Artifact 4

Name: This Modern Fashion and Invention website was an assignment that created a set of web pages, up on the Internet, that showcase a specific lesson plan from the teacher's, student's, and visitor's point of view and includes a rubric for grading and a full example project.

Context: This website was created at Appalachian State University during the Spring semester of 2002 in my technology methods class, a part of the Elementary education block.

Impact: This lesson plan could be used for any grade fifth or above. The web pages project combines North Carolina Standard Course of Study requirements from Language Arts, Information and Computer Skills (4.09, 5.02))

By including a newspaper article on the invention that involves a fictional internet "information connection", students will analyze online information for relevance and quality (2.06, 2.07) and gain experience using written language to evaluate their own invention (4.02) and present their information to inform others in their class and online (4.03). In the first draft of their article, students will reason out their purpose and word choice (5.04) and decide how to make their article sound like a newspaper article (4.06, 4.07, 4.09). Students will gain experience with proofreading for spelling, grammar, and capitalization in the word processing format. (Goal 5, 4.10)

Students will cite their online sources and fictional interviews (1.03, 1.04, 1.07, 4.08, 5.04, 5.05). Students will select their own online connections and make them relevant to the article (1.08, 1.09) based on their own needs and criteria (2.04, 2.05, Tech. Competency 6.4)

Students will be using keyboarding, word processing skills (2.3, 2.4) and technology tools (2.1) to create an impressive set of web pages in cooperative groups.

Alignment: This web-based project includes the teacher knowing the Computer Skills Curriculum (Tech. Competency 10.1, 10.4) and creates an online resource for other teachers to use based on a sample web site (Tech. Competency 10.6, 11.1, 11.2) and use discipline-specific tools (Tech. Competency 11.4). The students must first access the information and then apply it (Tech. Competency 12.1) to create their own sets of web pages that I assess by finding them on the internet (Tech. Competency 12.2). The web sites can then be shared with other teachers and the parents of the students (Tech. Competency 12.3) to explain my understanding of the students' progress or my class's experience. Groups working together in the computer lab, sharing a computer will encourage each student to contribute to the group (Tech. Competency 12.4, 12.5).

Students will all have the same access to technology (Tech. Competency 14.2) and will all be held accountable for their use of information from other sources (Tech. Competency 14.1, 14.3). I feel confident this is a learning experience that is appropriate for the fifth grade curriculum, relevant to the students, is an effective teaching strategy, and incorporates the use of technology (Tech. Competency 12.7)

As a part of this project, students gain practice with information, computer concepts the North Carolina Standard Course of Study requires them to know, and builds on the skills they have previously acquired (e.g., typing and a knowledge of web pages) (INTASC Standard 1). By doing the inventing first, students are writing an article and making a web page based on an activity they have personal experience with (INTASC Standard 2). Because students work in groups, students have a choice of tasks that optimize the strengths of the entire group and the individuals (INTASC Standard 3) and forces students to problem-solve as a group (INTASC Standard 4) and assume responsibility for their own part of the project and for the final project (INTASC Standard 5, 6)
The grading rubric includes present and relevant web sources (INTASC Standard 1, 6) and assesses individual and group participation, attitude and work by assigning it a number from the rubric (INTASC Standard 8).