Using technology can either expand or limit your interaction with students. It all depends on how you want to use it. 
 
 


Interactive Activities

Interactive Activities for grades 5-8
 
 


Lesson and Learning Activity Resources

Mr. Donn's U.S. History and Geography Lesson Plans & Activities and World History and Geography Lesson Plans & Activities (K-12) are extensive lists of units and lesson plans maintained by Lin and Don Donn.

The 50 States from connectingstudents.com have a ton of links, lessons and units to help your students learn about the Fifty U.S.  States.

Integrating the 'Net into the Elementary Classroom is a nice summary of six levels of Internet use in the classroom with appropriate links for each from Sarah A. DiRuscio, Forefront Curriculum.

Dr. Labush Links to Learning has nice resources for K-6.

Puzzlemaker from allows you to make and print out word searches, crosswords, math squares and others.

Good News Bears is a quality stock market simulation which includes lesson plans. 

Berit's Best Sites - This is a directory of safe, recommended Web sites for children up to age 12.

ProTeacher has resources and lessons plans for K-6.

Sharp Resources  from Dr. Vicki F. Sharp and Dr. Richard M. Sharp and Learning Page includes lesson plans, instructional materials, online activities and projects, and virtual trips to museums and countries around the world.

Kid Stuff from Kathy Schrock  has activities and resources for students K-8.

Brain Pop Movies are a cool way for 3-8 students to learn science facts. (A school has license to view only two per day.)
 
 




Webquests and Project Based Modules
High Quality Assignments

WebQuest Collection from Cool Lessons - all subjects and grades

Research Modules from Cool Lessons - all subjects and grades

Visual Organizer of Activity Formats from Filamentality has some examples of matching the type of web based activity to the goals you have for your students. To find a particular activity use the Search the Registry.   Just specify the grade level, etc. of the topic you're looking for and click on the "start search" button.

Research Modules are another way to look at the different levels of activities, all of which still challenge your students to think.
 
 


Collaborative Project Based Learning
High Quality Assignments

Online Projects from Cool Lessons - all subjects and grades
 
 


Dundee Community Project

Stories About Involving Parents and Communities
Oral Histories: Interviewing and Writing Unit
See the USA Through the Eyes of 5th Graders
The Changing Face of Our Community
 
 



Authentic Assessment

The following are sources of rubrics and checklists for evaluating your students' work:

• WebQuest Rubric Template and Rubric Collection can be found at this site produced by Education Service Center, Region 20, Texas and teachers in that region. 
• Assessment Rubrics from Kathy Schrock's web site. 
• Assessment from North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. 
• Rubrics from the Staff Room for Ontario's Teachers. 
• Project Based Learning Checklist from www4teachers and the South Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium - This is a cool site where you can easily build a checklist for or with your kids before they write, do an oral or multimedia presentation or an experiment. They will know what to look for when they self-evaluate their work. 
• RUBISTAR is also from www4teachers. Using a similar format , teachers can easily build customizable rubrics for or with your students for a wide variety of project types. Please check these out!

Before you send your students on an Internet search.....

Please see the following links on what your students should know about validity and reliability of Internet information: The Web-Teaching Zack To Think;  The Web -Dark Shadows; Evaluating web sites as potential resources; The Media Awareness Network; and  How Do I Know Stuff on the Internet is True?

These links are lessons for your students on evaluating Internet Information:  QUICK (Quality Information Checklist),  Thinking  about the Five W's of Web Site Evaluation, and Internet Detectives from the Madison (WI) Metropolitan School District.

For techniques on searching the Internet, try the Internet Search Tutorial,   Seven Steps Towards Better Searching, Four NETS for Better Searching and Web Search Engines FAQS. 

For teaching your students why copyright should be respected and how to cite electronic resources, try Cyberspace Copyrights, How to Cite Web Pages from the Internet Search Wizard   and Citing Electronic Sources from the Library of Congress.

Also, please remember that "Copying and pasting are the enemy of understanding." The quote is from Dr. Jaimie McKenzie and I heartily agree. Read his article Grazing the Net about this issue. Students learn much more if they summarize and make abstracts of the information they get from the following resources instead of printing entire web pages for notes that they may not even read.
 

Writing Activities for various grades

Writing Assignments for elementary schools

The Five Paragraph Essay
 

Copyright © 2003 Richard Levine and Cool Lessons 
          This page may be used for non-for-profit educational use only. This page was developed to be used by the staff of St. Catherine School, West Dundee, IL during a professional workshop in the Spring, 2003. The workshops will be given by Richard A. Levine, Illinois State Board of Education Certified Professional Development Provider #100201.  R. Levine's role is to act as facilitator, consultant, and co-learner/investigator in the Illinois Professional Teaching
          Standards of Learning Environment, Planning for Instruction, Instructional Delivery and the Core Technology Standards for All Teachers, Standards 1 through 9.  If you have any comments or questions about this page, contact Rich Levine  at www.coollessons.org