Professional
Pepperdine
Masters in Educational Technology and Leadership 2006
Projects
Children, and teachers, learn best when the environment is
child-centered and makes use of integrated subject matter within the
framework of a generative, process-oriented approach. The teacher should
serve in a mentorship role. All the projects listed below were tied to
core questions that the children researched which expanded their own
world view. Many are multi-aged in nature with technology being but a
tool, one of many, to express the required elements. There are marked
advantages of having a cross-age ties. Aside from the affective "gee
whiz" of being paired up with a child a different age, ownership and
responsibility of all levels of students towards their own learning
increases; the depth each child assimilated the information improves;
and the students' abilities to work with others in a cooperative and
supportive way are reinforced.
Chinese New Year
2005
Reading, Research and Technology
In this cultural alphabet project, the students read fiction and
non-fiction books, formed primary and secondary questions and then went
out to interview their parents and other adults in the school. They then
wrote articles based on the interviews and reading followed by a
construction of a KidPix picture.
The Weather
Project
Winter 2005
Reading, Geography, Science Systems, Mathematics and Technology
The purpose behind this project is to help students understand the food
that an area produces is affected by the location, climate, and amount
of water found there.
In
language arts, use a variety of fiction and non-fiction books to
learn about the content area information. The students will write a
variety of poems and an expository text to report about a given climatic
areas. They will also be writing their own Weather play as a summation
activity.
In
geography,
be able to identify the seven continents and major oceans; be introduced
to basic geographic mapping skills; and read and produce physical maps.
In
science, identify the four basic Earth systems and then use that
knowledge to integrate the other parts of the project together. Also
learn about weather systems and conduct science experiments and
demonstrations connected to the water cycle. In doing so, they will find
the answers to the three essential questions of the Weather, Sun and Air
science unit of second grade.
In
math, chart weather patterns and make bar graphs of the data.
In technology,
use Web Quests to research various parts of the projects; gather data
from value added sites; and use Apple Works and Kidspiration to present
what they have learned.
The
Latitude Project
Winter 2003
Social Studies, Science, Researching, Language Arts and Technology
This project involves the major geographic theme of Human-Environment
Interaction. What is that? It is how people affect the environment
and how the environment affects people. There were several main
objectives to the project. was a precursor to the fourth grade study of
Pan Asia, where we looked at the Asian continent from a historical
viewpoint and cultural perspective using concepts from the book Guns,
Germs and Steel. It was scientific study of the area’s volcanoes and
earthquakes. Finally, it was the first significant introduction to
researching skills at this grade level. All the elements of the project,
class overviews, pictures and grading rubrics are included in the site.
The
Basho Project
Fall 2002
Social Studies, Researching, Language Arts and Technology
Who, and what, we are is fundamentally shaped by where we live. The
geographic study of Place, with its focus on the natural and
human attributes, was the lens 4-F used to tackle this first unit of the
year. The students wrote their own Place poems about the area that they
called home. They, then, went on to study of the Japanese haiku
master-Basho. Interestingly, that year was the 300th anniversary of his
pivotal work The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
In researching Basho, the students focused on:
seeing where Basho visited from the geographic eyes of Place.
understanding Basho as a man who was changed by the places he
visited.
and discovering how Basho wrote what he saw and felt in a poetic
form.
They then published what they learned using both print and the
electronic media. Please click on the stations names to read what the
student pairs wrote.
The Tama River
Project
Fall 2001
Social Studies, Researching, Language Arts and Technology
In this site, two groups of students from the American School in Japan
explored the effect the Tama River had on the people who lived there.
The ninth grade Asian Studies class viewed the river from the
perspective of Asian river society characteristics while the fourth
grade students from the geographic theme of Place. The individual
student's sites show this comparison as each buddy pair answered
questions based on the fourth grader's trip to Fuchu-no-Mori museum.
This museum explores the history of our local city of Fuchu, which is
situated on the Tama River, from prehistoric times to the present.
Scattered throughout the site, in brown, are quotes from
Mimi Le Bourgeois,
who graciously gave us permission to use excerpts from
Water Walks in the Suburbs of
Tokyo, by Sumiko Enbutsu and herself, to provide supplementary
background information.
Nihon Mika-en House Project
Spring 2001
Social Studies, Researching, Language Arts and Technology
Houses speak volumes about the climate, the culture and the people who
lived within their walls for those who know how to listen. The second
field trip of the 4th Grade Bunka month was a trip to
Nihon Minka-en. This open air
Japanese folk house museum is filled with transplanted pre-Meiji era
buildings from mostly the Kanto Plain area. All the classes were sub-
divided up into small groups under the watchful eye of a parent
chaperone. Each group was given a specific house to report about
according to its original location, building materials, interior,
furnishings and tools; and grounds. 4-F and 4-C, who were involved in a
Tokaido Road simulation together, went by clan to do the reports and
write the opening paragraphs of their Japanese mystery stories, which
made use of their assigned buildings as the setting. Please click on the
pictures to see the 4-F reflections on what they saw.
Our
Material World Project
1997
Social Studies, Researching, Language Arts and Technology
How do seven and eight year old international students view their world?
Are these views shared by thirteen year olds in the same school? Will a
second grade student see how habitats in Japan, Bosnia and Mali affect
the people who live in them? Can an eight year old construct a robust
hypermedia stack from start to finish? For answers to these questions,
and more, come explore 2F's and 8-H's second year of a multi-age project
based on the CD-ROM The Material World.
The William
Stafford Poem Project 1996
Language Arts and Technology
Reading a poem, and then making it your own, is the heart of this web project generated by my second grade class at the American School in Japan in the spring of 1996. Within the context of our integrated study of sound, the class read William Stafford's picture book The Animal that Drank Up Sound. So that the students could better understand, and assimilate Stafford's poem, the class discussed the poem page by page and then translated it into "kid language". Each page of the ensuing web project was constructed by each student using a stanza from Stafford's poem. Per page, the original stanza is on the right and the students translation on the left with the students original piece of artwork at the top. Each child made their own page along with links to the connecting pages using Front Pad and Kid Pics.
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