Digital Mapping- Follow Me Through My Community by Jackie Whitlow

Unit: Community Helpers

The unit that I am teaching is for first grade students and is about community helpers. The students are learning about various types of people in the community, their jobs, locations, what they wear, and how they help make the community a better place. The students will learn about where to find these people in the community in relation to the school and their homes. The school is like a small community within the surrounding community, and the students are very familiar with this area. I will start with community helpers within the school and move outwards to better explain the concepts of community helpers to the students.

To incorporate technology into my unit, I am going to have the students make a map of the school using digital photographs. The students will take pictures of the places around the school where community helpers work including the principal, teachers, the nurse, janitors, librarian, lunch room staff, etc. After taking the pictures, the students will be able to upload these pictures to the computer with some assistance from the teacher and print them off. A bulletin board in the classroom will be used to make a map of the school and the photographs will be posted on the board in their correct location. Space will be saved on the board to expand the map outside the school. Students will be asked to take pictures of different community helpers outside of school on their own time, or they can simply do an internet search to find pictures with help from their parents. Parents can either print these pictures off for the students to bring in for the map or email them to the teacher to add to the map. When the bulletin board is full, the students will work in pairs to type a small list of facts about each community helper to place beside the pictures on the board.