Third Grade
Conductors and Insulators for the Portfolio
• This portfolio activity will be completed after the science activity in Magnets and Electricity about Conductors and Insulators.
• In the classroom each student should come up with a list of 3 conductors and 3 Insulators.
• Bring student work to the computer lab.
• Students will be working in Microsoft Word. They need to type their name and date at the top of the page. The students will then add the title: Conductors and Insulators.
• Below their title they will begin with the Conductors. They should type: Conductors: and then hit ‘enter’.
• The students will now insert 3 pictures of conductors.
• These are the directions to help your students do this (It might be helpful for you to have an example on the In Focus machine for the students to follow along with):
• “Be sure your cursor is on the line below ‘Conductors.’”
• “Move your cursor up to the tool bar and find the word Insert. Scroll down to the word ‘picture’ and then move the cursor over to ‘clipart’ and click.”
• “ Students click in the ‘Search for Clips’ box and type in your conductor. Then hit the ‘enter’ key.”
• “Choose the picture you like best and click on it. A new tool bar will pop up. Choose the first choice at the top. This will insert your picture into your document.”
• “ The picture may be too big or too small for your page. To change the size of your picture click on it and a box will appear around it. Choose one of the points at one of the corners and click and drag toward the middle of the picture to make it smaller or click and drag out to make it bigger. Keep doing this until you get your picture the size you want it.”
• Repeat above steps for the other 2 conductors you are going to put in your document. Be sure to click OUT OF the box surrounding the picture you just inserted, before you insert another picture or your first picture will disappear.
• When the students have all 3 conductors they will hit the ‘enter’ key and type: Insulators: and then hit ‘enter’.
• They will follow the same steps to include 3 pictures of insulators.
• Students will then write a short reflection about how the technology enhanced what they did in the classroom. They can add this reflection to the bottom of the page their pictures are on. Their reflection might look something like this:
“ I liked how I could pick the pictures of my conductors and insulators. There were lots of choices.”
• EXTENTION: If you have time and the know-how the students can go back and format their fonts and put spaces between their pictures.
• EXTENTION: following website is an excellent online game for conductors and insulators: http://www.pge.com/microsite/PGE_dgz/wires/resist.html
This can be played on the SMART Board or on an In Focus machine with the whole class, or the students can go there on their own computers and play by themselves. (It is really fun to play as a whole class, and guess which objects will be conductors and which will be insulators.) You may want to preview the site before you use it with your class, so you know how everything works!
• Students will save their work into their X drive folders.
• To Save work in their X drive folder:
• Go to the top of the page and click on File, and then scroll down to ‘Save As’
• Have the students click on the down arrow in the ‘Save In’ box.
• The students then need to choose their X drive from the pop down list, and click on it.
• They should then change the file name to “Conductors and Insulators” and finally click ‘Save’.
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Content Areas Covered:
• Science
Technology Standards covered by this activity:
• Basic operations and concepts
• Technology productivity tools
Technology Skills covered by this activity:
• Use keyboards and other common input and output devices (including adaptive devices when necessary) efficiently and effectively.
• Use general-purpose productivity tools and peripherals to support personal productivity, remediate skill deficits, and facilitate learning throughout the curriculum.
• Use technology tools (e.g., multimedia authoring, presentation, Web tools, digital cameras, scanners) for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom.
• Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem solving, self-directed learning, and extended learning activities.