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All About ComputersAll-About-Computers

  • Subject: Technology
  • |
  • Grade(s): K-5
  • |
  • Duration: Three class periods

Lesson Plan Sections

Objectives


Students will understand the following:
 

1. The World Wide Web can be a helpful place to find information on certain topics.DiscoverySchool.com has many elementary school lesson plans to choose from. The Teacher Channel offers free lesson plans for grades k-5.
2. Two ways to locate information on the Web are through the Internet Library and by using a search engine.
3. A Web site is a place where groups of people share information and resources on the Internet.
4. The address of a Web site is called a URL, which stands for uniform resource locator. ( Universal resource locator is also used.)

Materials


For this lesson, you will need:
• Computer with Internet access

Procedures


1. Ask students to share what they know about using the Internet or the World Wide Web. Encourage them to talk about Web sites they have visited and what they learned from their visits. Make sure everyone in the class understands that (a) the Web can be a helpful place to find information on certain topics, including many topics studied in school, and (b) a Web site is a place where groups of people share information and resources on the Internet.
2. Ask students how they would go about using the Web to find information on a topic. Share with the class three ways to begin:
  1. Ask your teacher or librarian for the addresses of one or more Web sites that offer information on your topic.
  2. Use the Internet Public Library, which features Web resources organized, as in an ordinary library, according to the Dewey Decimal System. The address for the Youth Division of the Internet Library ishttp://www.ipl.org/youth/dewey/.
  3. Use a search engine . The Classroom Connect Class Web Research Page provides links to numerous search engines for elementary school students. The address for this Web page ishttp://www.classroom.net/resource/search.asp.
Students should understand that all of the above methods provide the researcher with a Web address, or URL, which stands for uniform (or universal ) resource locator. By going to that address, the researcher may find the needed information. If not, he or she should try other addresses.
3. Ask students to contribute to a list of topics they might want to research on the Web, and record their topics on the chalkboard. You may add topics of your own to the list.
4. Divide your class into groups, and give each group time to use a computer with Internet access to research a topic of its choice. (You might have groups submit their first-, second-, and third-choice topics to you so that you can avoid duplication of topics among groups.)
5. Encourage groups to visit at least three Web sites while researching their topics.
6. Groups should use the information they have found on their topics to prepare oral or written presentations to share with the class. They should document their presentations with the addresses of the Web sites they used.
7. Start a classroom library of URLs, listed by topic. The URL library might take the form of a card file, or be kept online for students to access.

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Adaptations


Adaptation for younger students
Introduce younger students to the World Wide Web by asking them to name topics they would like to research, then guiding them through the use of a search engine to find Web sites that offer useful information on their topics.

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Discussion Questions


1. Why do the president and vice president's e-mail addresses end in ".gov"? What are some other e-mail address endings you have noticed? Debate what the categories and standard e-mail address endings should be or if categories should exist at all.
2. Describe how your class might use e-mail.
3. What information might your class want to share on a Web site? Remember this information could be text, photographs, drawings, sound, or video. Explain your design for a Web site.

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Evaluation


You can evaluate groups on their presentations using the following three-point rubric:
  • Three points: topic thoroughly researched; at least three URLs cited; presentation clear, interesting, and very well organized
  • Two points: topic adequately researched; only two URLs cited; presentation satisfactorily organized and presented
  • One point: topic inadequately researched; only one URL cited; presentation poorly organized and presented
You can ask your students to contribute to the assessment rubric by determining a minimum number of facts to be presented.

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Extensions


Visitor Center
Many towns all over the United States have their own "visitor centers" on the Web. Find out if your town has its own Web page, and visit it with your class. Then have students critique the site. What would they add? How would they change it? As a class, write a proposal for improving your town's Web site. If your town does not have a site, students might design one. Also, they might visit sites for other towns. For example, your class can check out the weather, transportation, maps, village mall, libraries, museums, and townspeople of Blacksburg, Virginia, atblacksburg.

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Suggested Readings


Internet for Kids! A Beginner's Guide to Surfing the Net
Ted Pedersen and Francis Moss, Price Stern Sloan, Inc., (Member of the Putnam & Grosset Group), 1995
This book, which can be used by both Windows and Mac computers, gives step-by-step instructions to set up your e-mail as well as sample projects and a parents'guide.

The Online Classroom
Eileen Cotton, ERIC/EDINFO Press
This book is designed to save teachers many hours of wandering in virtual space and offers a vast array of sample lessons of varying levels of sophistication. Each lesson provides goals, rationales, objectives, procedures, and evaluation guidelines.

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Links


Blacksburg Visitor's Center
Visit Blacksburg, Virginia the virtual way—on a computer! Check out the weather, transportation, maps, village mall, libraries, museums, and townspeople using the Internet.

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Vocabulary


Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence.
speaker    e-mail
Definition: messages sent and received electronically (as between terminals linked by telephone lines or microwave relays).
Context: Each day, the staff makes a list of that day's e-mail.
speaker    modem
Definition: A device that converts information from your computer into signals that can travel through telephone lines.
Context: A modem takes information from your computer and turns it into a signal that can travel through the telephone lines.
speaker    Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
Definition: The address of a Web page, which allows people to find the page on the Internet.
Context: A Web page address is called a URL; that is an acronym that stands for uniform resource locator.
speaker    animation
Definition: A series of still pictures that appear to be moving.
Context: Some Web sites have graphics that move on the screen called animation.
speaker    scanner
Definition: A device that allows one to convert pictures into images on the computer.
Context: You can also use a scanner to turn pictures into images on the computer that you can put on your Web site.
speaker    Revolution
Definition: A sudden, radical, or complete change.
Context: Revolution of technology has changed the way we work, travel and communicate.
speaker    Navigate
Definition: To steer a course through a medium.
Context: Sailors used to have to navigate using a compass and by figuring out where they were in relationship to the stars.

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Standards


This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado.
 
Grade level: 6-8
Subject area: science
Standard:
Understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
Benchmarks:
Uses appropriate tools (including computers) and techniques to gather, analyze and interpret scientific data.

Grade level: K-2
Subject area: history
Standard:
Understands major discoveries in science and technology, some of their social and economic effects, and the major scientists and inventors responsible for them.
Benchmarks:
Understands the significance of the printing press, the computer, and electronic developments in communication and their impact on the spread of ideas.

Grade level: 6-8
Subject area: science
Standard:
Understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
Benchmarks:
Uses appropriate tools (including computers) and techniques to gather, analyze and interpret scientific data.

Grade level: 3-5
Subject area: science
Standard:
Understands the interactions of science, technology and society.
Benchmarks:
Knows that people continue inventing new ways of doing things, solving problems and getting work done; these new ideas and inventions often affect other people—sometimes the effects are good and sometimes they are bad.

Grade level: 3-5
Subject area: language arts
Standard:
Effectively gathers and uses information for research purposes.
Benchmarks:
Uses key words, indexes, cross references, and letters on volumes to find information for research topics.

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Credit


Lynn McNally, tech resources specialist, Winchester Public Schools, Winchester, Virginia.

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