A New York City Bird Field Guide CD
HOW IT WORKS
For the first step in producing A New York
City Bird Field Guide CD, students are given an
“Inspiration” handout on which they provide the information
they have gathered in their classroom study of New York City
birds. They do this either by hand or on the computer. Next,
using various websites, they save pictures, sounds, movies,
and any information they didn’t collect in the classroom in
a folder on the computer. The children title their folder by
the type of bird, the name of the teacher, and the initials
of their project partners.
Once all the information has been collected using Microsoft
Power Point, they create template slides using the
“Inspiration” template as a reference and the pictures,
sounds, etc. they previously saved in a folder. There are
usually eight slides: Title, Physical Characteristics, Food,
Nest Eggs, Habitat, Song, and “Did You Know?” Children write
text to accompany the slides, making sure all relevant
information is provided. Once complete, the rest of the
class views the presentation in order to provide necessary
feedback. The students then revise their slide shows adding
timings and animation. All projects are then saved on the
teacher’s computer, who then burns it on a CD that is placed
in the field guide. There are approximately sixty slide
shows upon completion of the project. The projects are also
put on the school website for other schools to view,
emulate, and record their comments. The students often visit
the website to read these comments.
THE STUDENTS
There are four classes of thirty students who have all had
prior experiences with computers. Students meet twice a week
in the computer lab and engage in bird studies in the
classroom. Their time in the lab is spent compiling
information for their slide shows. Students are paired and
assigned a bird by the teacher in their classroom before
coming to the lab. This enables students to support each
other according to their individual needs. While the
students work in pairs, the teacher can also go around the
lab providing the necessary support and feedback.
THE STAFF
Steven Jaffe has been teaching technology integration
for the last six years, with one of those years spent as a
staff developer in District 6 training teachers how to
better use technology in the classroom. Besides teaching
technology to children, he is in charge of maintaining the
school network and working on the school website. He has
done workshops at NECC and many staff development sessions
on integrating technology into the curriculum. He has also
received an award from Bill Gates for a project on How to
Make a Virtual Vacation and worked with the State Department
on creating technology standards for New York State.
WHAT YOU NEED
For this program, you will need computers with Internet
access, Microsoft PowerPoint software, and an information
template on which the students will fill in their bird
information and any information they have collected from
websites and other search engines.
OVERALL VALUE
Working on A NYC Bird Field Guide CD gives children
tangible products that they can take with them to show
everyone. Children in the second grade learn that there are
different mediums to express what they have learned and, in
producing a CD, children can see other students work from
other classes and other schools. |