The educational need here is to make the fifth grade nonfiction unit more motivating for my students and to get them more involved in their learning through use of technology.
Book reports can be a bit boring and tedious for students, so why not use technology to inform the audience about a nonfiction topic. My plan is to have my fifth graders create PowerPoint presentations using the narration feature in order to share the information with others and make it more of a hands-on, interactive unit. I would then love for them to be able to share these PowerPoint presentations with family members or online.
There is such a push for the nonfiction genre and incorporating informational texts at this age, I know that students would be much more motivated to create a PowerPoint presentation on a topic, rather than writing a book report. It is also more interesting for their classmates to listen and learn and gather information. I will have PowerPoint guidelines to set my students up for success and so they are fully aware of my expectations throughout the project.
Through research, I found the following information on www.investintech.com; "Have the students create their own presentations. This is a great way to teach them how to use visual aids for speeches they give to the rest of the class. It provides an opportunity for a lot of creativity while becoming comfortable with computers and a popular software program. The site PowerPoint in the Classroom has a wonderful free tutorial that can guide students through learning how to use PowerPoint. It's set up in a very fun way to hold kids' attention, and it goes over everything from adding images to rehearsing for a presentation." The students would also be using technology features, such as adding images, embedding videos, supporting their facts with resources, etc.
My plan to implement this instructional strategy using PowerPoints is for my students to create PowerPoint presenations on our Solar System unit. I will have the kids research using textbook resources, as well as online resources, in order to find facts about the different planets and objects in our solar system. They will then use this research and information to create a PowerPoint with a partner.
I will have concrete guidelines in order to scaffold student learning and make sure each of my students is able to access the information they need to do their best. A rubric will ensure they know the expectations beforehand and how these PowerPoints will be graded. I will not only assess the success on their own engagement in their learning throughout the process, but also the creativity of the PowerPoint presentations, and of course the final product at the end of the unit. I will know by the amount of student engagement and motivating throughout this project if using PowerPoint presentations can make a difference in learning and teaching informational text. I am looking forward to viewing these presentations, and I know the students will be thrilled to share using this wonderful technology resource!
Resources below:
http://www.proteacher.org/c/423_Powerpoint_Ideas.html
www.investintech.com
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/motivating-students-technology
Matthew J. Koehler, Punya Mishra, "Tracing the development of teacher knowledge in a design seminar: Integrating content, pedagogy and technology" November 2005
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