LISTEN-SEE-SPEAK-WRITE

What form of communication is your favorite?

Welcome to the Communications WebQuest
Fourth Grade Level

Designed by
J Raney
Speech Pathologist
e-mail
[email protected]
 

INTRODUCTION

    What is your favorite TV program? How do you listen to your favorite music?  What is your favorite book?  How do you speak with your grandparents who live in another country?  How do you create colorful art?  What is the name of the latest movie you want to  watch?  Do you use the computer?  Do you write with a pen and pencil?  How was your latest school picture taken?  Have you ever heard your own voice as other do?
    So, you watch colored TV everyday!  You listen with earphones to your latest CD on a CD player you carry in your hand.  You read the latest comic book or Harry Potter novel.  You use your cell phone to talk with friends as you cruise the mall a block away or in another country across the ocean.  No, you use the e-mail feature of your computer instead.  You use color markers to finish your recent poster project and present your report to your classmates using a microphone so your voice is heard in the last row of your classroom.  After that you watch a movie at the theater or better yet use your own TV and VCR or DVD player.  While looking at the movie your eye moves toward a friend's school picture sitting on your computer table.  The picture is signed with a retractable gel pen. 

    Where did all these cool inventions come from?  Which one is your favorite and why?  Which one could you live without and why?  Gather up your archeological supplies and prepare for an archeological dig into communication inventions from ancient cultures to the present and beyond. 

TASK

    It is now up to you and your team of explorers to discover five different types of communication that have been invented in the last 3000 years.  Using the suggested ideas above each team or 4 students is to uncover:

• When the method was discovered.   

• If the communication method has changed over time.  

• If the change made its use better or worse then the original purpose and if so, why? 

• How has the invention changed lives, if it has.  

• Would you as a team have enjoyed living and using the invention at the time of discovery, why? 

• How well would you and your team members function today without the discovery of your favorite communication invention?         

• Think of additional changes which could occur in the future with your favorite system and tell how these changes would make it a more useful invention. 

• Explain which invention your team is willing to give up and why. 

PROCESS

    You team will explore available websites, as well other media resources suggested by your teacher, to locate the history of your five chosen inventions.  Make sure that your teacher knows which five communication systems your team chooses so that teams will not research more than two of the same inventions.  Using the five inventions, each team will make a Timeline  from time of discovery to the present outlining -
    1. How the invention's use has changed, if it has.
    2. How the invention affected society in the past and it's present day affect on lives.
    3.  How the five inventions affected society in the past and it's present day effect on lives.

The Timeline will make use of at least three different forms of communication.  For example:  You may select to use paper,  photographs, magazines, drawings in black and white or color, stamping, the computer.  The choice is yours.  Your timeline will be displayed for class viewing before you complete the final project. 

    The final team project will be an oral class presentation demonstrating the function of all five inventions using at least three different forms of present day communication.  The report will:   
    *Explain how each invention was used and by whom.
    *State changes made over time.
    *Explain how the invention changed expectations of the user.
    *Reflect on future uses including how the invention could change current use.
    *Predict how changes could affect society in the future. 

    Team members will decide before digging into research who will construct what part of the Timeline, who will present part/s of the oral presentation and who will construct the visual aids for the final project.

    Presentations may include video, audio tape, photographs, overhead projector, TV monitor, computer-Power Point.  Think through the inventions you choose.  How can each be used in your presentation. 

    Each team member is encouraged to use a Communication Worksheet while collecting data.  The worksheet may be used to make a written list of inventions, advantages, disadvantages, and changes over time.  Team members will compare notes to complete the final project.

Suggested Links:
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm
http://www.timechange.com/3m/
http:library.thinkquest.org/27981/calendar.html
http:inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/communication.htm
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_4_2_comm.asp
http://www.msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/as/benviron/4/asbe4.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/26451/newmenu.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1300.shtml
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/inventors.htm
http://www.luc.edu/faculty/jreymon/demosite/mass.htm
http://www.worldhistorysite.com/report1.html
http://www.yahooligans.com/science_and_nature/machines/Inventions/

Communication Worksheet  
Communication Student Self
Teachers
Standards