The 5th graders have been learning about the discovery and exploration of the Americas by Europeans in Social Studies for the past couple of weeks. For this Social Studies/Technology project, each 5th grader was assigned an European Explorer randomly using a Wheel of Fortune type spinner from classtools.net on the SmartBoard with an explorers name on it. After they were assigned an explorer, the students each filled out a graphic organizer via Google Docs. We used Brittanica Online as our main source of information, but some students branched out and did some more web searching on their own as well. Students then had to take their information and turn it into a script using First Person Point of View and find a public domain image of their explorer. They practiced reading their script aloud to themselves, recorded themselves reading it with a QuickTime Audio recording on their laptops, listened to themselves and then practiced some more. Finally, they were able to get onto the iPads and use the Duck Duck Moose app called ChatterKids to import their picture, draw a mouth, and record themselves telling about the life of their explorer.
The whole process took us a little over a week (48 min. class period each day). It was fun to see them get excited in Tech when they got their explorer because some of them were familiar to them from Social Studies content. In Social Studies, they were also more interested in the content when they came across information about their explorer. The student learned some great information about early European Explorers in this project and got excited about topics that may not have interested them as much without the Tech integration.
For each class period, I took their videos and strung them together using iMovie. You can watch all three videos, they are below this post on the blog. Their favorite part: seeing their name in the credits at the end. :)
