With a date scheduled for Thursday, I met with both fourth-grade teachers today to see how we could prepare the students for their first hangout of the year.
We looked at what skills the students will need for this activity, and decided to do a warmup on Wednesday to practice the skills.
Not wanting to teach the students each little detail about Google Maps, we are going to role play the activity so the students will see how to use it in action. The second skill students need to learn is how to ask a good question.
The Lesson
We started by getting the students logged into the computer and email. For most of the students, this wasn’t an issue, but there were those students who had issues whether it be caused by user error [students mistyping] or computer error [computers not being charged or updated]. This ate up 15 minutes, but I believe this is a necessary use of time. It’s a now or later process, and usually in those instances, now is better. So I think this was time well spent (despite the way I worded the sentence). Time needs to be factored into the planning of lessons involving tech in the elementary grades.
No matter how long you think it will take, add at least ten minutes.
So we got started. With one teacher saying “Find my old school”, and the students started asking questions.
I worked with this group of students a lot last year, and I know they can [could do a lot last year] but this was a new experience for them and they need practice with listening to the information given to them, and determining the next step.