Internet Research

One way to encourage the use of technology is to give an assignment that asks the students to do research. When they are writing papers, the internet is one of the most powerful tools with a wealth of knowledge. It is also necessary to teach the students how to incorporate this research into their papers, particularly in 7th and 8th grade. As they move into high school in the coming years, they will be expected to be nearly experts on internet research. There is a strong focus on this in high school, which is why it should be introduced in middle school.

Teacher Tube

One of the resources I have found to be most particularly helpful is TeacherTube.com. I have found some incredible videos here. One that I thought was fantastic was called "Test Taker Face" and it was done by a 5th grade class. The link is below:

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=174560

This video has the whole class involved. They created their own lyrics to the song "Poker Face" by Lady GaGa. This is something that can be a lot of fun and can also be educational. Videos are a great way for students to get more involved and still learn at the same time. It is particularly a strong idea for students in grades 5-8, because they are independent enough to be able to produce ideas for the video and perform in it, but they are also still dependent enough to require the guidance of a teacher or supervisor during the creation of the video.