Digital Storyboard- Sick, by Shel Silverstein

This is a digital story created to show students in order to introduce them to poetry. It is fun and gets them excited to learn.

TPACK-storyboard

Content: We will be using the Shel Silverstein Poem Sick in order to fulfill Standard 1 Oral Language. Students will develop language for the purpose of effectively communicating through listening, speaking, viewing, and presenting. We will be using poetry as our genre for our digital story. Our medium will be pictures from the internet (URL).  The pictures we have chosen from the internet focus on cartoons of sick and injured children to enhance our poem. 

Pedagogy:  In order for kids to enhance communication and technology skills (as outlined in Standard 1) in Second Grade. We will create this digital story in order to introduce poetry (especially Shel Silverstein) to students in an interesting and interactive way. They will be able to engage in this themselves and get excited to do it themselves or learn about poetry.

Technology:  We will be using Photostory which is a program that allows us to put together a short film about poetry that we can show to students. This program allows us to speak through a microphone and put words to pictures (like a powerpoint) and even use music.

Storyboard

TPACK in my science project

Content:
This particular assignment is meant for third graders and it teaches their science standard 1 by having them understand the motions of the earth, the sun, and the moon. As the children become engaged in what they are learning they will want to understand why and how the earth rotates every 24 hours and that is why we have sunlight. Students should know why the sun, planets, and stars seem to be moving when you look at them.
Pedagogy:
The students will be observing and identifying how the earth rotates in accordance with the sun and moon on their own. I am using a hands-on observing method of pedagogy where students get to try to make sense the Stellarium program. I would have questions ready for them to answer as they explore the rotation of earth about where certain buttons are located and how you can do different things. This works well with the content because it allows students to explore freely with out feeling intimidated.
Technology: I chose Stellarium for my technology. This technology focuses on rotation and constellations. It gives a wide perspective of what is out in our solar system. I remember being very confused about the Earth's rotation because my teacher did not use a combination of content, pedagogy, and technology to push understanding. You either got it or you didn't. Now kids can feel like they are looking up to the sky and figuring out for themselves why things are the way they are. This technology is perfect because it shows the earth revolving and rotating so clearly that children can't miss it!

Sun, Moon, and Earth: A Tech Savvy Teacher!

During this shot, it is easy for the child to see why it looks like the planets and stars are moving when we look up at the sky at night. They observe that they are the ones that are actually moving as they speed up time.
In this caption the earth has become transparent so that the child can see both the moon and sun in the same shot. As the child takes prior knowledge that the sun gives light to the moon, they can analyze the rotation of the sun and moon to verify.
If this caption were in motion the students would observe how the moon evolves around the Earth. They would collect data concerning the time it takes for the moon to go around the Earth by changing the speed and constantly watching the time in the left corner. This is so fun!
By right clicking and draggin the mouse to the right, you can jump away from the Earth and look at it from another perspective. This is also the best way for students to observe the Earth rotating on a 24 hour period.
This is an example of the tools that the students can use. Students can identify their location on Earth to discover how the sky/solar system looks from different perspectives. After analyzing the data in different locations they will be able to conclude that the Earth must be rotating.

Students will observe that the moon orbits around earth every 28 days.

Attention all teachers interested in giving their students a fun education!! I have discovered that technology has become a natural part of our children's worlds and needs to become a natural part of ours. Let's face it: We need to become tech savvy! As technology continually expands, teachers can easily become less engaged with students because they are not aware of the "new age child's" interests. I have chosen to inform you of an incredible technology called "Stellarium" through teaching 3rd graders Standard 1: Students will understand that the shape of the earth and the moon are spherical and that Earth rotates on its axis to produce the appearance of the sun and moon moving through the sky. (Objective 2). Using Stelarium is a fun and challenging way for students and teachers to gain a deeper understanding and interest in the solar system, and I am going to tell you how and why!

"Stellarium" can be found online and can be easily downloaded onto any computer. There are easy steps to follow to get the program. Stellarium makes you feel like you are lying outside in a field looking up at the stars, except you can move the sky to new angles, speed up time, change your landscape, go to the moon, find constellations, and calculate distances of planets and stars. Oh yes, and did I mention you can look at the sky from any location on earth! Now, this is just a brief summary of the things you can do, but I will expound on one aspect for the classroom. For my science project I wanted to use this technology to enhance the concept of the motion of earth (the revolution of the earth around the sun), and the earth rotates on it's axis every 24 hours to produce night and day. In Stellarium there is a bar that pops up at the bottom of the screen that gives you different options for new things to do and see. On the right at the bottom there are speed up and slow down buttons. Using these buttons students will be able to speed up time and watch as the sun continually appears and disappears. They then can look in the top, left corner and discover that it calculates the hours each time the sun shows up. It will be exactly 24 hours. It was so fun to watch the time and wait for the sun.

In the captions of each picture I mentioned how Stellarium will enhance student's learning of science. When using Stellarium children must be constantly observing as the Earth rotates. As they observe they will aquire and process data that will further enhance the idea of the rotation of the earth, the sun, and the moon because they are doing the hands on work. Another important aspect that I did not mention is that they will make predictions as they drag the earth into new views and figure out when the sun and moon will come into view. If we as teachers can realize the potential that technology has for our children we will do everything we can to get our hands on programs like Stellarium and incorporate them into our lessons.