Bringing the Middle School/Junior High Classroom into the 21st Century
Since this level focuses on 2 to 3 years of education we selected a limited number of technologies to focus on so that can students and staff can become experts with these strategies and later build to more complex and in depth technology. Research skills are often the focus of many lessons so that some of the applications below are for research and others for collaboration and presentation.
Google Earth-is a free web application that can be used across the content areas.
- Lit Trips: can be used in the library or language arts classroom. Take a book and go on a virtual expedition. Lit Trips can enhance a story by actually visiting the sites and visualizing the scenes. Can be used by teacher to enhance a lesson or by students.
- Global Awareness: Study the crisis in Darfur through a unique project with the Holocaust Museum.
- Science: Locate and learn about recent earthquakes around the world.
- Social Studies: Explore Tutankhamun's Tomb
- Math: Explore distance, velocity and wave properties of tsunamis.
- And many more! Check out their website: http://www.google.com/educators/geo_class.html
VoiceThread-is a free website can be a great presentation tool for Middle School/Jr. High students. It builds on PowerPoint skills acquired in the elementary school and makes it a collaboration tool. Students upload a PowerPoint record a narration in VoiceThread, publish it and allow others to make audio or text comments. It can be used across all content areas. Go to: http://voicethread.com/#home and make a multimedia slide show!
Glogster-is a free website for the creation of online posters. Great for use in the paperless classroom. Can be used across the content area. The glog is a multimedia poster--can incorporate, images, graphics, animation, audio and video. These posters can be shared and students have the opportunity to make comments. Please make sure to be in the glogster.com/edu site--the regular site has inappropriate content. Edu site is safe I have used it on several occasions with students. All glogs can be monitored by teacher from their site. Go to: http://edu.glogster.com/
Online Card Catalogs-build on elementary skills in using card catalog. Use added features such as allowing students to rate and review books and post to the catalog. Use Web Path Express as a database of age appropriate websites--teaching students to use available databases before internet searching.
Streaming Videos-teach students how to utilize infohio Ohio Digital Media collection and United Streaming (or other streaming websites) for insertion in their presentations (PowerPoints, VoiceThread, Glogster). Many videos are broken down into segments that can easily enhance a student presentation.
INFOhio-an excellent database source for middle school students. Build on elementary skills. Focus on how to get current information from periodical indexes to support research and continue to work on citing database sources.
Blogs and Wikis-since most students are not yet old enough to have their own accounts set up private classroom blogs and wikis. These continue to support collaboration, communication and critcial thinking skills. These can be used across the content areas.
Podcasts and Screencasts-these are great ways not only to assess students but for collaboration. Again they can be used across the content areas. Audacity is easy to use and edit at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and for screencast Jing is easy and intuitive to use: http://www.jingproject.com/
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