new project

This is my second official posting to this blog, and is probably pretty late in comparison to others. However, since I was on contract in a Grade 5 class for my first blog, and original project, and am now on contract in a Grade 4 class, I have had to change my project, making this technically my FIRST description blog again, and VERY late.

My new project idea revolves around two central concepts or questions.

First, is their a correlation between the degree that technology is integrated in my classroom and the amount of instructional time used to teach non-fiction genres and writing formats (which has recently been proven to me to be disproportionate to the amount of time students spend reading non-fiction in their daily lives).

Second, will teaching students to use technology, specifically Keynote, to summarize learning (on a non-fiction subject, eg. First Nations fishing tools and implements) provide them with a tool that is applicable to everyday life?

The plan:
Students will be introduced to the various types of First Nations tools and implements through two Aboriginal Education center presentations, and the Our Beginnings Gr.4 text.
Then students will be asked to create a catalogue with descriptions of how the tools were made and used (of a certain number of tools), using Keynote.
They will then present their "catalogue" to the class as a Keynote presentation.
They will export their keynote presentation as a quicktime movie, to be uploaded to the class website, once it is built :)

I will try to keep you all updated more frequently.