Utilizing Technology in a Social Studies Lesson with 2nd Grade!

This past weekend, I wrote a social studies lesson that had several activities and phases. I was really excited about the ideas I had that utilized technology. The children have been studying plants and animals for about 4 weeks now. My class, in particular has been studying the Arctic. I decided to end the unit with a map exploration and creation. For the exploration portion of the activity, the children will be researching various maps throughout the activity. I have set aside websites for them to go to to find information about the map of Antartica so that they will be able to create their maps based on their research. I am also planning on showing the children some videoclips by utilizing Youtube.com and also by showing the children the videos on the SmartBoard. Before this class, I was oblivious to how much I utilized technology. Now I feel as though I am looking for ways to utilize technology more within my lessons and I am also becoming more and more confident in my own capabilities with technology. When I first began taking this class, I felt that a technology course was not going to be very useful to the Early Childhood Field. Now that this class is coming to a close and I feel much more confident and educated in technology, I cannot wait to continue applying technology in my classroom next year as an intern, and in the future as a teacher!