Revamped Tech Infused Geography Unit

So I spent a great deal of my summer redesigning my dreaded geography unit. While the skills and objectives remained the same, the new and improved unit has more application practices. Having a set of 20 iPads living in my classroom has extended the possibilities as far as my creativity can run with it. I continue to use the five themes of geography as the framework for teaching geographical thinking. However, I felt I went much deeper this time around. In partnerships, the students worked on self selected landscape images from anywhere in the world. I partnered up with our school librarian in order to build copyright awareness. In the library classroom, students explored www.searchcreativecommons.org as a source for images. Most students found the most success using Wikimedia through the Creative Commons website.  

Students were also provided with the following rubric:

5 Themes of Geography Rubric Mini-Project - QUIZ GRADE

Criteria	Description	Points
Title	Must have location & each partner’s name.	5
Pins	* Each theme is represented by a different colored pin. * Must have at least one pin per geography theme. * Placement of the pins on image are related to labeled theme - with the exception of location, place, region.	20
Text	* Explanation of how the theme applies to the image must be accurate and clear. Do NOT just copy your notes or type the name of the theme. * Make sure to include how your theme is being applied to your image (ex. Movement: people, ideas, & good). * Need to include absolute & relative location.	30
Image	* Each pin must have a photo, with the exception of place. * Images for location and region themes must be maps. * Photos/maps add meaning or support to your text.	30
Sources	Include a pin different from the theme pins to represent your sources used (Wikimedia, Flickr, etc.)	10
Shared	Project is linked to edmodo group & labeled with location & each partner’s name.	5
	POINTS EARNED

Then off to the races we were, opening up Thinglink accounts, and crossing my fingers that the 5th graders would remember their passwords the next day. So much for crossing my fingers! Even having them use the same password/username as they had recently been assigned to sign into the school website proved not to be foolproof. Many of the students typed in their passwords/usernames incorrectly which led to the multiple requests to reset their accounts.

                                               

The project itself was wonderful! It will definitely be a repeat next year with a few tweaks. Thinglink was a terrific platform for the students to apply their knowledge of the five themes of geography. The Thinglink learning curve was minimal, very user friendly.  I then had them embed the link onto edmodo. A homework assignment was for the students to go into edmodo and provide meaningful comments to three of their peer's Thinglink projects. I then graded their projects right on edmodo. One bump I ran into was that embedding the link did not work for all students. The images would not completely load onto the site. Next year, I will have students simply link their project instead.

I was blown away by how must thought the students put into this project. We spend a total of three class periods working on this project, and it was totally worth it. Not only was I able to assess their geographical thinking, but I also evaluated how they worked collaboratively, their written expression and grammar skills along with how closely and accurately they followed a rubric. These were all great starting points for the new school year. Hoping our next geography U.S. states project using 30 Hands will be just as successful!

Here is one example of their work:

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/426744259429793792#tlsite