Technology Lesson Plans for childrens

Technology Lesson Plans

Enjoy these free technology lesson plans that are perfect for teaching students about a range of cool technology topics. Try the great hands on lessons or fun computer activities for kids and make the most of the useful teaching ideas and education resources. The activities include movie making, robotics, web design, soldering, building Lego cars and digital photo editing with Photoshop.

1.Movie Making Activity

This lesson is all about movie making fun for kids. Learn some of the basics and enjoy creating your own movies and burning them to DVD so you can watch them whenever you want. Using this Windows Movie Maker lesson will help teach students important film making tips and techniques and allow them to be creative in making their own movie. After watching all their work you can then show them how to make a DVD for them to take home.

Important movie making things to think about:

• Point of view - from whose perspective is the story being told?
• Do you want captions before, on or after the pictures?
• Length of scenes.
• Background music and sounds.
• Text effects, size and colour.
• Transitions from scene to scene e.g. fade, star swipe etc.
• Story stages - Introducing the characters and storyline, developing the story, story climax, ending, credits.

Instructions:

• Set up computers with both speakers and the windows movie maker program loaded. It is also helpful to have a number of stock images, sound and music resources available.
• Students can work individually or in pairs.
• Introduce that in this class they will be learning to use Windows Movie Maker and creating their own movies.
• Hand out a worksheet that lets students come up with a theme, main characters, brief story outline etc (as stated in the important movie making things above). It’s ok if they don’t fully complete their sheet yet, they will come up with more ideas and change their sheet as they go.
• Turn on your computer and show the class an example of a ready made movie telling them to look out for things like sound effects, scene transitions, title overlays, main characters, story etc.
• Ask them a few questions about what they saw, what did they like? What would they do differently?
• Load up Windows Movie Maker making sure to show the students what icon you clicked.
• If you have them available then show the students where all the image, sound and movie resources are stored. They can add more resources to this area by uploading their own images, sounds and songs from a personal CD, USB stick or similar memory device.
• Make a quick example movie with the class, this is the best way to show how the program works.
• Show how the storyboard works and the difference between this and the timeline view (the timeline view lets you see the movie as a whole, with titles, sounds & music as well as the images which are the only thing shown in the storyboard view.
• Show how to drag things into the storyboard and timeline and explain how to lengthen and shorten scenes, music and sounds.
• Explain that they are missing a title to introduce the movie. This can be made by clicking ‘tools’ and then ‘titles and credits’, from here they can type in words that will appear on screen, they can also alter the colour, font and animation that goes with the text. Titles are very useful and can explain what is happening throughout their stories.
• You can now introduce transitions and video effects. Transitions are the link between scenes and can include things like pixelate (when dreaming for example) or star swipe (when introducing a character) etc. Video effects alter the look of images, if you are making a story set in the past then you might like to add an old, grainy effect for example.
• Show how to save their work and remind how important this is! Movie Maker auto saves every 10mins but it also important to save whenever possible.
• Answer any questions they have.
• Let them begin.
• Move around the room helping the students, making sure they are on track and know what they are doing. This is a good time to remind them to save their work!
• If they can’t find images they want then they are welcome to draw their own in Paint, before dragging their work into the Movie Maker collections area and finally onto their storyboard.
• Try to get them to finish with around 30 minutes left. Suggest adding credits to the end of their movie so everyone knows who made it.
• Save as much of the students work as you think you will have time to show as a movie file (file > save as movie file > recommended settings).
• Copy the student’s work to your computer and let everyone watch each others work with a projector.
• If you want to you can also burn their movies onto DVD’s and let them take them home to watch whenever they want.

Burning a DVD for each student to take home:

• After they have left, clean up their movies and remove anything that will make them unnecessarily long.
• Save as a movie file (DV-AVI, not the recommended setting which was used previously).
• Convert this file to a DVD capable file (ie .VOB) using an AVI converter such as WinAVI.
• Place the VOB and related files in a file labelled VIDEO_TS, also make an empty folder named AUDIO_TS.
• Load up a DVD burning program, drag the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders into the burning program and begin burning!
• Copy one DVD for each student or as needed.

2.Design & Build Lego Cars

Students will have fun as they design and build a Lego car. This activity for kids will challenge their design skills as they try and build a vehicle that will fit they specific needs required of it.

Use the lesson plan and help your students build some cool Lego cars while allowing scope for more challenges if you have motors or Lego Mindstorms equipment available.

Introduction & building :

• Lego is a great resource for building various objects so today let’s make use of it to make some awesome Lego cars!
• We want cars that are fast, sleek and sporty as well as rugged and powerful. Would yours be better suited to driving up a steep mountain, going over rocky terrain or speeding around a race track?
• Before they start, let the students think about what kind of car they want to build, what it well be suited for doing and how they intend to make it.
• Talk about some of the important things their cars will need, like wheels, axles and a good steering system.
• Show the children how to use the Lego pieces and even make a basic example vehicle for them so they get the idea.
• Choose whether you’d like the children working individually or in pairs (the decision might come down to how much Lego equipment you have).
  

Testing:

• Set up an area for testing. It’s great if you have different surfaces for the students to test on and even better if you’ve got an uphill road and a racetrack. The kids can work in small groups to test their cars, making changes to the design as they go.
• You can also introduce competitions such as races, hill climb challenges, rough terrain challenges or a test of strength to see who has made the strongest car. If you have small prizes available then they make a great incentive for the students to do their best.
• This activity can be done with basic Lego equipment but works even better with motors or Lego Mindstorms robotic equipment which allows the students to program their cars to perform the actions they want.

3.Introduction to Robotics

This robotics introduction teaches the basics of the robot world, offering robot information covering everything from artificial intelligence to robot mechanics and robots in industries such as car manufacturing and the military.

Learn about robots with the concepts provided in this great technology lesson plan.

Definitions:

• What does the word ‘robotics’ mean? - The science or study of the technology associated with the design, fabrication, theory, and application of robots.
• What about ‘robot’? - Robots are any machine that does work on its own, automatically.

Artificial Intelligence:

• What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? - The ability of a computer or other machine to perform those activities that are normally thought to require intelligence. It is also referred to as the branch of computer science concerned with the development of machines having this ability.

Some questions to think about:

• Will robots ever really be able to think for themselves?
• Will computers ever be smarter than humans? Are they already?
• Will robots ever pose a threat to humans?

Robot Mechanics:

• As well as programming robots to be as intelligent as possible, scientists also work hard on building robot that can perform a number of complex movements as well as utilizing a variety of sensors.

Important things to think about:

• Purpose - What is the robot being built to do?
• Materials - What will be used to build the robot? (Plastic, metal etc)
• Joints
• Size
• Center of gravity
• Sensory inputs - Vision, Hearing, Touch, Smell, Taste

Robots in Industry:

• Robots are ideal for doing precise, repetitive or dangerous tasks. Around 90% of robots are used in factories with half of these being used in the automobile industry.
                         

Robots and robotic arms are frequently used for:

• Car manufacturing
• Military - Bomb disposal, weapons, army surveillance
• Medical - Surgery, X-Rays, life support
• Space - Shuttles, International Space Station, mars rovers

4.Soldering Lesson

Soldering is a great skill to have and while it can be easy to learn it is often a difficult skill to master. Teach kids the basics of soldering and let them experiment for themselves, using a soldering iron to solder various objects together.

This soldering lesson will teach them how to solder as well as some good soldering tips.

video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLfXXRfRIzY

Introduction:

• Tell the students that today they are going to be learning about soldering.  Find out who has used soldering irons before and what kind of things they have used them on. Discuss how the irons work and what equipment they will need to use. Make sure to go over the safety precautions in detail.
• Check out this video for a basic soldering guide.

  

Giving it a go:

• Children can work by themselves or in pairs depending on numbers. They will need a soldering iron and solder as well as some wire and nails. The children can start out by experimenting how to solder bits and pieces together.
• When the children have become reasonably competent with the soldering irons get them to have a go at repairing some of the other equipment that needs soldering or get them to make a simple circuit using a light bulb, battery, buzzer and wires.
• Allow the children to have a lot of time experimenting as they learn how to solder properly. Let them take as long as they want but have some harder challenges ready for those that learn fast.

5.Photoshop Activities

Use computers to manipulate digital photos in fun ways by learning the basics of Photoshop. These activities offer Photoshop fun for kids that will help teach them about effects and other digital photo editing techniques.

Take some of your own digital photos and complete the range of fun challenges. The activities are simple to try and make for some great lesson ideas.

Fix my car:

• Firstly, take a digital photo of an old looking car with dents or scratches in it, and then upload it to your computer. Next, imagine you’ve borrowed your friend’s car while they’re on holiday but you’ve had a bit of an accident and the car now looks like the one you’ve taken a photo of. They want to see a photo of their car in perfect condition so you’ll need to remove the dents and scratches from the car photo using tools such as the smudge tool and clone stamp tool.

Warped:

• Someone you know has had a rough week, cheer them up by warping either a photo of yourself or a photo of a famous person to make it look really funny. Try some of the great Photoshop distort filter tools such as ‘twirl’.

Head swap:

• Prove to your friends and family that you (or someone else) are famous or were “really there” by cutting and pasting a photo of your own head onto the head of another person. The lasso and magic wand tool are great for this kind of challenge.

Get arty:

• You’ve decided to enter an artistic photo competition. Choose a photo and get creative with some of the Photoshop tools and see what you can come up with, the more creative the better!

Business logo:

• You and your friend have just gone into business together, decide what your business is about and design a logo to suit. For this challenge you will have to start from scratch by creating a completely new image.

6.Web Design Lesson Plan

Learn how to make a website with this easy to follow lesson plan that's fun for kids. Get some great hints and tips on how to use the basics of Dreamweaver, creating web pages as part of your own website.

Web design is fun to learn about and will allow you to express your own web ideas, using links, images, text and other resources to create a site devoted to anything you want! This lesson will give you the help you need to get started today.

Introduction:

• Working by yourself or in a team of 2, your mission is to create your own web page. We will use Dreamweaver to create the web pages but you are free to use other programs such as Photoshop & Paint to draw pictures or make fancy graphics.
• Important things to think about include the structure of a website, will it be dynamic or a classic tree hierarchy? How are websites viewed on the Internet? (through web browsers on computers, mobile phones etc). Why is it important to make your website easy for others to use? (otherwise they might not visit again). What kind of things can you remember to do to make sure this happens? (easy layout, menus etc).

Thing you might want to include on your web page or website include:

• Photos from a camera.
• Pictures & images from your computer.
• Anything you want to write about.
• Graphics you have created yourself.
• Links to friends pages or other websites you recommend.
• Anything else you can think of or learn about along the way.

Website making instructions:

• The following is a general guide for making your web page or a source of tips if you get a little stuck along the way.
• You can see how your web page will look on the internet at any stage by pressing the F12 button while in Dreamweaver, this will open your page in Internet Explorer.
• Remember to frequently save your work by pressing ctrl-s, you can also undo mistakes you make or things you don’t like by pressing ctrl-z.

Getting started:

• Open Dreamweaver.
• Create new HTML.
• Save as example.html (any name is fine but save as index.html if the page will be your website homepage).
• Take note of the ‘Layout’ menu at the top of the screen, there are 2 options, standard & layout. Layout is good for making tables and designing the layout of your page, standard is used when doing anything else.
• Take note of the ‘Properties’ menu at the bottom of the page, this has all the usual word processing options such as text size, colour, font, alignment as well as ‘link’, useful for making links to other pages/sites.
• Drag tables where you would like to place images, text, links etc. This will be your page layout. Clicking on the green table icon allows you to draw tables while clicking on the blue icon allows you to draw cells inside the tables.
• You can now start adding things like text and images to your page!

Images:

• When making a website it is important to allow the pages to load on someone’s computer screen as fast as possible, so rather than using huge images it’s a good idea to resize them beforehand.
• Once you have done this you can use the images by going through the insert > image menu in Dreamweaver. Put the images wherever you want on your page & remember that you can align them to the left, right or centre.
• Extra: Try using rollover images, insert > image object > rollover image. When your mouse moves over the original image it will change to a new one, try to make the 2 images the same size. One idea is to use a question mark image & have it change to something funny or unexpected.

Linking:

• You can link your page to a friends or even another website if you want.
  1. Write some descriptive text (eg Ralph’s awesome page!).
  2. Highlight it.
  3. Find the ‘link’ section in the properties menu (at bottom of page) and type in the full address of the page or website you’d like to link to (make sure it’s exactly correct otherwise it won’t work properly).

Final words:

• Try to make your page as original as possible, adding colour is a great idea and you might even like to give your page a theme (eg animals, spooky, sports, funky etc).
• Good luck and have fun!

7.Fun Robot Activities

Enjoy some great robot activities that your students will love. These fun robot ideas for kids feature activities that can be easily done in the classroom.

Teaching robotics is a blast and even better if you’ve got some great activities organized that will challenge children and make them think more about what kind of role robotics plays in the modern world.

Blindfold walking activity:

• Senses are very important for both humans and robots, try walking around without the use of our most important sense, vision.
• Set up a simple course, split students into pairs and let one them try and walk around the course blindfolded as the other student follows them round and makes sure they don't walk into any trouble. Ask the students how they found walking around without being able to see, do they appreciate their sense of sight a bit more now?

Chat bot activity:

• Load up a website that features a good chat bot, here's a couple of good suggestions:
• http://alice.pandorabots.com
• http://www.mrmind.com/mrmind3
• How long will it take for us to confuse the chat bot? Why is it so hard for programs like these to understand our languages?

Robots in the media:

• List as many robot themed tv shows or movies as you can e.g. the Terminator, Robocop, Transformers etc. How many can you come up with? Are the robots seen in these shows good, bad or both? Why?

Is it easy to make a robot that performs tasks like a human?

• In a word, no. Tying your shoelaces is easy right? Would it be so easy if you were designing a robot to do it? Try tying your shoelaces with ice block sticks attached to yours index finger and thumb.
• Replicating the dexterity of human fingers is just one of the challenges that face scientists and engineers who make things like robotic arms and humanoid robots.