Major Flop

Our neighborhood unit had been going so well until this week in the computer lab. I experienced a major flop with a first grade lesson. It seemed like everything was going to be fine. The first activity was a website were the kids had to listen to some descriptions of workers in a community. There was audio and photos with good information about doctors, teachers, utility workers, veterinarians, police officers and firemen. Then at the end of each presentation the students had to answer some questions about what they just heard and read. This was ok to test comprehension. It even gave the correct answers at the end.

The flop happened on the next activity. There was a slide show presentation that I was showing to the first graders. There were good photos of many different people doing different jobs in the community. There was good vocabulary because the photos showed many different jobs and tools that were used for these different jobs. But the kids became very restless and couldn’t focus on the slides. It got worse with every slide. I finally had to give up and let them back on the computers. It was a huge waste of time.

After reflection the answer became obvious. The slide show was boring and too long. There was no audio or video only photos. There were too many photos and too many jobs. There were over 25 slides. I never even got to the end. It was too painful. The first activity of the day was much better because the students were actively engaged. They were not even using the computers for the slide show. Later in the week we played some vocabulary bingo with photos and words to learn the neighborhood vocabulary that we need to learn and it was much more fun. I will not be using the boring slide show in the future. There are better ways to learn the important vocabulary.

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