This collection of lesson plans has been compiled and edited by David J. Rosen, former director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute. The writers of these lesson plans were teachers (and other practitioners) who were enrolled in the Spring, 1996 Boston Internet Training Project workshops funded by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Education. Time to produce this document was made possible by the Editor's 1995-1996 fellowship from the National Institute for Literacy.

Each lesson plan uses a Web site which the writer thought would be useful for her/his students.  

Participants:

Urban, Black and Latina women on AFDC working to get their GED's. They can all use commercial educational software, whether it is on a CD or the hard disk. We are encouraging each to learn to use the word processor in Microsoft Works.

Objectives:

1) to help students understand that women's history has not been included in the "official" accounts and needs to be; 2) to enable each student to connect with the story of a woman in a field of interest to her; 3) to give students the opportunity to practice writing and word processing skills.

Materials:

4 computers - one with Internet access, one with Grolier Encyclopedia , one with Webster's Encyclopedia, one with Her Heritage

Preparation:

Ask students to list three events in US history. Compare lists. Ask who's missing from the picture. Talk about history always being told from a particular point of view. Tell them about quote I found on Internet: The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed-upon myth of its conquerors. LeSueur. Discuss. Would they like to visit a site dedicated to uncovering women's history?

Description:

Students will divide into three groups. Group 1 will access the National Women's History Project. Each will choose an occupation of interest, then a woman's name in that list. They will then do a search using Lycos for any other net references to that woman.

Group 2 will access the Grolier and Webster encyclopedias and search to find each woman's name. If one is found, information will be printed out. Group 3 will access the software for Her Heritage and will find and print information available there on the women in question. Then the groups will rotate so that each student has an opportunity to choose an occupation and a name. Each will also have the chance to experience the frustration of not being able to find women's stories in traditional sources.

Follow-up: Each student will write one paragraph on the woman she has chosen, indicating her contribution to our history. These will the be entered on a word processor and shared with the group. The paragraphs themselves will be put in chronological order according to the birthdate of the woman and placed in a binder to be kept in the classroom with other history resource books.

Participants

Beginning-level adult literacy students, non native English speakers who have no computer experience.

Objectives

Participants:
1. learn to read and use maps.
2. gain introductory knowledge of computer, mouse and Internet.
3. learn to travel around the city
4. begin exposure to culture and history of the city.

Activities

1. Participants go to a Web maps site such as Mapquest.

2. Participants will also access MBTA bus and subway schedules and route maps through the MBTA Map.

3. After becoming familiar and comfortable with the various maps, participants will concentrate on the Copley Square area of Boston, using the interactive street map. They will learn North, South, East, and West directions and will relate streets to each other and to subway stations and bus stops. Using the interactive street map they will relate Copley Square to the Dudley area (in which our adult education program, WAITT House, is located) so they will know how to go to and from both sites.

4. Participants will get printouts of the street maps and the subway and bus route maps needed to travel between Dudley Square and Copley Square.

5. As a follow-up lesson, the group will visit Copley Square, including the Boston Public Library, Trinity Church and other historic sites, as well as Copley Place and the Prudential Center.

6. Participants will actually travel by bus and subway to the sites. Later they will relate these to Internet activities.

This lesson would be part of a series of lessons which included:

1) Using the computer, mouse, and printer
2) Introduction to the Internet
3) Introduction to and reading of various maps, e.g. of their own countries, the United States, Boston.

Participants:

There are fourteen students in the Intermediate ESOL class for which this lesson was designed. They live in Dorchester, Quincy, South Boston and Charlestown. On average they have been in the United States for two years. Four of the students are from Albania, three from Haiti, one from Poland, three from the Dominican Republic, and three from Vietnam.

Objectives:

- find same site through different "exists" on the Internet
- read and understand the fable of the "very thirsty pigeon"
- recognize the use of fables in their own culture and tradition

Activities:

A. This class has already learned to move around on the Internet in a limited way. Today we are going to look at two ways of getting to:

The MetroBoston CWEIS.

The students are working in pairs at computers. With me they will move through the information pages. They will be told that they can "explore" one or two possible sites. I will ask questions for them to share with the others what they have discovered through their choices. Together we will find and go to:

Fluency through Fables

This, of course, the students will find as a more direct route! It is here that we will move through the lesson on fables.

B. Reading: Each student will read the fable to the other.

- new vocabulary: students will help each other understand new word
- one student will read the fable out loud to the whole class

C. Comprehension: There are various possibilities offered for understanding this fable. We will "click" the TRUE OR FALSE COMPREHENSION EXERCISES. Students will do this exercise in pairs. When they are finished, they will check their answers with the answer sheet provided "on site" and then we will talk about the fable as a class. This conversation will help students understand their incorrect answers and come to fuller understanding of the fable.

D. Comprehension Plus! I will ask the students if this story reminds them of stories from their own countries. I will ask them to try to remember stories told them in childhood, or studied in school.

"Who wants to share a story with the class?"
"Who told you the story?"
"What did you learn from the story when you first heard it?"
" What does it teach you today?"

E. Homework: Write a short fable from your country. Underline the words you think will be new words for the class.

Participants:

Parents in a Spanish/English biligual adult ESOL class.

Objective:

Getting acquainted with the Internet

Skills:

Translation, reading comprehension, surfing the "Net."
 

1. The class starts with the question: "Where do you send your children during the summer?" The teacher writes the students' ideas on the board.

2.. The teacher gives students the directions below for surfing the Internet:
 

a. Go to Netscape

b. From the top menu, click on Net Search

c. In the white box type: Summer Camps

d. Choose: Colonias de Vacaciones
e. Read in Spanish and English. Explore all options. (Remember to go to
all the underlined choices.)

f. Read the Canciones . Translate two songs.

g. Got to Home. Finish your search.

h. Answer the following questions:

1. Was this information helpful?
2. How was your first Internet experience?
3. Would you like more of these assignments? If so, on what topics?

Participants:

Adult education grant writers and want-to-be grant writers.

Description:

This is a list of fourWeb sites which may be useful to those seeking additional funds for their adult education programs through public, foundation and corporation grants.

1. Grants Central Station

This is a special service of the CURE to grant writers and want-to-be grant writers who work to improve the services for inner city youth, elderly, and minority communities and for low-income people in general. As indicated by its name, Grants Central Station puts together almost all the tools and resources you will need to learn about grants writing, accomplish needs analyses, and search for corporate, foundation and federal funds. Check it out! It's amazing.

2. Non-profit Resources Catalogue

3. The Foundation Center

4. Corporate Funding - Academic Innovations