Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities

Lesson Idea Name: The Life Butterfly Life Cycle

Content Area: Science
Grade Level(s): 2nd
Content Standard Addressed: S2L1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the life cycles of
different living organisms

Technology Standard Addressed: 5. Computational Thinker

Selected Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity: Online Project using Journey North

URL(s) to support the lesson: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

Describe how you would incorporate an Online Project/Collaboration Site/Publishing Opportunity in your
classroom:
For this unit, we would be learning about the butterfly life cycle. We would learn about the egg, caterpillar,
pupa and the butterfly. Students will learn about the environment butterflies live in, what they eat and their
migration. We can use the website http://www.learner.org/jnorth/ to learn about many of these attributes. I
will allow students class time to gather information from this website to form a better understanding about
the butterfly life cycle.
The second step to this online project is the students will be creating a blog. I will allow the students’ time to
access the website https://www.kidpub.com/. This is the website the students will use to publish their blog.
From there the students will begin to create a blog post about the entire process of the butterfly life cycle.
From these blogs I will formatively assess the students while they’re working and measure the understanding
the students have for the life cycle of the butterfly by taking anecdotal notes. Once the students have had
some class time to read I will then allow the students to present their blog to the class on the SMARTBoard as
a review before the summative unit test.

What technologies would be required to implement this proposed learning activity in a classroom?
Students will need access to a device with internet connection. Students could use either a computer, tablet
or device to visit the website stated above and the blog site. The blog site used will be
https://www.kidpub.com/. Students can work both in class and at home if they have access to the internet
and devices mentioned above.

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: Students get to research the web together to retrieve information about the butterfly life
cycle. Students can collaborate through reading each other’s blog posts and or commenting on the
blog outside of school. Students can connect outside the classroom to research the website since it is
an online project.

b. Student-centered learning and knowledge creation (creating original data and or producing original
products as a result of engaging in a project): Students will be creating their own blog. The students
will be writing and publishing their own original work to the blog from information retrieved from a
trusted website.

c. Higher-order thinking: Students have to research a topic and gain knowledge then take that
knowledge and convert it into a blog post. This blog post teaches others in their words about the life
cycle of a butterfly.

Spring 2018_SJB
 Online Projects, Collaboration Sites and Publishing Opportunities

d. Students publishing their original work to others who will use/care about their product: The students
will be publishing this on a kid friendly, educational blog site. Other children outside of the classroom
can read this, but their peers may also read their blogs and they are learning about the butterfly life
cycle as well.

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
☒ Level 5: Expansion ☐ Level 6: Refinement

Universal Design for Learning (UDL): This can be used for all students because they can work together to
learn about this topic. They can access websites that allow for us of images and descriptive words to help
captivate the student’s attention. This is not just students reading about and answering questions. They get to
use technology to search about the topic and create a blog in their own words to represent their knowledge.
Students can choose between which words to use and which information is interesting to them.

Lesson idea implementation and Internet Safety Policies: I can make sure to send home a letter to the
students’ parents at the beginning of the year to get their permission for their students to use the internet. I
will also notify parents within a week of this project to let them know the two websites we will be using and
to explain to their children to only use these websites for these activities. I will be monitoring them during the
use of the computers/devices.

Reflective Practice: I feel that I used this for a work time and an over-view. The students were able to learn
during work time using the website and then demonstrate their knowledge and review it with the class as an
overview. I could have used this as an introductory by reading other student blogs on the subject to the
students and exploring the website to the classroom on the board.

Spring 2018_SJB