Curriculum+6-8

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How do you implement the NETS for Students in Grades 6-8?:
One thing I have done is that I have shown each 8th grade GT student how to set up their own iGoogle page and how to set up RSS feeds. Further, each child in each of my classes was required to read and respond to a blog post and then respond to the post of another student. Also, my GT students now each have their own blog that I have rights over and I see their posts before they are "live". Finally, I have also run tutoring sessions using Elluminate.

I have blogs for student and parent information as well as a class Wiki. Is this the stuff that you are looking for?

When students learn to blog they need to: 1) Learn what a blog is (many don't really know) 2) Learn how to respectfully leave intelligent comments on others' blogs 3) Learn how to customize their blog and make it their own. We use [|Edublogs] and students can choose their own themes, add widgets and add an avatar. 4) Learn how to create an intelligent post. 5) Respond to others' comments on their blog.

Next year our 5th grade team plans to have our students research a Science topic in groups of 2-3 students. As students begin to research they will make notes on index cards of important things they want to highlight in their final presentation project. As students begin to finish the research phase they will move into the editing phase. Students will edit their index cards and notes for spelling/grammar mistakes. Once the teacher has checked each groups progress they will begin learning about PowerPoint presentations. The teacher will guide them through how to create one and they will begin to work their notes from the index cards into individual slides. Students will be allowed the add pictures, sounds, etc. into their presentation. We hope this will introduce some aspects of the research/presentation projects in a fun and exciting way.

**//Albert Bridge School in Brownsville, VT -- NETS implementation//**
A co-teacher and I have recently created a math word problem unit plan that uses several NETs and follows a template very similar to the one on this site. We had 3rd and 6th graders in mind when developing the unit, but it can be easily adapted to many grade levels. It involves the use of blogs, where students post comments and respond to comments. The unit also includes SMART Board activities, including one where students use digital sentence fragments that must be dragged and dropped in the correct order. Students will also have the opportunity to create a Sketchcast ([|www.sketchcast.com]) to share their knowledge and collaborate with others.

Here is a link to [|our wiki] which hosts the unit plan and all the hand outs and other downloads.

July 7, 2008: Here is a unit lesson submitted by Barb Simoes (bsimoes@comcast.net): [|Grade 7-8 Language Arts.pdf]