Search Engines, the Internet, and Educational Activities

For this week's blog entry I have included a brief description of a learning activity/lesson that could be used in an elementary school Language Arts class. I searched Google, Google Video, Dogpile, and Education World specifically for activity ideas relating to Language Arts and verbs, adjectives, and nouns. I found fewer results than I expected, but using techniques from the articles (booleans, quotation marks, etc) helped find more relevant results.

TITLE: Mad Lib Activity

ONLINE RESOURCES:
Dinesh, A. (1998). Parts of Speech: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives Game. Retrieved Oct. 11th, 2010, from www.ezschool.com/Games/PartsOfSpeech.html

Price, R., & Stern, L. (N.D.). Mad Libs Junior. Retrieved Oct. 11th, 2010, from www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html

GRADE LEVEL: Grade 5 Language Arts

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION:
Teacher will review definitions and examples of verbs, adjectives, and nouns with the class. Students can then test their understanding of these concepts using an online game that requires them to identify given examples of each. When students feel confident that they have mastered the concepts and can demonstrate (via their score in the game) their grasp of the grammar terms, students are invited to create a "Mad Lib" story on the Fun Brain website. They can print off their finished stories and at the end of the activity students will have an opportunity to read their Mad Lib stories aloud to a partner. Students will also create an illustration using Windows Paint (or similar) to accompany their story. Follow with a brief class discussion about how adjectives, nouns, and verbs contribute to communicating ideas. Discuss how the Mad Lib strategy was or was not effective for telling specific stories.

GENERAL LEARNER OUTCOMES:
#4 - Students will listen, speak, read, write, view, and represent to enhance clarity and artistry of communication.

SPECIFIC LEARNER OUTCOMES:
4.1 - Expand knowledge of language.
4.1 - Experiment with words, phrases, and sentences and multimedia effects to enhance meaning and emphasis.
4.3 - Use effective oral and visual communication.
4.3 - Demonstrate effective listening and viewing.

RELEVANT ICT OUTCOMES:
- C1: Students will access, use, and communicate information from a variety of technologies.
- C7: Students will use electronic research techniques to construct personal knowledge and meaning.
- F6: Students will demonstrate a basic understanding the operating skills required in a variety of technologies.
- P1: Students will compose, revise, and edit text.

RATIONAL FOR COMPUTER INTEGRATION:
Using the two websites required by this activity will enhance student learning by engaging them interactively. They will practice skills in reading (directions, stories, word choices), writing (nouns, adjectives, verbs), listening and speaking (class discussion and sharing stories), viewing and representing (illustrations that accompany stories). In the course of their learning they will be entertained by the Parts of Speech game and enjoy using the Mad Lib game to compose their stories. They will practice basic and essential computer skills such as navigation, manipulating computer programs, saving and printing work. The teacher will save time and effort by using the websites to create the formats and check answers, and the students will help save paper by only printing their finished products instead of tossing away discarded ideas.

Go ahead and check out the Parts of Speech and Mad Lib game for yourself, see how fun they are!

Happy Thanksgiving readers.