Choose Your View	10 Big Ideas

  An HTML white paper on "Why." The Internet is a powerful source of information and ideas for better tailoring classroom experiences to individual student needs, preferences, and interests.

  An introduction to Gerry DelMonico, a resource room teacher for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students who are mildly perceptually impaired. He also helps interested students learn about multimedia authoring or online resources.

1. Holiday Explorations
   

   In this unit, students will learn about the values and traditions of particular countries, cultures, and groups through exploration of a holiday of their choice.

   1. Lesson One: Selecting and Investigating a Holiday. Students use the Internet resources provided and their own searches to select and investigate a holiday of interest to them.

   2. Lesson Two: Presentation of Findings. Students create Web-based, multimedia, or text-based documents of their research findings for presentation to the class when their holiday occurs.

   3. Lesson Three: Discussion of Common Characteristics of Holidays. Based on the research they have conducted, students participate in a group discussion that helps them see the characteristics each of the holidays they have investigated has in common with the others.

   4. Lesson Four: Creation of a Classroom Holiday. Based on the research they have conducted and the discussion in Lesson Three, students invent a holiday for their classroom, including name, customs, songs, foods, and other defining characteristics.

   5. Lesson Five: Sharing the Classroom Holiday. Students invite classes, both in their school and in remote locations, to join them in celebrating their classroom holiday.

2. Destination: Anywhere
   

   Students will develop a better understanding of maps and how to read them. First, they will consider the representation of their own neighborhoods on a map. Then, they will plan a car trip from their neighborhoods to a destination of their choice (within the 48 contiguous states), using Web resources that identify routes, distances, and traveling times.

   1. Lesson One: Mapping Your Neighborhood. Students use atlases, maps, and Web resources to generate and examine maps of their own neighborhoods. This activity will serve as background for the map-reading tasks in the next lessons.

   2. Lesson Two: Selecting a Destination Students use atlases, maps, and Web resources to select a destination and a place to stop along the way for a day trip. Students think about the reasons they want to visit this particular place.

   3. Lesson Three: Charting the Course Students use atlases, maps, and Web resources to determine the distance, driving time, and amount of money they will need to make the trip (estimates should include hotel/motel stays, meals, and souvenirs).

   4. Lesson Four: Stopping Along the Way Students use atlases, maps, and Web resources to plan a day trip to at least one city or point of interest that is on the way to their final destination.

   5. Lesson Five: Creating a Map for Future Reference Students use Web and other resources to create maps of either the site of their day trip, their final destination, the entire trip, or some combination of these.

3. What's In a Name?
   

   In this unit, students consider the etymology of different words, including their own names. They examine how influences from other languages, including computer languages, find their way into English discourse.

   1. Lesson One: What's in a Name? In this lesson, students use Internet and library resources to find the meanings of their first and/or last names and discuss the evolution of the concept of naming individuals.

   2. Lesson Two: The Relatedness of Languages. Students use Internet and library resources to select and examine the origins of phrases or words, particularly words that have origins in other languages.

   3. Lesson Three: Technology's Influence on Language. Students use Internet resources to examine the influence of technological terminology on English and other languages.

  Tips & Techniques. Based on commentary from teachers who have shared their Internet teaching experiences with us, we have identified several recurring themes and rules of thumb that have been helpful for them.

  Related Resources for Individualizing to help you get the most out of the Web.

Choose Your View	10 Big Ideas