by Julia Parra
As a new 6th grade science teacher and new member of the US West Project, I entered my classroom with the mandate of integrating technology into my curriculum immediately. I was a bit overwhelmed yet excited by the challenge of creating my first unit which was astronomy with a focus on space technology.
I started with a focus on the internet as there are an incredible amount of wonderful sites for space on the web. My school was new to the internet and the students weren't allowed to access the internet, yet. Thus, Space Surfing on the Web became my anticipatory set and lead in for teaching my kids about the World Wide Web. I used a large monitor and a TVator to present, and the kids were awestruck. They became quite excited when I told them that the three computers in our classroom were for their use and that my priority was to create units where everyone would have the opportunity to work on the computers.
We continued with our unit which I turned into a project center in order to allow all 130 of my students the opportunity to spend a day on a space technology computer project. Working in pairs, students created space technology timelines using Hyperstudio. Students were coming in before and after school. Their creativity and enthusiasm was definitely worth the management nightmares I suffered.
The levels of computer savvy varied from students who had computers at home to students who were scared to touch the computers. I gauged this unit as successful, due purely to the fact that when we finished our space unit, every student had done the computer project and every student was clamoring to do another one. In fact, now my kids (especially those whose computer access is limited) give me a hard time if I don't integrate a computer project into a unit.
I think that the most important thing I have to remember when planning a technology integrated unit, is classroom management. Classroom setup, instructional strategies, and discipline make all the difference when you're traveling to Space and Beyond.
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