Tool #7

I was able to check out a lot of the websites for this tool and looked at the “Science” projects on the websites. There were some real neat ones like “Eradication of Malaria” and the “YouthCan Evnironmental Project”. I think these projects, and other similar ones could be a great thing to do as an extra credit project that is ongoing throughout the year. It would be difficult to pick one of these projects to do as they are not in line with the TEKS, however like previously mentioned, I think this is something that some of my kids would jump all over on their own, as an “out of class” assignment. I think that this is something that could be possible or another project that could be connected within the school using our technology.

An idea that I had was that we were doing an adaptation project, in which the kids picked an animal that was not familiar to them, did a great deal of research on it, and ultimately gave a presentation on their animal’s specific adaptations. One of the students mentioned to me that in his English class they were building off of what we had done and were writing about their animal in the other class. I think with the right planning, we could have bundled the projects together, having the students work in Google Presentation, Google Docs, Today’s Meet, or Skype to be researching the same animal, however use that information to complete two different projects.

I think that with the correct type of planning and communication between departments this type of “cross-curriculum” teaching is a real possibility. I know that in Science we are always trying to stress the importance of writing correctly, and do a lot with math. We as a school are already helping the other departments out with what we are currently doing, however there is so much more we could accomplish with the technology that will be coming our way here soon!