Ideas for my Final Project

For the lesson that I will design, I will divide the fifth graders from my classroom into teams of four students and I will ask them to decide which of the four students is going to be in charge of the team. The students in charge will have to provide to me feedback of the work that the group has been doing and how each student is working. I will also assign specific roles to the rest of the group members.

I will assign one region of the United States to each of the groups. They are going to have to do research of that region, and come up with the states that are in that region, the capital of each of those states, the weather, type of vegetation, information of some of the most attractive places of that region, describe the population, etc. For doing this, students will be required to use Google Earth and also to do some research using Google.

Once they have all their research ready, they are going to have to organize all the information, look for pictures and some you tube videos, to produce a video with all the information gathered of one of the regions of the United States. For this they are going to use iMovie. Once they have the video ready, they are going to have to present it to the whole class.  

Second Tool - iMovie

With the use of iMovie, students are going to be required to produce their own video. With the use of this software students are able to easily create and edit a video by using pictures, voice over, music, captions, part of other videos, different backgrounds, and several cool effects. It is a software that even if it is very user friendly it helps you produce high quality videos. By having students create their own movie, you help them develop their creativity, self-expression, collaboration, self-reflection, and to reinforce and document their learning.   

By using iMovie, students are going to have fun, they are going to be engaged and interested in the topic so they are going to be able to retain the new information better. Also they are going to be able to create a great and creative project on their own and they are going to find different ways in which they can incorporate technology while learning. There is another software to create videos that is called Movie Maker, this software is used by Windows, but the reason why I preferred iMovie is because it is easier to use and it has more options and tools. 

Even if the activity that I want to design is about Geography, by using iMovie and Google Earth, students are going to develop many different skills. For example, they are going to learn how to work with technology, how to gather helpful information from the Internet, how to learn on their own, how to produce a video, how to incorporate all their findings to create a final product, how to organize information, how to work in effectively in teams, and how to present all their findings to other people.  

First Tool - Google Earth

Like I mentioned in my last post, the objective I will be focusing on will be the following according to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Grade 5 in Geography:

The student understands the concept of regions in the United States. The student is expected to:

(A)  describe a variety of regions in the United States such as political, population, and economic regions that result from patterns of human activity;

(B)  describe a variety of regions in the United States such as landform, climate, and vegetation regions that result from physical characteristics such as the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Coastal Plains;

(C)  locate on a map important political features such as the ten largest urban areas in the United States, the 50 states and their capitals, and regions such as the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Southwest; and

(D) locate on a map important physical features such as the Rocky Mountains, Mississippi River, and Great Plains.

With the use of Google Erath the 5^th grade students are going to identify and describe the characteristics of different regions in the United Sates. Google Earth is a free software that will allow them to see detailed photos and satellite images of any place around the world, for this activity they are going to use it to see photos and images from different region from the United States. By looking at his detailed images students are going to be able to describe different characteristics from those regions. Also with the help of the Weather layer from Google Earth they are going to be able to analyze the weather of the regions. With the Borders and Layers layer students are going to be able to identify which states are part of the regions and also identify the capitals of those states in the regions.  And with the time slider students are going to be able to analyze how geography from those regions has changed over time. 

 Once you get closer to the area that you want to see, many important areas from that region are highlighted, and when you click on them, you are able to see many cool pictures from different nice places that area from Panoramio. Because like Google describes it “With Google Earth you can explore the World from your computer”.

Ideas for my Final Project

       I would like to design a geography lesson with the use of iPads, Google Earth and iMovie. The lesson would be for fifth graders and the purpose of it would be for students to identify and describe characteristics of different regions in the United Sates. For the activity students will use Google Earth from the iPad. After having all the information students will create a video in iMovie to show their findings and they will have to present the video to the class. Following are the learning objective I would focus on for this lesson according to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills:  

Geography. The student understands the concept of regions in the United States. The student is expected to:

(A)  describe a variety of regions in the United States such as political, population, and economic regions that result from patterns of human activity;

(B)  describe a variety of regions in the United States such as landform, climate, and vegetation regions that result from physical characteristics such as the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Coastal Plains;

(C)  locate on a map important political features such as the ten largest urban areas in the United States, the 50 states and their capitals, and regions such as the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Southwest; and

(D) locate on a map important physical features such as the Rocky Mountains, Mississippi River, and Great Plains.

During this week I found two interesting videos about the benefits of using iPads in the classroom and about how to use iMovie with your students. Here are the link to the videos,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV8M6P9st9Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd4Cjfjtgqw