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Holly Snyder
Project
Summary
Chautauqua Lake Central
School
1. General Overview of the Proposed
Project:
This project involves creating podcasts to use
in conjunction with the current 4th grade social studies
textbook:
Sesso, Gloria and Chris Welles Feder. The
New York State Story. Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 2002.
2. Clear Purpose and Objective:
Podcasts will be created as review for outside
the classroom. Chapters will be summarized and accompanied by
images in the Podcast. Students may use the classroom computers or
their personal home computer to listen to chapter reviews. Students
who were absent may also listen to summaries of lessons they
missed.
A Podcast of portions of the textbook will
also be created for students who struggle with reading to listen to
as they read along in their book.
3. Stakeholders: grade level, who will
benefit, who will participate in this project.
The teacher, Holly Snyder, will be creating
these Podcasts to be used in 4th grade social studies.
The Podcasts will be linked on the teacher’s webpage as listed above
and the entire 4th grade will have access to this
website. All three sections of 4th grade utilize the
same textbook for social studies and work collaboratively together
on projects throughout the year. Fourth grade teachers can allow
students to use the Podcasts as a method of reviewing during
independent time in class. In addition, students in all three
sections who struggle with reading portions of the textbook that are
assigned to read independently, may follow along in their text as
they listen to the Podcast of that section.
4. U.S. History Content Area
The grade 4 social studies program builds on
the students’ understanding of families, schools, and communities
and highlights the political institutions and historic development
of their local communities with connections to New York State and
the United States. The in-depth study of local government will
emphasize the structure and function of the different branches and
the roles of civic leaders. Students continue to learn about the
rights, responsibilities, and duties of citizenship. Students expand
their civic concepts of power, equality, justice, and citizenship as
they learn about local government. The historic study of local
communities focuses on the social/cultural, political, and economic
factors that helped to shape these communities. Students study about
the significant people, places, events, and issues that influenced
life in their local communities.
The grade 4 program should consider the
following themes and events at the local level: Native American
Indians of New York State, the European encounter, the colonial and
Revolutionary War period, the new nation, and the period of
industrial growth and development in New York State. This
chronological framework will help students to organize information
about local history and connect it to United States history.
5. Outline Describing Content
Connect local, New York State, and
United States history, focusing on the following themes:
• Native American Indians of New York State
• European encounter: Three worlds (Europe,
Africa, and the Americas) meet in the
Americas
• Colonial and Revolutionary periods
• The new nation
• Industrial growth and expansion
• Government—local and State
6. Software to be used, internet
materials, contacts, etc.
Garageband to create Podcasts
Itunes to convert Garageband files to be
uploaded onto website
Website for students to access Podcasts:
www.quia.com/pages/hollysnyder.html
7. Level of Student Involvement
Intially, students will not be involved in
creating the Podcasts. They will benefit from the Podcasts created
by the teacher for review. Since I have never created a Podcast
before, once I am comfortable with my knowledge, I would like to
have the students or a group of students create their own Podcast on
a topic.
8. Evaluation process (include students
when possible)
The effectiveness of using the Podcasts as a
method of review or listening to portions of the text will be based
on teacher observation and student performance on assessments.
Student responses to questions regarding the use of Podcasts as well
as observation of on-task behavior when students are using a Podcast
will also be helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of this tool.
9. Timeline: how you envision the
project being carried out between start up and conclusion
August 2008-The teacher will begin
making summary scripts of units 1-3 and searching for images related
to the content to be imported in the Podcasts. Create the Podcasts
and upload them onto the teacher website.
September 2008-Portions of the textbook
will be narrated as necessary for students to read independently.
Once I know the reading levels of the students, I will be able to
determine who may benefit from this.
January 2009-The teacher will continue
making Podcasts for the remaining units in the textbook.
Spring 2009-Students will begin working
on creating a Podcast on a topic. It remains undecided as to what
the topic will be.
Teaching
American History Grant
Podcast
Project 2009
As an alternative form of review, I created
podcasts for summaries of the various units of study in the 4th
grade New York State social studies curriculum. The podcasts were
downloaded to iTunes and then inserted as an audio file on my class
Quia website. Students access this website for links to English
Language Arts computer workstations and various review activities
created through the Quia website.
http://www.quia.com/pages/hollysnyder.html
The more I use technology in my classroom, the
more I realize that students today are learning in a completely
different way than I did. They are exposed to computers, cell
phones, mp3 players, and other technology before they learn how to
talk. These students excel with skills and lessons taught using
various modes of interactive instruction, such as the podcasts I
created as a tool for review. The students were excited to study
and seemed to love listening to my voice through a link on my
website. The pictures that accompany each podcast also provided
them the visual stimulation that they crave.
One problem I had creating the podcasts was
that I did not know how to make my podcasts appear larger than a
tiny picture in the middle of the computer. Garageband was very
user friendly and, now that I am comfortable with the program, I
would like to try having students make their own podcasts for review
next year. At the end of the school year, each student created a
podcast in computer class about a book they read this year. The
students were so excited!
Thank you to the Teaching American History
Grant for challenging teachers to think “outside the box” and giving
me the motivation to try something new. Without this grant, I may
not stay up late, making the time I did not think I had, creating
“extra” tools such as podcasts. As a result, I am a better teacher
for today’s students and not afraid to try new methods.
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