Lesson+Reflection

1. Why did you choose this lesson? Brief summary or original lesson plan design/goals of lesson. I chose this lesson because I felt incorporating technology would help to make this lesson more meaningful for students. This lesson, which is part of a unit on earthquakes and volcanoes, has two parts. The first is gathering information on a notable earthquake. The goal of this lesson is for students to develop a greater understanding of what they are learning in class about earthquakes by applying their new knowledge to an earthquake that has occurred recently. For the original lesson I would have had students work in the computer lab independently on gathering information on their assigned earthquake. Then, back in the classroom, they would compare notes with their group members and work on creating a poster to share with the class. They would need to draw and/or print pictures to go on their poster as well as include the information they researched. The goal of the second part of the lesson is for students to understand the relationship between the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes. In the past, this lesson was completed by using a worksheet from our book. On the worksheet, students are provided with the latitudes and longitudes for various earthquakes and volcanoes. They plot these latitudes and longitudes on a world map and then answer questions about their observations for where the earthquakes and volcanoes are located.

2. Define new lesson plan design/goals of lesson. The first part of this lesson has the same goal as the original. The differences between the two lessons are that in this lesson students will use the sticky note website Wallwisher to gather their group's information as they research and that instead of making a poster, each group of students will make a Glogster on their earthquake. Students can incorporate video clips of the earthquake/destruction in order to make their poster more exciting. The second part of the lesson also has the same goals. The design is different because instead of using earthquake and volcano latitudes and longitudes from a worksheet, students will work throughout the unit to plot current earthquakes that are occurring (using an RSS feed to let them know where/when earthquakes have occurred). Instead of this being an individual assignment, the class takes turns plotting earthquakes each day on the class map. The volcanoes plotted are still given to students. Instead of answering questions on a worksheet, the questions will be posted on the discussion board of the wiki.

3. Which tool or tools did you choose to incorporate into this lesson to potentially improve it? For the first part of the lesson, I used Wallwisher and Glogster. For the second part of the lesson, I used an RSS feed, RM Easiteach, Xtranormal, and Wikispaces.

4. Why did you choose this tool(s)? I chose Wallwisher because it is an online sticky note organizer that allows more than one person to edit. Therefore, an entire group of students can be posting and organizing their research on their earthquake from different computers at the same time. I also liked how Wallwisher allowed you to post pictures, URLs, and video clips onto the sticky notes. These features will make the groups' completion of Glogsters very easy because all of their information will already be gathered in one place. I chose to use Glogster because it allowed students to incorporate pictures, text, and video into their final poster, thus making the project more dynamic. I chose to use the RSS feed because it was an easy way to keep track of what earthquakes have been occurring each day. I chose to use Easiteach for our class map because it was a program that allowed me to draw on a picture and save changes so that I could continue to use it each day. I chose to use Xtranormal to create a video explaining earthquake and volcano zones. I thought this medium would engage students and help them better understand the point of the lesson. I used Wikispaces for the discussion questions because I thought it would be helpful for students to see what their peers' responses to the questions were so that they could develop a richer understanding of the material.

5. What standards were you using to guide your decision on this? NETS? MA Curriculum Frameworks Earth and Space Science, Grade 6-8

5. Describe how the movement of the earth’s crustal plates causes both slow changes in the earth’s surface (e.g., formation of mountains and ocean basins) and rapid ones (e.g., volcanic eruptions and earthquakes).

NETS Standards:


 * **1.** || **Creativity and Innovation** ||
 * || Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students: ||
 * || || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">a. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">b. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">create original works as a means of personal or group expression. || ||


 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**2.** || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**Communication and Collaboration** ||
 * || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students: ||
 * || || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">a. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">b. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. || ||


 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**3.** || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**Research and Information Fluency** ||
 * || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: ||
 * || || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">a. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">plan strategies to guide inquiry. ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">b. || <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media. || ||

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">6. Do you feel this will improve your teaching? If so, why? <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">I feel this new lesson plan will improve my teaching. I believe that the part of the lesson on earthquake and volcano zones will be much easier for students to visualize. In the past, students had a lot of trouble plotting the latitude and longitude points from the worksheet. Completing this assignment as a class using real earthquakes and volcanoes, will not only help students be more accurate but will also help them better understand what they are learning. Also, the video on earthquake and volcano zones is a good reminder for students of the main concept so they can reference this when they are answering the discussion questions. Lastly, the RSS feed allows me to make real life connections for students. If we see there is a big earthquake on the feed, I can do an online search of it and immediately show students a video clip or news article about the quake.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">7. Do you feel this will help improve student learning? If so, how and why? <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">I feel that the new lesson will help to improve student learning because it will make it easier for them to work in a group to share information. The ability to incorporate multimedia into their poster will bring the information students are researching to life. The RSS feed allows students to first realize how many earthquakes occur each day. The visual of plotting earthquakes and volcanoes on the world map and realizing there are patterns to their locations will help to cement the concept of earthquake and volcano zones into students' minds.