FINAL PROJECT - WEBTOOLS 4 EDUCATORS - 2/2009
ANDRÉ NETTO
LESSON PLAN
TITLE: My Favorite Building or Monument
LEVEL: ADVANCED - 4B - AMERICAN INSIDE OUT - UNIT 10
TIME FRAME: 2 sessions of 50 minutes
OVERVIEW OF THE LESSON: The students will share their views on their favorite building or monument by posting a picture and writing a paragraph explaining why they chose that specific monument.
PROCEDURES:
1. On the first day of Unit 10, the topic is the Guggenheim and what an important building it is for the city of Bilbao, Spain. In order to make the topic more meaningful, the students are asked which building or monument they find important for their city or country, or even worldwide.
2. After this discussion takes place in class, the students will be taken to the computer lab so as to register and learn which tools they will use in this task. The teacher shows them how to create accounts in Flickr, Posterous, Google or Wikimapia, and Wikipedia (if they don't already have them). This first session of 50 minutes in the computer lab will be when they brainstorm and explore different buildings around the world. This can be done in pairs or individually. I personally prefer individually.
The students will:
- Find a nice picture on Flickr Creative Commons
- Find the monument on Google maps or Wikimapia
- Find some information about the monument using Wikipaedia
3. On the next class (2nd session of 50 minutes), they will already have chosen their favorite monument, and will be able to put all the information together into a nice paragraph. They will then post it to their posterous blogs.
ASSESSMENT:
The students will be asked to comment on each other's posts. The teacher will check later which students participated and which didn't. The idea is to prepare them for a future composition they might have to write and, most importantly, for the oral test which follows a couple of weeks later.
At the end of the two 50-minute sessions, this is what it should look like:
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
Creative Commons
View Larger Map
The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu attacks during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC. The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,400 km from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
How it will look at POSTEROUS.
Comments (4)
lcmont said
at 11:54 pm on Nov 1, 2009
I am going to try this one next semester, André. Great idea.
d3bb13@... said
at 4:59 pm on Nov 4, 2009
That's really nice!!! Congrats!
danilyra said
at 7:26 pm on Nov 11, 2009
Hi andré,
I really appreciate plans that go beyond teaching language. Your plan will enrich your learners! Great work!
Carla Arena said
at 5:53 pm on Nov 13, 2009
Dear André,
Your lessonplan shows that you are focused way beyond language teaching. It shows you are engaged in global education. This can be a class in which student-centeredness is promoted by the digital activities you propose. You´ve tried to incorporate some web tools that we´ve explored during our time together and some important concepts, as well, like the idea of using Creative Commons and students´ownership. They are in charge of their learning and they are the producers of content. This is Web 2.0, Learning 2.0 at its best! Congrats! You´ve done a fantastic job throughout our course and your lesson plan reflects it.
Just food for thought:
Do you think students really need to register in Flickr and Wikimapia? Can´t they just look for Creative Commons licensed photos without the need to register? http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ This could save a lot of time.
Do you think you could spare two periods of 50 minutes for this project? Is it feasible in our schedule? If we take off the signing up step, don´t you think one 50-minute period would do?
All in all, this is a very exciting writing project that I think is worth trying with your students. I´d love to see this lesson plan put into practice. Can´t wait!
Now, graduation time!
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