WiKiBURT

Tonight I finished my WiKiBURT site on butterflies and moths. I taught 4th grade last year, and will be teaching it again this year. I know that lifecycles must be covered during the school year, while technology standards must be met as well. A web quest is a good way to allow students to navigate the Internet while learning information relevant to class. In short, this allows the teacher to teach two standards simultaneously (killing two birds with one stone). If there is not an hour allotted for science each day, then the lesson could be taught during whole group, and the web quest could be done as a center or at some scheduled computer time in class. An example of this would be scheduling each set of partners 20 minutes each afternoon. If the teacher uses 3 computers for this activity, and allows partners to work on this duirng the science block for 20 minutes, and the science block was 40 minutes long, 6 sets of partners (12 students) would complete this assignment each day. This assignment could be done through inner-class scheduling over the span of 2-3 school days.

Assignment 6

I filled out the CyberGuide evaluation on the Helen Keller Kids' Museum. The Museum is geared toward children and uses kid-friendly language about Helen Keller's miraculous life. Students that explore the site can look at Keller's life on a linear representation (timeline), as well as in photographs creating a type of scrapbook style. There is also an interactive section called "Braille Bug" that introduces students to the challenge of reading Braille. While students are not "technically" reading Braille (they are looking at it on the screen instead of feeling it with their finger tips), they are able to compare and contrast similarities between the English and Braille Alphabet. Studying about Helen Keller is part of the 4th grade curriculum for studying Famous Alabamians. Keller is unique in her many abilities. After visiting this site students should have a new respect for people with disabilities and the obstacles that they overcome.