Inquiry is all about asking questions in order to better understand a topic while growing your knowledge base. What better way to learn about a topic than by exploring everything it has to offer using digital media?
True or false? The internet has access to many genres of reading from newspaper magazines to pictures from a long time ago. True! We can use the internet to help us explore a topic in depth and develop questions that we can find the answer to through reading published articles, looking at pictures, and even watching videos.
Taking what we have learned about in class in regards to celebrating Black History Month all throughout February, you are invited to chose an African American of your choice and explore his or her accomplishments. Ask yourself why this individual is important and explore his or her accomplishments as an African American your iPad and Symbaloo.
You may be asking yourself "What is Symbaloo exactly?". Well that is a good question! Symbaloo is an iPad app that makes it easy for you to search the web and save, or "bookmark", all of your favorite websites in one spot. It is a fun way to organize information based off of a topic, which for the purpose of this project is Black History Month. When you are done, all of the information you found about your specific African American will be in one spot and you will have created a visually appealing and organize inquiry presentation celebrating Black History Month!
Step 1: Brainstorm a list of influential African Americans. If you are struggling to come up with someone, take a look at the list below and feel free to chose anyone who sparks your inquiry.
| Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. | Booker T. Washington | Dorothy Height |
| Ernie Barnes | Barack Obama | Rosa Parks |
| Nina Simone | Harriet Tubman | Sylvia Woods |
Step 2: Once you have selected your influential African American to study his or her accomplishments, stop and think! Think about what you know about this person using her background knowledge before you begin exploring. Feel free to use resources in the room.
Step 3: You are ready to begin exploring all about your African American leader! Think back up to the top when I mentioned Symbaloo...Now it is time to learn how to use Symbaloo to keep track of all the exciting things you find distinguishing your African American leader's accomplishments and impact.
Step 4: Using you iPad, find the app called Symbaloo. The icon has a blue circle with nine dots inside of it. You will use Symbaloo to search the web and save websites containing articles, pictures, games, trivia, videos, etc. about the African American you chose.The variety of genres you can find containing information on the internet is limitless and I invite you to be creative in the resources you find celebrating the accomplishments and life of the African American you chose. In the end, you will have created a Symbaloo dashboard spotlighting an influential African American.
Source: This example is based upon my experience as a dancer and the inquiry it promoted.
Below is a list of exactly what I am looking for when you turn in your own Symbaloo.
1. You must have at least 16 links (also known as icons) on your Symbaloo linking to outside material specific to your Black History Month Leader.
2. You must include at least 4 different modes of reseach found on the internet. Examples include YouTube videos, newspaper articles, eBooks, tutorials, etc.
3. The information you find must be relevant to your Black History Month Leader and their accomplishments.
This lesson plan is for teacher use only. Students do not need to view this document but will stop with the previous section.
