Google Maps to Show Learning

This lesson came from Sandra Ritvo, a 3rd grade teacher at White Oak, but it is adaptable for any grade.

Each of Sandra's students will be using a personalized Google My Map all year long. They will be adding placemarks (pins) to their maps for all the locations they learn about. These could include places in the news that they discuss, locations mentioned in social studies reading, settings from books, novels, and poems, and places from the students' own writing. Each pin will be customized with a description written by the student and an image or images of the location or what happened there.

The getting started doc is available here for you to copy and modify for your own use:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eVrMKHNXe40bK3Q2En3HgjSq6mSQh35kNQ23OWP3oYU/edit?usp=sharing

Digital Portfolios

Several of the 3rd grade classes at Chaparral have been creating digital portfolios as a way for students to publish and reflect on their work.

Here are some examples:

Aaron Anya

Lesson resources can be found here: Folder
To use them, make a copy and assign to your students, editing first if desired.

Need help getting started? Contact one of the media specialists!

Instagram Posts

Here is a quick and easy idea you can use to increase engagement and encourage critical thinking in any grade or content area. Have your students create Instagram posts from the point of view of characters in a novel, geometric shapes, chemical elements, historical figures, etc. Share them in a collaborative slideshow when they are done.

Instagram post template

Using Padlet to Teach Image Citation

Our students need to be able to find, use, and cite copyright-friendly images in their projects. You can use Padlet, a free, online bulletin board, to help them learn how to do this.

Depending on the age of the students, you can modify the requirements for citing the images you find. Ideally, you should include the following (or as many of them as you can find for your image):

• Title of the image
• Author
• Source
• License (Creative Commons type, note that the image is public domain, or a statement that the image is used with permission)

The example below was created by 3rd grade students. They were only instructed to include the photographer's name below their own. Older students would of course be asked to include more complete information.

Created with Padlet

Lesson steps:

1. Before the lesson, create a Padlet wall where the information will be posted. 
2. Discuss the importance of citing sources for anything students have not created themselves. Explain the citation format you want students to use.
3. Instruct students to find an image by using search.creativecommons.org. This will ensure that any media they find should be licensed for reuse. The students doing the project above looked for landforms and the natural environment.
4. Students copy the image url.
5. On the Padlet wall, students double click to add a note. They paste in the url and add the citation information.

For more specific information about image citation, see this page on the Creative Commons wiki.