California Department of Education
An Online Tool I Can Use
Tools for school—and beyond! Introduce your sixth graders to online tools to plan their academic and professional futures. The fifth and final lesson in a series of career and college readiness activities focuses on a scavenger hunt to...
California Department of Education
Workplace Skills
What skills do employers look for in potential employees? Introduce scholars to the skills that pay the bills during the second of six career and college readiness lesson plans. Once they have defined critical 21st-century skills, groups...
The New York Times
Crossing the Line Online: Sexual Harassment and Violence in the Age of Social Media - NYTimes.com
Sexual harassment and sexual violence are by no means new issues. What has changed is the role of social media in these issues. This powerful and troubling lesson uses a specific rape case to launch research into a discussion of the...
Curated OER
Multi-Dimensional Thinking
Students brainstorm new technological devices that apply cutting-edge 3-D computer modeling software to benefit different professions.
Curated OER
Driving the Digital Highway
Students research a specific type of innovative computer technology in automobiles or other commonplace products or services and create a radio advertisement 'selling' this innovation.
Curated OER
Down to the Wire
Students reflect on their computer use and explore various perspectives on the growing role of technology in schools. They develop a stance on the issue to write a position paper.
Curated OER
All Aboard the Innovation Train
Learners read "Next Stop for the Subway, a Fully Automated Future" from The New York Times and consider the effect of technology on their town or city. After discussing arguments for and against the new computer-based subway system in...
Curated OER
Unraveling the Web
Young scholars consider how a message might be traced along a complex network, then explore backbone maps as a basis for understanding the purpose and structure of the Internet.
Curated OER
FINDING A RESOLUTION
Learners examine detailed Moon and Earth views provided by the NASA-sponsored "World Wind" computer program. They work in groups to create maps of different scales using landmarks of their choice, and challenge their classmates to...
Curated OER
Protecting Our Space
Learners share opinions and information about safety issues and concerns on social networking Web sites, and develop public service announcements designed to inform their peers and parents/guardians.
Curated OER
Song Writing
Students write an original song using music composition software such as Music Time. By doing this, students identify another use for the computer besides word processing and games.
Curated OER
Making the Future Present
Students draw and describe a new system for prison surveillance. After reading an article, they discover the use of a wearable computer by prison guards. In groups, they develop a proposal for a new type of technology to be used in a...
Curated OER
Transforming Fairy Tales
Students use the computer to write, draw, explore the Internet, and combine all of these elements. They write their own fairy tales, use computer software to create drawings of the characters for their tales and use the Internet to...
Curated OER
A Holiday Card in KidPix
Students create a holiday card using computer software. In this computer card making lesson, students design an original holiday card using a variety of tools. Students navigate the software utilizing various tools.
Curated OER
Great Lakes Ecology
High schoolers are able to use a secchi disk to measure the turbidity of water by determining the depth at which the sechi disk is no longer visible and using the data in a formula to quantify the results. They are able to use Vernier...
Curated OER
Student Composers with Music Ace
Students compose short compositions using Doodle Pad. For this Musical composition lesson, students a clef and note lines to prior knowledge of the treble clef and note lines to write short songs on the computer. Students use Music Ace...
Curated OER
Building Canons on Pachelbel's Canon in D
Students demonstrate the structure of a canon by composing melodies and variations over Pachelbel's Theme from the Canon in D. Requires a networked keyboard lab and computers.
Curated OER
What on Earth is a Biome?
Students explore organisms and their environments. They examine change over time
demonstrate an understanding of physical positions on Earth. They survey earth's diversity, write a report, fill in a data table created on the...
Curated OER
Teaching Intonation in a SoundTree Lab with Auralia
Students demonstrate intonation and their ability to discriminate between sharp and flat by responding to exercises within Auralia, and by creating their own examples for the class using the Tuning Function on the synthesizer. Requires a...
Curated OER
Singing The Blues with Garage Band
Young scholars demonstrate writing lyrics for a twelve-bar blues pattern by writing two verses of a blues song and then recording themselves singing over a stock blues pattern using Apple's Garage Band. Requires a networked keyboard lab.
Curated OER
Butterfly Adventure
Students in second grade are paired with fifth grade computer research buddies. They observe the characteristics of caterpillars, and identify the four stages of the caterpillar to butterfly life cycle. They graph the number of...
Curated OER
Quicksand Questions: Short In-class Activity
Students are prompted with questions during a lecture on quicksand. Student answers can be collected with classroom response systems. The responses (both individual and the class as a whole) are recorded on the instructor's computer....
Curated OER
Solar Dynamics Observatory: Working with Giga, Tera, Peta and Exabytes
In this solar observatory worksheet, students read about the solar observation data that NASA will be collecting. Students solve 6 problems related to the collection of data using computers to store the solar data using gigabytes,...
Curated OER
Pandas, Flamingos and Blogs
Students use the computer to discover animals. In this animal lesson, students look at online webcams to view animals and write in a daily blog discussing what the animals are doing. They use either Pixie or PowerPoint to create an...