INTEGRATION IDEAS

 

Language Arts

VOCABULARY

1. Challenge students to find alternative words to vocabulary by using an online thesaurus.  Compare the finding.
2. Create a vocabulary list of foreign words and phrases by accessing international sites.  At the week’s end, write a story or essay containing some of the words or phrases.
3. Assign students to create crossword puzzles using PUZZLE MAKER (a free online service) related to the current lesson in any subject.

 

WRITING

4. Write stories individually or in a group on the computer.  Have different students add paragraphs to the existing story.  Use e-pals to complete parts of the round-robin story.
5. Use e-pals to edit stories written in your classroom.  Have them suggest extensions or elaborations to your student’s stories.
6. Write stories interactively with a remote partner.  As the partner pairs to develop guidelines for editing the stories.  Create multimedia effects for the stories and place them in PowerPoint, HyperStudio, or on the Web.
7. Read part of a story to the class and assign an individual or a student group to use word processing software to finish writing the story, while other students work on an alternative assignment (poster, brochure, art project, etc.)  Rotate the “computer writer” during subsequent assignments.
8. Give students two topics for a brief essay.  Write one version using paper & pencil and a second version using a word processor.  Compare the ease of creating and revising the work.
9. Use the computer to develop collaborative writing.  Working in a student group, encourage groups to organize so that one student types while other group members act out the collaborative roles assigned to them.
10. Establish student e-mail accounts and use them to practice composition skills while communicating with classmates, friends, family members, or business partners.
11. Set up a key pay program with a class from another school.  Encourage students to exchange messages about their schools, their town’s history, or other events related to current units of study.  Assign key pal mentors or tutors and let them share homework assignments or do teamwork assignments.
12. Establish a key pal program with students in another country to encourage clarity in writing while communicating and increasing knowledge about other places and cultures.  Assign reports for students to make about their key pal and the country.  Give students guidelines for collecting important and valuable information to share with the class.
13. Create a classroom newsletter or newspaper to encourage wiring, peer review, editing, layout, and publishing skills. Then share the publication with other classes and parents.

 

GRAMMAR

 

14. Provide students with a brief story or essay that needs proofreading.  Compare the results of correcting or proofreading errors from all class members by having some students work with an electronic spelling & grammar checker and some do the assignment with pencil & paper.
15. Assign individuals or groups to use word processing software to edit stories written by other students.  Add graphics from clip art collections or have students create, scan, and place their own art.

 

READING / LITERATURE

 

16. Create a list of authors, and assign student groups to search the Internet for sites relating to the author chosen or assigned.  Compile a compendium of Web sites about the author.  Site listings could include brief descriptions and critiques.
17. Use the current reading or literature theme and assign students to search the Internet and print sources to find poems related to the theme.  Use a graphics program to create a display or a bulletin board of the images and information found.
18. Use the Internet to create a reading list on a particular topic or in a special format.
19. Have your students work in teams to develop rubrics for evaluating the quality of the communication in a Web document.  Each team is to find examples of very good communication and of relatively poor communication.  Each team is to do a presentation to the whole class, illustrating their rubrics with examples of good and poor communication.

 

Geography and Social Studies

 

Much criticism of social studies stems from textbook treatments of issues that typically tend to be brief at best, and often superficial.  The Internet provides ways to access documents that permit students to become actively engaged learners.  Sites proved both historical materials, such as the minutes and other legal records of assemblies and conferences, as well as current data such as the census.

 

1. Find and print a “today in history” Internet site each day.  Post it on a bulletin board or read it during the daily announcements.
2. Pick a city or country that interests students and search the Internet for useful information about that city – subway routes, museums, sports teams, cultural events, famous residents, or highlights in the city’s history.
3. Take an Internet tour of great estates, such as the White House, Monticello, the Kremlin, and Buckingham Palace to show the students a piece of history that many may never visit.
4. Use the Internet to research a controversial issue; such as managed health care.  Compare Internet information with traditional print sources.
5. Take a virtual tour of a governmental unit.  Analyze its organization, budget, and functions.
6. Develop a collaborative unit relating to a current school or community issue, such as teens and smoking.  Assign student groups to various tasks; use the Internet to research information about the issue, use a word processor to produce questionnaires about student attitudes and practices, use a spreadsheet program to compile questionnaire results, and use a graphics program to publicize conclusions drawn by the class.
7. Challenge students to determine where the independent states of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are located.  Compare Internet sites that are current with printed maps that feature the USSR.
8. Develop research using the Internet about what issues now face the new independent states of the former USSR since its break up.  Look at the internal structures such as education, technologies, industries, economics, politics, etc.
9. Encourage students to search the Internet for eyewitness accounts of important events, while others use traditional resources that could include written or oral accounts of events.  Example:  Have students research eyewitness accounts about WWII on the Internet, via e-mail to survivors, collecting interviews in their own community.  Have students compile the information and publish on the Web as an addendum to the global “database”.
10. Compare the data and features that are found at a site operated by a government with data and features that are found in other sources.  Look for information that might be critical or biased, and consider the different perspectives.
11. Challenge students to find how different groups view controversial issues by visiting newspapers, journals, and other periodicals published in different parts of the world.  Electronic libraries permit students to access these and other materials.
12. Read online newspapers from around the world so students study different editorial views and compare treatment of domestic papers with international publishers.  The majority of online newspapers are free.
13. Have students track stocks and investments online.  Give each student $10,000 in "credits" and let them simulate buying and trading stocks over a semester.  Students should investigate companies, stocks, and trends.  

 

Resource: “Learning & Leading with Technology” volume 27, number 6, pp29-30.