skills in preferred areas. The lesson plans really let children show their creative sides and the final product is really left up to their imaginations.

AREA OF NATIONALLY DEVELOPED CURRICULUM

The curriculum area for the lessons and the software is Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE).

The Explorapedia software can be used in strand 2, Place and Space. The learning outcomes for a level 2 (grade 3/4) are as follows:

2.5 "describes choices people make in their use of places"

2.6 "identifies how people can co-operate to care for places in a community"

The children will be using the Explorapedia and other resources for a research unit on the sea and beaches both in their local and global areas.

OFF COMPUTER ACTIVITIES

1. Field trip to the local beach

Children will take part in a field trip where they will be asked to take part in many different research activities. Children will be required to look at the many different aspects of the beach, both economic and natural.

Children will study how the beach has been effected by human contact, and how such contact may have changed beach life over the years.

Children will be given a map of the local area and asked to map the beach, and other significant areas surrounding it.

On returning to the classroom children will be required to construct bulletin boards / posters illustrating the information they gathered at the beach. The poster should illustrate how the local community uses the beach in different ways.

This activity relates to, and will achieve, if children meet criteria, learning outcome 2.5.

 

2. Prepared talks on different ways the beach can be used

Working in pairs children will prepare a 10 minute talk on some of the different ways the beach can be used. Each group will take a topic such as fishing or tourism and discuss how the beach can be used for these industries. Through research using the school and local libraries as well as the learning center that has been made in the classroom, children will make comparisons been how the beach is used in their local community and in different areas of the world.

This activity relates to and will achieve, if children meet criteria, learning outcome 2.5.

 

3. Working in small groups investigate ways the community could work together to preserve the local beach.

Children will, working in small groups investigate and find out if there are any groups in the community that work to save and preserve the beaches. Children will seek information as to how they can contribute to the preservation of the beach, and possibly implement their ideas.

This activity relates to and will achieve, if children meet criteria, learning outcome 2.6.

COMPUTER BASED ACTIVITIES

1. Working in pairs create a document highlighting differences between the way we use our beaches and how others around the world use theirs.

This task requires children to work in pairs on the computer and use a range of research software. Largely using Explorapedia for Nature, and also the internet children will research other beaches around the world, and discover how they are used for industry. The children will then put together a document containing both text and graphics which will highlight the differences. The children will also use the data that they collected on the off the computer activities to complete this task.

This activity relates to and will achieve, if children meet criteria, learning outcome 2.5.

2. Using Explorapedia and the scanner create a poster of different beaches from around the world.

This task requires children to research, using Explorapedia and find as many different beaches as they can. During the process of finding the different beaches the children will be learning about how each beach is used and where it can be found (through the narrated text). The children can also include pictures from other sources such as photographs or books, which can be entered using the scanner.

This activity will, through use of Explorapedia, achieve outcome 2.5.

 

3. Using research software on the computer discover what different organisations around the world do to preserve and care for their beaches.

This task will largely require the use of the internet as a research tool. Children will use it to find out what organisations are in place to care for our beaches.

This activity relates to and will achieve, if children meet criteria, learning outcome 2.6.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND EVALUATION

One of the most important things to implement when using the computer for assignments such as the above, is that all children are given fair and equal time on the computer. In the class that I have designed there is a roster for children to use the computers in their free time, this is as follows:

Mon + Thurs - Boys (before school and at lunch/recess)

Tue + Fri - Girls (before school and at lunch/recess)

Wed - Mixed.

This system is very effective if children want to use any of their free time researching for their assignments.

The class will be divided into two groups. One group will work on the off computer activites for a week and the other, on the computer (the field trip will be a whole class trip). The group working on the computer will work in pairs. During the hour spent on SOSE each pair will have 20 minutes on one of the two computers. This will allow them to research the required information and also decide how they are going to present it etc.

The work will be handed into the class teacher for evaluation. marks will be given depending on the quality of the work and evidence that the children have met the learning outcomes.

The classroom would be set out in a way with a computer alcove off the side of the class. This is so that the children not working on the computers are not distracted. The class teacher would be able to see into the alcove, to ensure that the children are working efficiently.