Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities

Lesson Idea Name: Exploration Project

Content Area: Social Studies
Grade Level(s): 8-12th
Content Standard Addressed: Probably the majority of standards would be possible.

Technology Standard Addressed: Digital Citizen, Empowered Learner, creative communicator, global
collaborator

Selected Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity:

We Explore
URL(s) to support the lesson: https://we-explore.com/

Describe how you would incorporate an Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity in your
classroom:
The site allows students and teachers. To sign up to go to expeditions all around the world. They can create a
expedition pages which has the research goal stated at the top of the page followed by information about the
team that created the expedition. Then there are a few slides with pictures, videos, and bullets points that
give information about the region or place they visited. The expedition then gets a pinpoint on the map which
all users can see and click into.

I don’t believe that you have to actually physically go on an expedition. Some of the expeditions I saw were
clearly just reports on the nations as a whole. For this reason, I believe the site would be useful for a whole
variety of different assignments, I saw expeditions about the Nation of Finland and expeditions about a civil
rights march in Alabama.
What technologies would be required to implement this proposed learning activity in a classroom?
Internet connection and if done by groups google docs or an equivalent would be useful.
Describe how the following features are addressed in this learning experience (note: all of them may not be
addressed in the project, but most should be if you are reaching a high LoTi Level).
a. Collaboration with peers, near-peers, mentors outside their classroom and often beyond their
school: The page they create is open to the public. Students could take inspirations from other
examples.

b. Student-centered learning and knowledge creation (creating original data and or producing original
products as a result of engaging in a project): The students will be posting their own ideas and data to
the page.

c. Higher-order thinking: If students where to go on a trip they would be able to investigate the location
themselves. While for practical reasons most trips will likely need to be local this does not diminish the
student ability to perform real investigation if the teacher does the work to organize the study.

d. Students publishing their original work to others who will use/care about their product:

People from around the world can see the work. However, for security reasons I would not allow
comments.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):
☒ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☒ Analyzing ☐ Evaluating ☐ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration (LoTi Level):

☒ Level 1: Awareness ☒ Level 2: Exploration ☒ Level 3: Infusion ☒ Level 4: Integration

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 Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities
☐ Level 5: Expansion ☐ Level 6: Refinement

Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

If I did not take the students on the trip, they would in that case be free to choose which ever site or nation
they want to cover. Allowing students this freedom to choose what their topic would be is I believe important
for recurring interest and expression. Students who have chosen and care about their subjects are more likely
to keep pressing ahead even when the topic is difficult. Special keyboards and reading software could also be
provided to help students along.

Lesson idea implementation and Internet Safety Policies:

Students will not use their real names. All pseudonyms will be provided to me in order for me to grade
projects and for me to make sure none of the students take advantage of their anonymity to fool around.
Comments can only be turned on or off. You cannot give comment abilities to only certain accounts. For this
reason, I would make sure that when student create their expedition page that comments are disabled.

Reflective Practice:
I believe this lesson would work very well either as part of a field trip or as a short research project. It could
also work as the beginning of a longer more serious paper. The students could create their page as a short
overview to guide them later on with their more extensive project. If there is any way to establish moderation
of comments would also help the project get its full value.

Spring 2018_SJB