Classroom Blog and Website Creation Tools

Lesson Idea Name: Flipped Classroom- 6 Major Rivers in the United States.
Content Area: Social Studies
Grade Level(s): 3rd Grade
Content Standard Addressed: SS3G1 Locate major topographical features on a physical map of the United
States. a. Locate major rivers of the United States of America: Mississippi, Ohio, Rio Grande, Colorado,
Hudson, and St. Lawrence.

Technology Standard Addressed: 4. Innovative Designer

Selected Technology Tool:

☒ Blog ☐ Wiki ☐ Other: Website Creation Tool (list):

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable):

skyegreen87.edublogs.org/flipped-classroom/
https://youtu.be/wIu6pCZaL3Q

Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):

☒ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☒ Analyzing ☒ Evaluating ☒ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi Level):

☐ Level 1: Awareness ☐ Level 2: Exploration ☐ Level 3: Infusion ☐ Level 4: Integration
☒ Level 5: Expansion ☐ Level 6: Refinement

Universal Design for Learning (UDL): UDL will be addressed in several ways when the students go to my blog.
On the Flipped Classroom page there will be an audio with directions of what the students are supposed to do
before coming to class the next day, along with a transcript of what the audio says. They will watch a YouTube
video about the six major rivers in the United States. These things address visual and auditory learners. It also
addresses ELL and students with learning disabilities by allowing them to listen to the audio and watch the
video as many times as they need.
Lesson idea implementation:
The lesson starts with the Flipped Classroom that the teacher has created where the standard is addressed or
introduced when the students listen to the audio and watch the video from the Flipped Classroom page on
my blog. When they come to class the next day the lesson will continue. We as a class will discuss the
locations of each river and the states they go through. We will have blank maps that together we will label.
We will talk about the history and famous occurrences that happened around these rivers.

For the following day, the students will be placed into 6 groups to make 6 presentations on the six major
rivers of the U.S. I will use the Zone of Proximal so that there are more advanced students with students that
may be struggling, so that they can work together and help one another as they work through their projects.
They will be graded with a rubric that includes having a video of about the assigned river, pictures, and
information of the river all on their PowerPoints. They will be given the class to make their presentations and
then they will present to the class, each one in the group having a speaking part to the presentation. Their
presentations then will be added to the Blog so that others may see the work they did.

Importance of technology:
Technology being included into lesson has a huge impact on the students learning. We are in a technological
society where it is used everyday. Having the blog helps to cover information that we will not have time to
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 Classroom Blog and Website Creation Tools
cover in class. It is also a way to publish the students’ work. The Flipped Classroom helps to start the lesson
and is something easy that the students can do before coming to class, so that we can save time in class. We
could do this lesson without the blog, but it would mean we would spend more time in class covering what
the students could cover by doing the Flipped Classroom. It would also be more difficult to publish their work;
I would have to find another internet site or have a Facebook Class page to publish their work. However, with
the blog, one can have pages of information for the students and have pages for the students to publish their
work. It “kills two birds with one stone” so to speak.
Inspiration (optional):

Internet Safety and Student Privacy:

The students will know the internet rules. However, some issues would be making sure the students are on
appropriate sites to do their research. We would not want them getting onto websites that had inappropriate
information. There are approved sites the students can get all their information, so I would need to walk
around making sure they are on the correct sites. I would need approval from the parents to publish the
students work on my blog before publishing with their names listed. I would also need to make sure that they
cite the information they use and the pictures they used before publishing on my blog. I would go over all the
presentations and have the students correct errors of citing before publishing them on the blog.
Reflective Practice:
I feel like the students would be involved with this lesson. I believe they would have fun and take pride in
what they are creating because it will be published for others to see. I feel like by using the Zone of Proximal
that the students will be more likely to learn through their peers because they are comfortable with children
their own age than having to come to the teacher for help. There are always of extending this lesson. They
could create virtual field trips and add audio of their voices while creating it. This would make them to have to
spend more time researching and adding pictures, but the students would have a great learning experience,
and this would be one more technology that they could learn and use in the future.

Summer 2017_SJB