Amanda Young
Digital Curricula Designer
This is a WebQuest based social studies lesson that is designed to be used for grade level 6 – 8. The objective is to give students a more in depth understand about Halloween cultural traditions. This age range was chosen as this is the typical age when children may stop “Trick or Treating” activities and will be better able to appreciate the history of the tradition. The students are expected to work in groups and research specific topics related to Halloween such as history, safety, and Operation Gratitude. The groups then are required to present their findings to the class based on their group’s topic. The lesson plan includes details on how the groups should be divided, their tasks, an evaluation rubric, quiz, and some additional tips and suggestions for other activities that could be incorporated into the lesson.
This lesson is available on www.zunal.com as a shared lesson for other educators and parents. Zunal currently has over 180,000 other WebQuest lesson plans available and 250,000+ members.
Project |02
Exploring Virtual Worlds
Franktown Rocks
This music lesson is designed for students in grade levels 3 - 4. The goal is help students understand different types of musical instruments and the sounds they can make both individually and together. There are a variety of activities included in this lesson and it is something that should be spread out over a period of days or weeks. The in-class activities include engaging the students to make their own musical instruments and working together in “bands” to make different musical sounds.
The students then work independently through the virtual world of Franktown Rocks (www.franktownrocks.com) to learn more about their particular instrument and other musical tidbits. Franktown Rocks is a virtual city where you can go to listen to music, play music based games, and make your own music. As an extra bonus, Franktown Rocks also incorporates financial lessons into their educational activities. Franktown citizens are required to complete quests in order to earn “Franks” to buy houses and pets.
Project |03
Branched Learning
Yoga Introduction & Basic Poses
This sample Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) was developed to help users in acquiring skills and knowledge related to the benefits of yoga and how to perform three basic yoga poses. People unfamiliar with yoga can sometimes feel intimated and confused about what exactly yoga is and how to begin. This goal of the CAI is to dispel any myths and to help the user feel comfortable to start in their own yoga practice.
The CAI is developed as an interactive Power Point presentation that can be used as a step-by-step guide or the user can pick and choose their own content to focus on. Power Point was chosen as it provides the ability to embed pictures, sounds, and video along with text content and buttons for user controls. There were three major phases in development of this CAI. The first and most critical step was determining the content to include and developing a hierarchical organization for it. From there, I searched for an appropriate template that would connect with content and create a cohesive flow. Finally, everything was pulled together into a presentation and all buttons and links validated to work appropriately from any order that the user tried to click on them.