Spohn ~ Digital Academy

Melisa and I are fourth grade teachers who share students. She is the Intervention Specialist, and I am the Regular Educator. One of our Ohio Mathematics Content Standards is to identify triangles based on side lengths and angle measure. Using the board adopted Everyday Math, the initial instruction of this concept occurred earlier in the year. We then did a review unit closer to the OAT testing date. The children reviewed triangles using the Activboard, United Streaming videos and inclusive classroom instruction. To culminate the unit, we ordered the class set of cameras to photograph different types of triangles around the building and school grounds to upload into a Comic Life comic book.

3-5 grade Math

Creativity & Innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students: (a) create original works as a means of personal or group expression.

Communication & Collaboration

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students: (a) interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments/media, (b) communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media, and (d) contribute to project teams to produce original works or to solve problems.

Research & Information Fluency

Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: (d) process data and report results.

Critical Thinking

Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students : (c) collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.

Digital Citizenship

Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues realted to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students: (b) exhibit a positive attitude towards using technology that supports collaboration, learning and productivity, (c) demonstrate personal responsibilty for lifelong learning.

Technology Operations

Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students: (a) understand and use technology systems, (b) select and use applications effectively and productively, (c) troubleshoot systems and applications, (d) transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

Identify and define triangles based on angle measure (equiangular, right, acute, and obtuse triangles) and side lengths (isosceles, equilateral, and scalene triangles).

Create a plan for collecting data for a certain purpose. 

Compare different representations of the same data to evaluate how well each representation shows important aspects of the data, and identify appropriate ways to display the data. 

4 weeks prior: We chose math, triangles, and reserved the digital cameras.

3 weeks prior: We recruited parents and staff to help chaperone students on a "scavenger hunt" to identify triangles.

2 weeks prior: We reviewed triangles for the Ohio Achievement Test using United Streaming videos, Activboard, manipulatives, dry erase boards, and Everyday Math.  We also reviewed Comic Life.

Week of project: We divided students into 6 groups of 3-4 for a "digital scavenger hunt" to take images of different types of triangles. Each group was paired with an adult chaperone to walk around school grounds and inside Upson Elementary. The students were given a lesson on how to use the digital cameras.

The same groups then became "experts" on a specific type of triangle and worked collaboratively to create Comic Life pages for a triangle comic book.

The students were evaluated and assessed at 3 different times throughout this project.

1. They evaluated themselves after they took the digital images.

2. They then evaluated the other members of their group as to effort put into the photography and whether or not they did their part to help gather digital images.

3. They were evaluated on the final page they created with the digital images in Comic Life.

The students were able to share their product in a variety of ways. Because they created Comic Life pages on each different type of triangle, the pages were then put together into a laminated bound book, which many students will then have the opportunity to read. Besides the book, the pages were put into a slide show for students in our class as well as other classes to view. The students were able to share their pages with peers in our classroom as well as appear as guests on the Upson Morning Announcements to explain the pages they created, the steps they took to complete their pages and what they learned about triangles.

Scalene Triangles

Obtuse Triangles

Right Triangles

I will admit that the reason I took this course is because I fear technology. I knew that taking this course would force me to become more comfortable in planning and utilizing technology-based lessons for my students.

Even though it took a lot of planning, the students were excited and actively engaged while taking the pictures of triangles. During the time the children were working on the Comic Life pages, some of the groups started off disagreeing with each other about how to organize the photos and create their page. I was a bit nervous about this, but after a while, they began to work together to create some fantastic pages of triangles. I truly believe it helped the students remember the types of triangles for the Ohio Achievement Test.

It actually worked out so well that the day before the cameras were due, we had just enough time for the students to take more pictures of 4-sided polygons to make a Comic Life book about quadrilaterals. I will definitely do this type of project again, and start earlier in the year.

Students are so much more comfortable with technology than most grown-ups. They don't have the fears or hang ups, and I think we owe it to them to integrate technology into our lessons to help them keep up in a changing world.