My attempts in “technofying”
this lesson plan was to hopefully create an experience that reaches beyond the
abilities of the traditional activities. Through the implementation of
technology in each of the four steps, the lesson plan was strengthened and
deepened to more creatively reach more students in addition to differentiating
the learning instruction for varying abilities.
Following the SAMR method, the four
steps included a substitution, an augmentation, a modification and a redefinition
of the traditional activities. The substitution segment of my lesson incorporated
students using iPads and the highlighting tool instead of
paper/pencil/highlighter. Although the inclusion of the iPad doesn’t
necessarily add any more learning content to the lesson, it does make the
activity more interactive and fun for students. The incorporation of technology
in any English grammar lesson is extremely effective considering most students
find grammar dry and boring. By using tools like the iPad, students are able to
use something they’re familiar and comfortable with to help make the lessons
more interactive.
For the augmentation segment of my
lesson, I chose to use the “Audio Boo” app for iPads and iPhones. This app can
be used quickly and easily to record short segments of speech that are shared
on the Audio Boo website or imbedded into blogs. The teacher will make several
recordings incorporating either a run-on sentence or a sentence with a comma
splice. The students will be hearing these
sentences with errors rather than reading
them. This ability to record through technology drastically transforms the
complexity of the lesson; It teaches the students the differences between oral
English and written English and how when we talk especially, our errors become
more prominent. By evidencing this fact, students will become more conscious of
their spoken word and then eventually more careful and articulate in their
formal writing. They will also establish a better ear for detecting these sorts
of errors while learning the proper difference between run-on sentences and
comma splices.
Modification involves incorporating
a game-like iPad app in order to teach students about the different parts of
speech. In the game, eight different colorful characters represent the
different parts of speech (verb, noun, adjective, etc.). This playful twist on
the traditional hand diagramming of sentences will be much preferred by
students. While the “Grammaropolis” app may not be as intensive as tradition sentence
diagramming (a potential drawback to using this particular game), it does teach
the basic aspects of sentence construction.
The last transformation in my lesson
plan involves redefinition. My traditional idea was to have students actually teach an aspect of grammar to their
fellow students through concrete visual aids such as writing on the board or
using poster boards. In my transformation, I implemented the use of Podcasting.
After listening to the popular Podcast, Grammer
Girl, Students will try their hand at creating their own Podcast to help
teach something to the class. This use of technology will require students to
articulate their knowledge in a succinct verbal manner, thus improving their
public speaking skills.
The technofication of this lesson
plan greatly expands the scope of its ability to reach all levels of students.
It adds dimensions of hearing/speaking/interactivity that would otherwise be left
to simple pen and paper. And most importantly, it makes the lesson more fun, a
quality that becomes especially important when dealing with grammar.
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