TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATED CLASSROOM

LESSON
Listed below are the categories and guidelines for the classroom
lesson.
Please make sure you have addressed each category in your lesson.

Teacher
Charlotte DeNenno

Title
Where in the USA Am I?

Description of Activity
It is time to go on a road trip across one of the states in the continental USA of your choice.
SSHH! Don’t tell anyone where you are going, (except for me of course) just plan your trip and
give us some hints about the places you visit and the sites you see. Let us guess which state you
went on a road trip in!

Suggested grade level

Intermediary l
Sixth grade

Pennsylvania Subject Area Standards

7.1.6.A,B Basic Geography Literacy
7.3.6 A,E The Human Characteristics of Places and Regions
.

NETS Standards
Creativity and Innovation: 1.a,b
Communication and Collaboration: 2.a,b
Research and Information Fluency: 3.a,b
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: 4.b,c
Digital Citizenship: 5.a,b,c,d
Technology Operation and Concepts: 6.a,b,d

Learning objectives
1. Student will identify one state from the continental USA to plan a road trip in.
2. Student will use Google Maps to design a travel plan in the state they have chosen.
3. Student will design an informational memoir about their travel destinations and publish it
on a Glogster or as a Digital Story.
 TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATED CLASSROOM
LESSON
4. Student will collaborate with the other classmates to connect their road trips on the Class
Wikipsace.

Materials required
20 PC’s,
Color Inkjet Printer,
scanner,
paper,
pens,
index cards,
a Flash drive (optional)
Websites to be used are: Google Maps, Glogster, Digital StoryTelling, Wikispace.

Approximate number of class periods and length

15 class periods over 3 weeks.

Classroom management strategies:

This lesson will begin as an individual project with research in the school library, planning the
road trip and compiling the information on the index cards in the classroom. Each student will
then enter their information onto either the Glogster or as a Digital Story in the Computer Lab.
The project will culminate as a group project as they enter their work onto a class Wikispace.

Warm up
Open up with a clip from the movie “Family Vacation” and follow up with a few questions. How
many of you have ever gone on a road trip? What states in the continental USA have you
traveled to? Have any of you ever had the opportunity to plan your own road trip for your
family?

Activities/ Procedures
In this activity, the students will learn about towns, communities, and cities
within our states by planning and taking a 2 week trip throughout the state
of their choice. During the trip each student must:
• Choose a state from the continental USA.
• Spend 3 periods in the school library gathering information about their state.
• Find 1 or more cities to visit with a population of 500,000 or higher
 TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATED CLASSROOM
LESSON
• Find 1 or more small cities to visit with a population of 499,999 or lower
• Find 1 or more towns to visit with a population between 20,000 and 99,000
• Find the state capitol to visit
• Find 1 or more areas of interest to visit within that state.

Step 1. Hand out and read with the students the directions for the road trip project. Go over the
rubric with the class. Have the students choose from the Glogster or Digital Story options for the
presentation piece of the project. Make sure they understand the process before they begin.

Step 2: Research time: 3 class periods

Go to the school library as a class to do the research for their state and gather their
information requested. CHECK-IN POINT #1 WITH THE TEACHER. .
Step 3: Create a travel plan:
In the classroom, each student will write down their travel destinations and plan their
route. Check in with the teacher to make sure all information is collected and plan is
written out. CHECK-IN POINT #2 WITH THE TEACHER.
Step 4: Computer Lab:
-Open up Google Maps and create a route to all the destinations beginning and ending at
school. This is teacher directed step by step.
-Enter the locations you wish to visit and plan the route you want to take. Make sure you
have each of the following locations:
• 1 or more cities with a population of 500,00 or higher;
• 1 or more small cities with a population of 499,999 or lower
• 1 or more towns with a population between 20,000 and 99,000.
• The state capitol
• 1 or more areas of interest in the state.

-Calculate the miles between the locations and calculate how many hours and/or days you
plan to stay at each location.
-Save your map and route plan. CHECK-IN POINT #3 WITH TEACHER. Once you
have the teacher’s approval print a copy of the map and the route plan to hand in at the
completion of the project.
Step 5: Create a Glog on Glogster or write a Digital Story documenting your stay at each
location.
A.Glogster: Follow the instructions to create a glog on Glogster. You will need to include
the following for each location:
• A photo of an interesting sight from each location you visit.(Go to google images
to find pictures from that location)
• A small caption to go along with each photo with this information:
o The day(s) you spent at each location
o Miles driven since the previous location
o Interesting fact about the location
o The place you plan to go to next
• Include a music piece to go along with the glog.
 TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATED CLASSROOM
LESSON
• CHECK-IN POINT #4 WITH THE TEACHER.
• Save your Glog and embed it on the class Wikispace. (Teacher will help with this)

OR
B. Digital Story: Follow the instructions to create a Digital Story. You will need to
include the following information for each location:
o A photo of an interesting sight from each location you visit (Go to Google images to
find pictures from that location)
o A voice thread for each photo with this information:
o The day(s) you spent at each location
o Miles driven since the previous location
o Interesting fact about each location
o The place you plan to go to next
o Include a music piece to go along with your digital story.
o CHECK-IN POINT #4 WITH THE TEACHER.
o Save your Digital Story and embed it on the class Wikispace. (Teacher will
help with this)
Step 6: Conclusion: Students will hand in their index cards, the map with the route on it, the
route plan with the calculations on it, and the rubric for the project.

To culminate the project as a group, each student will have the opportunity to present their Glog
or Digital Story with the class from the class Wikispace without telling them what state they
traveled in. The Wikispace will be displayed on the Classroom Smartboard. The other students at
that time will guess where in the continental USA this student visited.

Assessment strategies
Road Trip Project is worth 200 pts.
There are 4 CHECK-IN POINTS with the teacher provided throughout the project for an
ongoing assessment of the students’ work. (25 pts.)

TECHNOLOGY RUBRIC:
Glog rubric.doc (50 pts.)

RubiStar for digital story.doc (50 pts.)

Research Report Rubric.doc (50 pts.)

Oral Presentation Rubric.doc (25 pts.)

 TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATED CLASSROOM
LESSON
Web Sites
Websites to be used are: Google Maps, Glogster, Digital StoryTelling, Wikispace.

Back-up plan: (if the technology fails!)

The students will create a Scrapbook page instead of a Glog or Digital story and give an oral
presentation. Each scrapbook page will be bound into one Binder. In this case, the teacher would
use an alternative materials list of: Scrapbook paper, scissors, glue, travel magazines, index
cards, pens, magic markers and stickers.

Branching out
The teacher will allow students with special needs to make a scrapbook page if they are unable to
navigate the computer sites.
Teacher will adapt the number of cities, towns, and areas of interest according to the student’s
abilities.
If there is an ELL student who needs assistance then the teacher will allow the student to partner
with another student.