Technology Integration Plan for the French Revolution
My technology integration plan focuses on a lesson highlighting the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon in the late 18th and early 19th century. This lesson fits into a greater unit that looks at this age of revolutions, an the many causes, whether political, economic, or technological, that spawned these uprisings. This lesson is geared towards 11th or 12th grade students, and studies the political ideals, technological advancements, and individual revolutionaries, and how each applies towards the greater topic of the French Revolution.
When creating my technology integration matrix, the first content-based standard, and first matrix row, focuses on looking into the various ideals, such as liberty, democracy, and nationalism, which become driving forces for reform and revolution and the impact they have on government, society, and the economy. This overarching concept can be applied to any revolution within the great unit, and is a great introduction to the framework in which the French Revolution began. As a way to give the students some foundational information, the class would begin with a lecture to get a clearer picture of the different aspects of society that the French residents lived in. This lecture would include the use of a Smartboard to show different aspects portraying peasant and noble life. Following the lecture, we would move into a group discussion format as we worked to analyze some of the challenges that the peasants faced and what may have driven them towards embracing these revolutionary ideals. The class would be split into two teams as they prepared for a debate, with one side focusing on the need for reform, and the other side focusing on why things were find to stay as the status quo. As each group uses computers and the internet to gather information, they will have access to a group based Googledoc to help compile the data for all members to analyze. Finally, the opposing sides will debate the topic using the data and information they found, formulating viewpoints and opinions to help with the discussion. The debate will be used as an assessment to ensure that all students adequately participate in the discussion. Throughout this process, they will need to sufficiently communicate and collaborate with classmates, ensuring that they are employing research and information fluency, and using critical thinking to formulate their viewpoints based on the information they find in order to cover the ISTE standards.
The second row of the matrix goes into the discussion of the role played by scientific and technological advances within the massive social, economic, and cultural changes occurring during this period of reform and revolution. We will start by viewing a few video clips and maps on the projector, where the students will take notes and provide me with a short written assessment of their analysis relating to the importance of each technology. The majority of this section will focus on a student created map highlighting a scientific or technological advancement of their choosing alongside its various social, economic, and/or cultural changes. For this assessment, they will use a computer with internet and mapping software such as eSpatial. Once completed, links will be loaded to a class-wide Googledocs and viewed on the Smartboard with an accompanying group discussion. This matrix row highlights several ISTE competencies, all of which are covered during the map making session. These include the use of creativity and innovation, research and information literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, and technology operations and concepts.
The final row of my matrix focuses on individuals and groups that worked to promote revolutionary actions and bring about change during this time period. This section would also start with a short lecture driven by the teacher as a way to discuss some background information on the main revolutionaries at the beginning of the French Revolution. Students will be grouped into teams of 3 or 4 and work towards building a website with a timeline or in some other logical format. The students will then move to their computers with internet to begin researching further as they decide upon a main individual or group that they would like to focus on for their website activity. They can use any website or timeline creator, though WIX is one good example that is easy to use and navigate. Once the groups have completed their timeline or website, they will use Prezi, PowerPoint, or some other presentation software of their choosing, over a projector, in conjunction with their website/timeline to showcase the importance of their individual or group in the greater French Revolution. Both the website and presentation will be assessed as well by the teacher. Similar to the mapping activity, students will be able to display their creativity and innovation, work to showcase their research and information literacy skills, assess this information through critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, work in teams to promote communication and collaboration, and understand technology operations and concepts through their website creation. Overall, the technology matrix helps this lesson achieve both the NJ content standards as well as showcasing the importance of technology when applied to the various strategies employed to reach the ISTE standards as well.
