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Goal

The purpose of this project is to encourage students to build digital citizenship, explore scientific discoveries, develop public speaking proficiency and increase their ability to use appropriate digital presentation tools.

Through out the project students in multimedia classes will use technology to enhance learning, build writing skills, identify important inventions of the last three centuries, become well-informed digital citizens and increase their public speaking abilities.
 

What will be done with my students

The anticipated Common Core National Standards emphasizes the need for students to be savvy researchers, use complex texts to problem solve and to have good presentation skills. Students will focus on scientific discoveries/inventions from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries through out this project and learn about primary and secondary sources, website evaluation, plagiarism and writing tools.

Being a safe and an informed digital citizen is a much-needed skill for teens. First students will research inventions that had a significant impact on society. Through their research, students in multimedia classes will learn about famous creators across history with a focus on the impact of the invention on society and how these creators protected their work from being stolen or copied by others. As students learn about historical inventions they will uncover copyright and fraudulent reproduction of famous inventions and make comparisons to the same types of copyright violations in today’s society.

Using print biographies, websites and books about inventions students will research creators and learn about their work along with the historical time period. Next, students will be introduced to the concept of primary and secondary sources of information. Students gain an understanding about different types of sources. For instance a primary source is a first hand account, (speeches, a piece of or picture of art, a drawings from the time, a sculpture, a written musical score, an interview of a person from the time period); all qualify as valid primary sources. Secondary sources are pieces of information attained through research, from a textbook, a non-fiction book, the Internet, or an expert in the field. The new Common Core standards require students to be able to distinguish between primary and secondary sources and choose quality information to reference in their writing.

In addition to learning about resources students will identify a criteria for valid information both on the Internet and in text. As students research famous inventors the focus will shift to the validity of the sources. Using the guide The 5 W’s of Web Evaluation, by Kathy Schrock and an evaluation tool for print materials, students will develop a keen sense of quality resources in all formats.

After students research creators in history and learn to identify quality sources, they will be introduced to forms of copyright violations and plagiarism that happen well before their time. In learning about these violations, students will begin to understand that plagiarism is not something that happened with the invention of the Internet and stealing work whether from a famous inventor or an everyday person has been going on for centuries. Students will understand and be able to identify plagiarism as they learn ways to avoid copyright infractions themselves.

This project will help my students to understand that downloading music from the Internet, coping written work, using graphics or art without giving credit to the creator is a copyright violation, plagiarism and a form of stealing. Next the focus will switch to writing as students will practice paraphrasing and the use of online citation engines to help them cite their resources using in-text citations.

The end product will be a student created and narrated presentation including both a visual display and a multimedia presentation. The visual display can be in the form of a model of a famous creators work or a model of a primary source (speech, sculptor, drawing, painting…)

The digital presentation can be a website, podcast, slide presentation or movie project of a famous creator in history. Each project will include information about the inventor’s life/ time period, primary and secondary sources of information, the impact the invention had on society, reference to information about possible copied/pirated works and a complete bibliography of all resources used. The websites and students created models will be displayed/bookmarked in the school media center. The movie and podcast presentations will be shared with the school science classrooms and played on the morning news show and in the media center on a loop.

Incorporating the latest technology, hands on models and project based learning into this innovative approach of using scientific inventions from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries to explore plagiarism, primary/secondary sources, evaluating resources and promoting responsible use information will help students to become informed digital citizens.

 

Benefits to my students

This program will spark my student’s interest to not only explore inventions and scientific discovery but also to investigate informational text. Students will look reading about inventors and searching for invention frauds/copies like a detective. This project will aid in increasing students’ reading level on Accelerated Reader and FAIR Reading tests as well as helping them to build reading stamina for the longer sections of the FCAT or CCSS reading exams. In addition, students will become more aware of intellectual property and ways to avoid plagiarism.

Student research of famous inventors of the past will take them through an exploration of creators in history. In addition this program will help students to identify quality resources, forms of plagiarism and copyright violations in other time periods. Students will make connections between the inventors of the past, current day creators and violations in plagiarism and copyright through time. Through this project students will increase their ability to evaluate information on the Internet and in print for validity and quality.

The technology component of this project promotes excitement about reading while supporting essential 21st century skills and Common Core Standards This program will significantly change my students’ attitude towards reading, plagiarism, web evaluation and writing.
 

Budget Narrative

Depending on the amount of funding received supplies for students models can be reduced if needed. The more important items are the jump drives, books and USB microphones for the digital presentations. 

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