Lesson Ideas
Internet Search
You have questions, and the Internet has answers. But finding those answers in an endless sea of web pages can be daunting. Tim and Moby can help you use search engines to turn up just what you're looking for. Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the like focus your search by filtering out the clutter, leaving only the most helpful pages for you to browse. Type in your query, and the search engine breaks it down into keywords, then looks for pages to match. Adding more keywords focuses your search, leading to better results! Those results are weighted according to patterns, like popularity and what's in the news. But you can influence which pages appear in what order: Try refining your search with quotation marks or plus and minus symbols. Whether you've got a research paper to write or a debate you want resolved, press "Play" and learn the best ways to find facts online.
Digital Citizenship 4-Month Unit
Developed by Certified BrainPOP Educator Kathleen Weil, this four-month long Digital Citizenship unit covers the following 8 BrainPOP topics (2 per month) from the Digital Citizenship collection: See more »
Make-a-Movie Lesson Plan: Digital Citizenship
This lesson plan features BrainPOP’s collection of Digital Citizenship resources, and is adaptable to all topics in the collection. In this lesson, students explore digital citizenship topics, then apply what they learn by creating a BrainPOP-style movie using the Make-a-Movie tool. Finally, students present their movies to their peers and follow up with a q & a. This strategy makes it possible for all students to learn about every topic within a digital citizenship theme--the one they present and the ones their peers are presenting to them.
This lesson plan is aligned to Common Core State Standards. See more »
Internet Searches Lesson Plan: Search Shark Game
In this lesson plan which is adaptable for grades 3-8, students use BrainPOP resources (including a free online game) to practice identifying keywords that result in relevant information for a given internet search. This lesson plan is aligned to Common Core State Standards. See more »
Evaluating Online Sources Lesson Plan: Is Everything on the Internet True?
In this lesson plan, which is adaptable for grades K-8, students use BrainPOP resources to learn how to conduct effective internet research. Students will analyze research on the internet and explore how they can determine what is not true and what is factual online. This lesson plan is aligned to Common Core State Standards. See more »
Media Literacy Lesson Plan: Common Advertising Strategies
In this lesson plan which is adaptable for grades 4-12, students use BrainPOP resources (including the Make-A-Map concept mapping tool) to explore common advertising strategies and increase media literacy. This lesson plan is aligned to Common Core State Standards. See more »
Note-Taking Skills Lesson Plan: Create a Personalized System
In this lesson plan which is adaptable for students in grades 3-12, students will explore various styles of note-taking and develop their own unique and effective note-taking system. See more »
Research Skills Lesson Plan: Be a BrainPOP Expert
In this lesson plan, which is adaptable for grades K-8, students use BrainPOP and/or BrainPOP Jr. resources to conduct independent and/or collaborative research on a selected topic. The focus of this lesson is to support students in identifying their interests and following their passions in an educated manner. Students will share their research findings with the class using web 2.0 tools or other presentation methods. This lesson plan is aligned to Common Core State Standards. See more »
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3 comments
The collection of resources available on INTERNET SEARCH is impressive and extensive. I find it very helpful to have grade levels and standards easily accessible. These resources have sparked my enthusiasm for teaching and reteaching an important concept to my upper elementary students! There is even a gameup option – SEARCH SHARK that starts with a video and then the game. I tried it and it was engaging and I learned somethings too.
This online source lesson introduces students to a variety of movies and resources that teachers can use when working with students in the younger grades. The lesson does a good job of introducing online safety first in the lesson. This age group can be targeted by cyberbullies and others who want to steal identity information. As a parent I would be much more comfortable with this part of lesson being first when my child is being asked to do onine research. The activities that go along with the movie explain even more the dangers of online activities. I would pick and choose which activities I would use with my students based on their grade level. Some of the terminology would be too sophisticated for my primary grade students.
I have been working with 8th grade classes who are doing a research project. Whne it comes to teaching them about key internet search words, the video on Internet Safety and the related activities provide us the opportunity to experiment with different key words. Because we are a Google School, I would probably focus more on Google search functions than the general approach in this lesson.
I also thought that the tree octopus is a great activity. False news sites are very prevalent these days and students have to learn how to determine the authenticity of the research.
As for the extended activity, involving the parents is key to students using internet safety tools. Students spend more time online outside of school than they do in school.
This collection of lesson plans is a nice mix to develop
skills needed to navigate the ever-growing Internet. Being part of a 1-1 school district, we have
been providing Digital Citizenship lessons.
Moving to a more Digital Literacy focus, these lessons provide a solid
base that we will be able to integrate into our subject-area classes. As a middle school for grades 6-8, I would
recommend the Search Shark Game and the tree octopus lesson for grade six,
integrating the Advertising Strategies into our seventh-grade persuasive
writing unit and the Note-Taking and Research Skills into our Social Studies
classes. Using these lesson plans with a
common framework (so easy to follow for our teachers) will provide consistent
research methods for our students!
I love the idea of extending this into some form of home
activity – great idea!