Unit Overview with Technology in Mind

    

Next quarter at Lowell Catholic I am teaching Romeo and Juliet. Lowell Catholic does not have too much technology available to our students so I wanted to choose some ways to implement technology without needing every student at a computer during class. Because this will be a long unit, there are multiple places where I can add technology without it seeming overwhelming to me and the students.

First, I would like to assign each student a character from the play. Some students would receive the same character, which would be fine. I would love them to each make a Twitter account for their character and tweet as that character at least twice per act. There are so many sites where you can make fake Facebook pages that I’m sure I could find one for Twitter. Even if I couldn’t, making real accounts may not be out of the question.

The acts in Romeo and Juliet can be confusing so it might be helpful to use KidBlog.org to post about the acts so students can reference those posts while reading for homework. Students would be able to leave comments and questions for me and their peers. Additionally, I would require each student to post their own thoughts once per act.

I think that Bit Strips could be used in this unit as well. Students could take different scenes and illustrate them to show to their classmates. I think they would find this more enjoyable and engaging than simply summarizing a scene. I feel like students would have to think even more critically to manipulate the comics scenes in a way that makes sense because it would be new to them. By this point, they know how to summarize in a written fashion and might gain more understanding by stretching themselves to be more creative.

Finally, I would love to record student groups acting out scenes from the play. It would be very easy to bring in my FlipCam and record the students putting on scenes. I would have them attempt to modernize the scenes to make them more relatable. Perhaps we could then “screen” the scenes to other members in the school. This would allow students to feel proud of the work, and to be accountable for a finished product throughout their creative process.

Maybe all of these examples will not actually happen but it is exciting to at least know about the tools to make them possible. Before this course I knew very little about educational technologies. I am definitely not an expert at any of this but I feel much more willing to try now that I have had the opportunity to get my feet wet with these exciting new tools.