College of Southern Nevada 
October 07, 2020 

 
Emily Lewis 
 
 
 
 Teaching and Learning with Technology

Technology in classrooms is slowly but surely becoming the norm in this day of age. I

remember in elementary, I would get so excited to use the computer labs twice a month and play

on websites like STARFALL and cool-math-games. As I got older, technology got more and

more advanced. To go along with that, students gained more and more access to technology. In

highschool, almost every teacher was given a class set of chrome book carts to keep in their

classrooms. It was very common for us to use our chromebooks for assignments on a daily basis.

Some teachers were very against the use of computers simply because they saw it as only

a distraction, not a useful tool for education. I found an article where researchers collected data

on sixth graders who use technology in schools. Halonen discussed how they found that “most

students reported wanting to use technology more and experienced it to foster school

engagement”. Now I am not naive, I do realize there are some bad apples in every bunch. There

will be some students who do get distracted with the technology, however, most students do

follow directions and use technology appropriately.

By using technology in schools, we give our students opportunities they may not get at

home. Many students don’t have wifi or computers at home, but are still expected to type and

print out every essay that is assigned. Going along with that, there are many computer programs

that are not free to students. In highschool, our school chromebooks had specific programs we

needed to use to finish labs for our science courses. Unfortunately, they were not free to students

so there was no way I could do those labs at home. I am extremely grateful I got to use these

tools in school and they helped me in the class immensely. All students should be able to have

this opportunity and get to use technology in all classrooms.

Halonen, Niina, Hietajarvi, Lauri, Lonka, Kirsti, & Salmela-Aro, Katariina. (2017). Sixth

graders’ Use of Technologies in Learning, Technology Attitudes and School Well-being. The

European Journal of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 1(1), 2307-2324.

Standards pretty much run your entire teaching career. You will base everything you

teach off of standards. Learning standards are goals for what students should know and be able to

do in each grade. Every state has different standards and expectations that educators will use.

Standards are also NOT your curriculum. Local communities and educators choose their own

curriculum, which is a detailed plan for day to day teaching. However, your curriculum should

be hand in hand with your standards.

For this class, we mainly worked with ISTE standards. In these past few months I learned

and memorized almost all of the ISTE standards and I am very grateful for that. ISTE standards

focus on technology standards for students. These standards have 7 different topics: empowered

learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker,

creative communicator, and global collaborator. With every assignment we discussed what type

of standard would fit.

However, there are also standards such as ​Nevada Computer and Technology

Standards (NCT)​, which are obviously specific for the state of Nevada. These standards go

more in depth than the ISTE standards. NCT standards have 6 different topics: Creativity and

Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Research and Information Fluency, Critical

Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, Digital Citizenship, and Technology

Operations and Concepts.

Within my lesson plan I decided to use a standard from both of these examples. For ISTE

I decided to use Standard 6: 6d Students publish or present content that customizes the message

and medium for their intended audiences. As for NCT, I chose to use 2.A.2.1: Work in classroom

groups to create and publish digital products.

○ Interview with a president

● Grade Level Appropriateness

○ 4th grade

● Technology Content Standard Addressed

○ Standard 6: 6d Students publish or present content that customizes the message

and medium for their intended audiences.

○ 2.A.2.1: Work in classroom groups to create and publish digital products.

● Other Content Standard Addressed

○ (4)1.11 name the head of the federal, state, and local government (e.g., President,

Governor, Mayor)

○ (4)1.13 work cooperatively in groups

○ (4)4.13 identify appropriate resources for historical information

● Objective

○ The student will understand how to use slideshow tools and create a presentation

showing their knowledge on US presidents. The student will also understand how

to effectively research on an appropriate school website.

● Materials needed to facilitate the lesson

○ computer/laptop

○ [Link]

○ Google slides

● Suggested group size

○ Partner work
● Procedures

○ Have students choose a partner to do the assignment with.

○ Once students find their partner, have one student grab a computer/laptop for the

both of them to share.

○ Now go around with a cup with the 10 president options written on a piece of

paper and have the partner groups randomly choose the president they will be

interviewing.

■ President options:

■ George Washington

■ John Adams

■ Thomas Jefferson

■ James Monroe

■ Abraham Lincoln

■ Theodore Roosevelt

■ Franklin Roosevelt

■ John F. Kennedy

■ Richard Nixon

■ Ronald Reagan

○ Once all the groups choose their president, have them write it down so they don’t

forget who they will be interviewing.

○ Next, have the students log into their computers. Once they are logged in, go to

safari/google and have them go to the website:

[Link]
 ○ This website is where you will find fun facts about your president that you will

add into your presentation.

○ Have students take notes on their president that they think is informational and

would be good for their classmates to know.

○ After taking notes, go to google slides and click “new presentation”

○ Name the presentation “Interview with ___” and add in the name of the president

that was given to that group.

○ Have students follow this outline for their presentation.

○ SLIDESHOW OUTLINE:

■ FIRST SLIDE: ​president name, student names, date, picture of president

■ SECOND SLIDE: ​personal info about them: birthday, where they were

born, if/where they went to college, are they still alive, picture of president

■ THIRD SLIDE: ​info about when they were president: time in office,

political party, vice president, something they are known for, picture of

president

○ Instruct students to make this as creative as possible. Some examples are adding

speech bubbles to the picture of the president to make it look like they are

speaking to the class.

○ Make sure the font is at least 18 in size. Make sure colors are easy to read.

○ After all groups are done, have them share the file with the teacher.

○ The teacher will then create a separate presentation with all of the presidents. The

teacher will print it out and create a book for students to study.

● Assessment

○ This project will be graded for a possible total of 10 points.

■ 2 points if first slide has all listed information and picture

■ 3 points if second slide has all listed information and picture

■ 3 points if third slide has all listed information and picture

■ 2 point if slideshow is creative and adds interesting elements