[Teacher speaking to class]

Okay so we were just talking about the Fertile Crescent. we’re going to go over the…

[Teacher voiceover]

We started with a preview, something they were curious about which was the Fertile question to how people use deposition to have fertile soil, and then we went into a general view of marking elements of geography both on a paper map that they had as well as on a smart board, and transition into a scaffolding of what they will be learning which is the United States and the state capitals.

The goals were to review what they should know in the first part of fifth grade, week ten now, so making sure that they have a basic understanding of those concepts, and just scaffold where they are going, which is states capitals and regions. I used the smart board as well as Google Earth, and the Shepherd software for the technology that I used in my lesson today, and I chose a smart board because it’s interactive and the kids can actually draw on top of the map, the lines of ladder do the countries, labeling, they can erase if they messed up so it’s really interactive.

I think the use of the technology makes students more active learners, so for instance, in the geography lesson we just did, active learning might start on Shepherd software where they have a very scaffolded map of the United States, and they can start at beginner level, and then as they continue, when their knowledge can go to a completely blank map and have to draw in the states themselves. So there’s kind of the level of their understanding can increase through the programs that are used.

I feel like the students were engaged in their learning and a little bit more motivated to learn content that might have otherwise seen drier boring to them, you know different kids came into this classroom with different glimpses into technology so once they demonstrate that they, you know, we’ve done something together and they know how to do it you can just stand behind them and just wait. If they need help they’ll ask you and kind of let them play around with it themselves. it’s really not a way to mess up technology, really, so you can kind of let them go out on their own adventure and just kind of stand bac,k and be there as a support if they need your help. And that’s true of PowerPoint, smart board, Google Earth, anything really, there’s not a lot of learning without doing so.