21st Century Lesson Plan with ThingLink

The internet provides students with access to an array of resources, websites, and information. Students need to be able to navigate this complex digital world to find the information they are looking for; they need to know where to find their answers (Thomas and Brown, 2011). Students also need to be able to differentiate between quality and poor content. This ThingLink lesson provides students with an opportunity to take a single topic, weave information from others together, and then create something entirely their own: a ThingLink poster. They are to make a project that organizes and displays all their research about a political candidate in one place.

The lesson is learner-focused for several reasons. Students have choice in deciding which political candidate to research, they get to experiment with different researching strategies, and they get to create their final project (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000). Students will explore different websites, experiment, and make mistakes during this lesson. They may find themselves on websites that provide inaccurate information. It is important for students to participate in collaborative conversations that analyze the validity of their research (Hobbs, 2011) . This lesson also gives them a chance to consider how technology and media influence political perspectives.

Read the full ThingLink lesson here.

Resources:

Bransford, J.D., Brown , A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand, Oaks, CA: Corwin/Sage.

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky: CreateSpace?.

Hillary Clinton image retrieved from affinitymagazine.us.