Heather Owings
SLM 521
Fall 2003
Elective #11

Media Lesson Plans

This assignment was difficult in that I found plenty of lesson plans for language arts, math, science and social studies but very few that were specifically for the media center. I realize that as a future media specialist, I will most likely modify a subject lesson, chosen by the teacher, and incorporate into it the computer knowledge and skills the students need to learn. So I based my choices on the following criteria:
(a) does it involve computer skills? Or Internet access?
(b) is it reading related? (like a book talk or introduction to new literature)
(c) does it involve research outside the text book?
(d) or is it something I could modify easily to incorporate a,b,or c?

DiscoverySchool.com
This web site offers a multitude of middle school subject plans most of which incorporate computers or the Internet. The lesson plans are sorted by grades: elementary, middle, or high. They are also sorted by subject. Although they only had three literature lesson plans for middle school (none that required outside book research or computers), I thought the lesson plans for Forensic Science were great. Most included web sites for research, but I am sure sites could be found for the other plans and then those lessons could be modified accordingly. http://school.discovery.com/

The LessonPlansPage.com
This is a great site! First, it has a subject titled: Computers & Internet. You can then select your grade, which helps narrow your results down. There are about 60 lesson plans for grades 6th and 7th in the computer topic alone! Now most of those lesson plans are from the main subjects (language arts, math, science, social studies, etc.) but they have computer & Internet listed as secondary subjects. They had a reference scavenger hunt on computer, a Egyptian slide show presentation, and other lessons that incorporated the services offered by the media center. http://www.lessonplanspage.com

PBS.org
Between the Lions rocks! And so do the lesson plans on this web site. Again, PBS gives a choice of grade levels and subjects, and includes specific topics topics to narrow your search even more. For example, in a broad subject like Arts & Literature you will find: world literature, writing skills, or media studies which incorporates computers and/or media sources in the lesson plans. I loved the lesson plan "If Poor Richard Had a Computer," because it uses computers to explore almanacs. http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/

Smithsonian Education
What is nice about this site is it allows for searches by key word. When I entered the key word "library," there was only one matching result and "media" brought no results. However, in examining the lesson plans, I found that they either involved Internet research or they could be modified to do so. The also have "IdeaLabs" that are online student tutorials that "bring the Smithsonian to life." I looked into Textiles of the North American Southwest, not only was I impressed with it, I was also happy to see it could be translated into Spanish (to help ESOL students). http://smithsonianeducation.org

Teachers.Net
Teacher.net has the usual basic subjects, plus a computer subject. I found that most of these activities could be used in the media center with very little modification. Also the lessons I reviewed in the reading, writing, and literature categories utilized or could utilize the Internet and/or computers. And although it was an elementary lesson, "Make A Boxcar Children Dictionary," could be revamped for any grade level and is a great idea when combined with a lesson about dictionaries or you could modify it for older students by having them create a subject-specific encyclopedia. http://teachers.net/lessons/