Final Project

Technology Integration Matrix

Increasing student understanding of the contributions of African Americans in history and how their efforts have changed the present.



The lesson plan I adapted for an English Language Learner dealt with Black History Month and the contributions that African Americans had towards the United States of America. The lesson plan was created by Susan P. Genesi and is entitled "A Walk Through History - In Honor of Black Americans." Essentially the main goal of the lesson plan is to have students understand the past contributions of African Americans and how they affect us today. The students are to understand the contributions of African Americans, choose a prominent African American, research their efforts and then create a monument of sorts to present to the class. When I adapted this lesson plan for an English Language Learner I found that much of the changes I made were actually technological additions to the lesson, in efforts to make the learning targets more easily attainable.

For the first row, the teacher would primarily teach the class some background regarding the Civil Rights movements, Black History Month and other African American contributions. In this row, one could see that at this stage, students are now "accessing" the information beforehand to help them out with the assessments later in the lesson. The teacher would conduct the lesson with a lecture, but to accommodate the English Language Learner, the teacher would also use a projector for pictures, handouts, video, or PowerPoint presentation. As a result, the information is presented in a more visual way rather than oral, as the English Language Learner may have trouble keeping up.  This portion of the lesson plans involves a lot of teacher participation as it is vital for them to get the content across as best as possible for the English Language Learner, as well as the rest of the class.

The second row has the teacher once again will review information however there would be more student participation at this stage. After the teacher goes over the content, the class will be open for class discussion. The class discussion will be a result of the information they saw on the teachers PowerPoint presentation. However the presentation, as mentioned above, would be used to spark critical thinking and discussion.

The third row will switch the roles of from having the students be more engaging rather than the teacher. After the teacher has taught the content, it would now be up for the students to collectively brainstorm before they begin researching. They will use online resources such as JSTOR or other academic databases to help them in their findings. This will not act as a mere addition to the lesson, but will help enrich their understanding of the learning targets, as it pushes them to research effectively using primary sources. As the students begin to create their report and presentation there will be editing, both self-editing and peer editing. Microsoft Word is an example of a program that would greatly aid the students with this. Both the peer editing and Microsoft Word editing would help the English Language Learner in editing their work if they having any trouble doing so. As a teacher, I would pair a student who is very proficient in researching and writing to help the English Language Learner with their project.

The fourth row would feature the participation of both the teacher and students. At this point, the students would ask questions if they have any concerns or confusions and the teacher would aid them in any way they can. Using email, Twitter, Google+ or any other form of digital messaging application would greatly help in the communication between the student and teacher. This stage of the lesson plan would depend heavily on the collaboration between students and their peers, and teachers. Students will once again be using the computer to create their project and could easily edit it after any recommendations from the teacher.

The fifth row explains the presentation portion of the lesson plan. The assessment piece of the lesson is the presentation that the students have created regarding contributions that a particular African American has done in American history. This stage deals heavily on student participation and teacher assessment. The students would be able to take advantage of many technologies such as presentation tools (Prezi, PowerPoint), video and other multimedia for their presentation.

As mentioned above, the technologies listed contribute greatly to the lesson plan. Though the NJ standards are the main focus of the lesson plan, the technologies definitely help a great deal in enriching their understanding of the content. Rather than just sitting through a lecture, students can be proactive and research to better understand what they are learning.