Weekend Website: Hunger Games

I’d like to welcome Michelle Mano as my guest blogger today. As a former classroom teacher who understands the importance of creasting a community of 21st century learners, Michelle is a strong advocate of technology in the classroom She has a great lesson plan and activities to share with you-all today, based on The Hunger Games:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened in theaters on November 22 and has taken the world by storm, already grossing almost $600 million internationally. This adaptation of the bestselling young adult series by Suzanne Collins has captivated middle and high school students with its story of a futuristic government that rules through fear, subjecting its people to a deadly annual tournament. With equal parts adventure, suspense and romance, it’s clear why this trilogy has achieved such widespread appeal.

But what about its educational potential? Is it possible to use such a popular work of fiction in the classroom to generate excitement for learning?

Teach.com and Hunger Games Lessons have recently released “Sparking Their Interest: Engaging Students with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire“, an exciting guide that examines the role of popular culture in education and offers great ideas for incorporating The Hunger Games into your everyday lessons. Hunger Games Lessons was started by Tracee Orman, a high school English teacher who recognized the series educational value. Teach.com is an educational resource dedicated to discovering, discussing and encouraging great teaching around the world. They work closely with USC Rossier Online, a top-ranked teacher preparation program delivered online from the University of Southern California, to foster innovation and creativity in teachers. Both share a vision of empowering educators to prepare students for 21st century learning, particularly when it comes to getting young students excited about school. According to the Hunger Games guide, “keeping your curriculum relevant is the key to student motivation…when placed in the context of 21st century skills, utilizing popular movies, television and literature allows students to become technologically adept, culturally aware and motivated to learn.”

12 Tips for Teaching Middle School Tech

Middle Schoolers are a special breed. They definitely need to learn productivity software like word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, but I’ve found it’s better to give them big goals, general guidelines, deadlines, and let them go. I just finished editing a tech textbook for 7th grade and it includes units on problem solving, logical thinking, digital citizenship, programming. To teach these topics, you as the teacher engage students with Robotics, Scratch, games (select games that teach–i.e., Minecraft, Bridge Builder, SimCity), web-based communication tools (Animoto, Glogster, blogs, wikis). It’s self-directed, student-paced, so places responsibility for learning squarely with the student.

Here are some ideas:

1. flip the classroom. Provide resources to students on the topic (say, Scratch or robotics) via a screencast or a Google Hangout and then do a project using the skill during class time. Students will have to do the homework to be productive in class.
2. use backchannel devices like Today’s Meet or Socrative–or even Twitter. Keep the feedback displayed throughout the lesson on the Smartscreen so you and students can track involvement
3. focus units on inquiry, collaboration and sharing, and strategies to be used in all classes
4. use domain-specific language as you teach tech. Don’t shy away from terminology like ‘backchannel’, ‘programming’, ’embed’, ‘widget’
5. use every tech tool you can for every activity possible. Show them how tech is part of your daily activities, ingrained into your teaching. Use a digital online clock to track time. Take pictures with your iPhone. Scan art projects with an iPad app. Have them come up with more ways to use digital tools.
6. Expect students to be risk takers. Don’t rush in to solve their problems. Ask them to think how it was done in the past or what strategies might provide a solution. Embrace all that come your way.
7. if a student doesn’t like one of the tools you suggest, let them come up with their own. If they can convince you it satisfies the Big Idea and answers the Essential Questions, let them use it.
8. Regardless of what you teach during the year, be sure to cover digital tools being used by your school, correct keyboarding, and how to be good digital citizens. These are critical.
9. Differentiate instruction for your students. Be flexible, open-minded, and adventurous. One of techs biggest pluses is that it differentiates well for learning styles. Use it.
10. Collaborate with other 8^th grade subject teachers on cross-curricular planners that involve technology.
11. Treat students as ‘authors’ and ‘doers’, rather than passive consumers. Consider a BYOD approach in your classes so students can use the devices they have easiest access to and are most comfortable with (if your school IT folks and infrastructure can support this approach). Encourage students to complete projects when most convenient for their schedules.
12. Assessment isn’t static—nor is it ‘bad’. Be creative. Remember why you assess: 1) to see if students understand the lesson, 2) to see if what was taught can be transferred to life, 3) to help students prepare for college and/or career.

Dear Otto: How do I teach Inquiry and Research in Middle School

Do you have a tech question?

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Ms. F:

Question: I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Instructional Technology. I struggle with the district standard for Inquiry & Research.  I can’t seem to find just the right type of assignment/topic because searching this, that, or the other thing is just random, out of context, an exercise in learning key word searching, finding reliable sites,synthesizing info.  If I make it too simple they can find all the answers on one site and then just plug in the facts.  I had 6th do a What-Happened-In-Your-Birth-Year project where they identified different categories and then searched for an event in that category:  Movies (and then find the Oscar winner for that year), Sports, Science, etc.  Right now the 7th grade assignment is comparing e-Readers (price, memory, size, features) using a spreadsheet, then drawing conclusions.

Any great ideas that would interest middle school students are welcome!!

THANKS!

Here are some ideas:

• keyword searching:
  • BrainPop video on internet search
• finding reliable sources
  • BrainPop video on reliable sources
• Evaluating websites
  • Try this on evaluating websites
    http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/webevaluation/
• digital privacy. Watch these videos:
  • Privacy: Post to be private
  • Protecting Your Reputation online
• Digital laws
  • watch this on Fair Use
  • watch his on Creative Commons licensing–sharing information
  • Digital Passport has a unit called Mix n Match where student put together pieces they find online, providing appropriate citations. You can follow their idea or do a similar one using an Animoto Ed Account

Hope this helps. Be sure to check out our Digital Citizenship ebook. It has a lot more hints.

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.

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Dear Otto: When will the 7/8 Technology Curriculum Textbooks be out?

Do you have a tech question?

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Rusty:

When will the Tech Curriculum textbooks for 7th and 8th grades be available?

Great question, so I checked with the folks at Structured Learning. Their estimate:

• 7th Grade: out in July
• 8th Grade: out in late summer/early fall

Weekend Website #86: Periodic Table of Videos

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Each video explains the element in video with simple details in text

Address:

Weekend Website #21: Test Your Typing Speed

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Where Would You Like to Go Today?

Are you here for a lesson plan… Tech tips… Humor? Click the category on the sidebar and you’re there.

I notice lots of readers are clicking on the pictures, hoping it’s a link to a category. I have to confess: I was unable to get the pictures to act as links. I don’t think WordPress can do that. I spent quite a while trying. I can do it if I put each picture in separately (rather than as a two-column album), but it’s difficult to maneuver. Until I solve that you’ll have to visit the Categories section on the sidebar. You’ll get a group of projects on that topic, mixed ages:

Anyone know how to make the pictures in a picture gallery act as links? Hmmm….

Weekend Website #8: Virtual Surgery

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

#102: 23 Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

Nothing makes computer work faster than keybaord shortcuts. And, it is the rare student who doesn’t claim them as their own and pass on to friends their favorites.