Why and What
This is my seventeenth year attending TIE and every year I have acquired skills which have helped me facilitate, collaboration and keep pace with 21st century skills needed within the Denver Public School system. I would like to continue to be a supportive, accountable, nurturing creative person through technology by my attendance at TIE. My focus for next year will be in the areas of higher order thinking and web 2.0 skills for the staff and students at Castro Elementary.

Topic Title “Immigration Then and Now”

Students will learn about famous immigrants in history. They will compare/contrast with today’s issue of immigration with the past using primary and secondary sources from the American Memory and Colorado Heritage Collections, Library of Congress, other sources and analyze data to complete the project. The students will practice and learn how to develop questions about their topic and use that knowledge to product a multimedia presentation using one of the following (digital story, pod casting, PowerPoint, real e-books) using differentiations methods for technology. The students will use an exhibit illustrating their opinion pro or con about their topic. The students during the project will use an online, wikis ,email and blog to show, communicate and use as an evaluation tool for their work. This project supports Denver Public Schools unit 5 research and report writing and the following reading & writing standards as well as the ILT standards 1 & 2.

TIE sessions that support project:

Digital Storytelling with Library of Congress
Integrating wiki and blogs into your classroom
Building Learning communities Projects


Standard 1 & 2
• Write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
• Determine author’s purpose.
Standards: Students read and understand a variety of materials.
1.a Compare and contrast different texts with similar themes or ideas
Locate and paraphrase the key/main ideas and supporting details
in fiction and non fiction
2.a Write in a variety of modes such as narrative, expository or
descriptive for various audiences and purposes
2.b Organize writing using a logical arrangement of ideas
2.g. Develop ideas and content with relevant details, supporting
examples and/or reasons

Big Ideas
• Communicate ideas and information using clear and precise descriptive language.
• Use mentor texts to craft engaging leads and conclusions.

Responsibilities:Mr. McFarland will be responsible for teaching Technologies needed to complete assignment/topic as well as the following:
Mrs Schwartz 5th grade teacher will help me with in-class assignments.
• Research for biographies
• Photo Story
• Pod casting
• PowerPoint
• Real E-Books

Project will be based off of Mr. McFarland’s unit plan developed and submitted to the Collaborative Digitization Program. Which was funded by the Colorado State Library through a Federal Library services and Technology Act grant. Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection.

Go to : http://www.bcr.org/cdp/teachertb/lessons/lesson64/index.html
And Down load the lesson Plan

Student Collaboration forWeb Page Project
Aurora Bernal
Why and What:
Students will be taught how to submit their work on the Castro Web Page. They will have opportunities on a regular basis to submit their work and also be able to view their work on the Castro Web Page.