Technology-Enhanced Unit

Project Sheet – Technology Enhanced Unit

In this capstone project, you will create a technology-enriched curriculum unit. The complete unit is due on Tuesday, April 27, 2004, the same date and time as your final presentation; however, the unit plan and lessons in the unit are due periodically throughout the semester.

Curriculum Unit Defined
A curriculum unit is a group of lessons designed around a single theme. For example, an elementary level teacher might decide that he or she will spend a week studying “Autumn”. The teacher will then develop lessons around the Autumn theme, making sure that all subjects are covered and that each subject somehow incorporates the theme of Autumn. Hence, all of the math lessons, language arts lessons, art lessons, reading lessons, etc. will have some type of Autumn theme to them.

A secondary teacher won’t take the same approach because a secondary teacher rarely is responsible for subjects across the curriculum. So, a senior English teacher decides to develop a unit on Shakespeare with his play Macbeth as the work to be studied. The teacher then creates lessons about Shakespeare’s life, his works, and his writing, all pointing to Macbeth as the focal point.

Still having trouble envisioning a “unit”? Pick up any classroom textbook and look at how the book is divided into sections, units, and chapters. If you decided to create a unit based upon several chapters in a book, then you’ve created a unit!

How to Develop Your Thematic Unit

Step 1
Decide what you want your thematic unit or curriculum unit to cover.

Step 2
Divide the content of the unit into 3 lessons. Your goal for EDTC 3123 is 3 lessons.

Also, as you decide upon these lessons remember that the goal of EDTC 3123 is to incorporate technology into both the teaching of each lesson and into the students’ work in each lesson. So, you need to use technology as you teach; your students need to use technology as they do their work, either in class and/or out. (However, don’t think I’m going to let you get by with “Students will use the Internet to research and the computer to write a paper. That’s hardly ‘using’ technology.)

Step 3
Develop a unit plan for the unit using the ASSURE Instructional Design Model.

Step 4
Develop each lesson plan for the unit. Each lesson MUST incorporate technology for teacher use and for student use.

Ask yourself, “In what way do I use technology to teach this lesson and what do I need to create in order to do that?” You might answer the question with, “I need to create a PowerPoint slide show”; you might say, “I need to build an information-specific web page”; maybe it’s, “I need to find or take some digital photographs”. Whatever you need to create in order to use technology in the presentation/teaching of your lesson, you must create that.

Then ask yourself, “What do my students need in order to use technology to complete this lesson?” Here’s where the going may get tricky. Maybe you need to create a step-by-step set of directions for them to create a newsletter using Microsoft Publisher (but don’t turn this into a lesson on how to use Publisher . . . ). Maybe you need to create a worksheet in Microsoft Word that allows them to fill in the blanks and submit the worksheet electronically. Maybe you need to write step-by-step directions for them to make their own PowerPoint slide show to show the class (but it’s not a lesson on how to use PowerPoint . . . ). Whatever your students need in order to use technology to complete the lesson, you must create that as well.

Each lesson must integrate technology!

Each lesson must integrate a different technology
than the other 2 lessons.

This is what this class is all about ! ! !

Step 5
Now that everything is created (lesson plans, technology teaching materials, technology student materials, quizzes, tests, etc.), the hard part is over! All that’s left is packaging the unit electronically:

1. make a folder called “Unit”.
2. Inside, create three new folders called “Lesson 1”, “Lesson 2”, and “Lesson 3”.
3. Put everything you’ve created in its proper folder.

In short, someone with teaching skills should be able to take your thematic unit/curriculum unit and complete the unit with having to create anything on their own. No quizzes, tests, homework assignments, PowerPoint shows. It should all be available to them in your thematic unit/curriculum unit folder.