Conquistadors Conquer Social Media

Callie Markin Grade 5 Social Studies

Common Core Standards: Strand : History Heritage Content Statement: #3. European exploration and colonization had lasting effects, which can be used to understand the Western Hemisphere today. Strand: Geography Places and Regions Content Statement: #6. Regions can be determined using various criteria (e.g., landform, climate, population, culture, economic). Strand: Geography Human Systems Content Statement: #10. The Western Hemisphere is culturally diverse due to American Indian, European, Asian and African influences and interactions, as evidenced by artistic expression, language, religion and food. Lesson Summary: In this lesson the student will learn to integrate technology into a research project. Students will research and individual Spanish Conquistador and will document their travels using a Fakebook application online that will act as their travel log. They will need to describe the people they encounter and the land they are exploring in a first person account. They will also research some of the Conquistadors life, finding out when and where they were born and where they came from. The goal is to make the connection of the influence the explores had on the regions they explored. Estimated Duration: The lesson will be broken into five 50 minute class periods to allow enough time for introduction, in class research and presentation times.

Commentary: The approach to the lesson and getting them hooked is being able to use technology in not only researching but by creating their own Fakebook page. The challenges will be the research and the students having the technological resources available to do some research or create their Fakebook page at home.

Instructional Procedures: Day 1: First 30 minutes I will introduce the research project by going over the rubric and lesson objectives. The students will be given a tutorial of how to use the Fakebook account. The teacher will show an example of a finished project for the students to use as a reference. The last 20 minutes of the class will be used for the students to pick the Spanish Conquistadors from, Juan Ponce de Leon, Cabeza de Vaca, Francisco Vasques de Cornado, Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizzarro, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and Hernando de Soto. Students will then begin their research by looking up the conquistadors in their textbook and getting basic information. The teacher will be available to pull up websites to show the students where they can gather some of their information from. Day 2: First 5-10 minutes students will finalize with the teacher who they are researching. Rest of the class period students will be in the computer lab researching their conquistador and starting their Fakebook account. Students should start by adding basic information about their Conquistador (e.g., birth date, birth place and about me section which will be a brief biography of their explorer). For students that need more challenging work they can research Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba and Francisco de Ulloa. Day 3: First 35 minutes of class the students will be in the computer lab completing more research. They should be working on finishing their travel logs/status updates for their project. Here the students should be posting where their explores were traveling, who they met and interacted with and anything else that they discovered while traveling. The teacher will be walking around helping students that may need extra help. The last 15 minutes students will be signing up for their presentation time for Thursday and Friday. Day 4: First 20-30 minutes will be given to students to put any final touches on their projects before beginning the presentations (students are NOT permitted to work on their project while others are presenting). Students will be presenting their Fakebook page to the class. The presentation times should range from 3-5 minutes for each student. The last 20 minutes of class will be given to start the presentations. Day 5: Class will start with the remaining presentations and will go until finished. With the remaining time the teacher will ask follow-up questions to the class as an informal assessment based of the facts learned from the

presentations.

Pre-Assessment: Teacher will break the students up into groups of 3-4. Each group will get a set of 3-4 questions, depending on how many students are in the group. The students will be required to research their question in their book, when they are done answering the question the students will share with their group what their question was and the answer and where to find it in the book, the other students will write down the question and answers of the other students. When that is completed the teacher will bring the class back together and as a class they will go through all the questions with each student giving the answer for their question and the others writing down the new questions and answers. (Think-pair-share). Scoring Guidelines: Scoring will be based on participation in the groups and when together as a class. It will also be based on how in-depth and thoughtful their answer is.

Post-Assessment: Students will be delivering a presentation based on the knowledge they received during the research project. Scoring Guidelines: Students will be graded based upon the scoring criteria in their rubric. The rubric will consist of how complete their Fakebook page is, the completeness of their research (e.g., an actual picture of the explorer, complete biographical information, a map of where the explorer traveled, correct amount of status updates, and pictures related to places where their explorer traveled). Students will be required to have at least 20 status updates, where 12-15 must be factual but the others can be candid/funny (example: Walking through the woods today, tripped and fell into some mudd!! This stuff stinks Everyone else was laughing. Presentation points in the rubric as well.

Differentiated Instructional Support Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated students: Students are permitted to work with a peer who has the same person and be counted as a group project. They will still create their own Fakebook page and give their own presentation. Teacher can give the students specific websites/details to look up to help them narrow the search. Teacher can allow extra time to complete the assignment. Teacher can modify the amount of facts or biographical information that is required of the student. Students may leave the room to work with an Aid or IS.

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the material:

Extension http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/ This is a good website for students to visit to find out more about how the Spanish Conquistadors impacted the civilizations they encountered.

Homework Options and Home Connections In order for students to finish the assignment by day 4 they will need to complete parts of their project at home. It would be suggested that they complete the biography portion at home as it is more direct information and may not require as much teacher help. The students will need to upload pictures, from their expedition, they may take the pictures themselves at home or in the park so long as it fits within their explorers travel log/location (ex. Explorer who explored the coast would have pictures of water rather than cornfields). Students may also upload pictures from the internet to represent the locations from their travel.

Interdisciplinary Connections English Language Arts in creative writing (the nonfactual posts/status updates) and research/citation. Art/Photography Being creative in taking their own pictures for their travel log/status updates.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

The smartboard. Computers in the classroom and/or the computer lab. Handouts and the rubric. http://floridahistory.com/start.html http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/ http://www.macmillanmh.com/socialstudies/20035/student/weblinks.php?isbn=0021492670&level1=2&level2=4

For students

Computers in the classroom and in the computer lab. Use of the smartboard with the teacher. Teacher handouts and the rubric. Access to Fakebook. Their textbook.

Key Vocabulary Conquistador Travel log Their own conquistador and what they did/found Navigation Climate Landforms Culture Quest