Introducing the Internet: Messages, Envelopes, Addresses - Competencies Chart

Author: Valerie Steeves
Level: Elementary Cycles One, Two and Three
Subject Area: English Language Arts, Technology
Lesson Link: Introducing the Internet: Messages, Envelopes, Addresses

Description: This lesson helps students understand how electronic messages are delivered over the Internet by introducing them to the concept of dynamic re-routing. Using a "web" composed of photocopies of computers and yarn, students relay segments of messages to the teacher's "computer," where the segments are put together into a coherent whole. Students also discuss the importance of using correct spelling and URLs and discuss online rules for safe Internet use.

This lesson satisfies the following English Language Arts Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

Competency 1: To Read and Listen to Literary, Popular and Information-Based Texts

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses prior knowledge and personal experience of the content of a text
• Use of pictures and other graphic representations to interpret texts
• Questions and talk with others to clarify and enrich interpretations
• Makes predictions, confirmations and inferences, when prompted by the teacher
• Makes connections to prior knowledge or to other texts
• Uses different reading strategies according to the text type
• Develops a personal response process in the context of a community of readers through:
  • Discussion of responses with others individually, on small groups and in the whole class
  • Sharing of responses with others to clarify meaning and enrich interpretation
  • Comparing own responses with those of others at a beginner's level
  • Discussing own response process at a beginner's level
• Moves beyond the initial response through:
  • Responses to texts in a variety of ways that include talking, writing, the Arts, Media
  • Early attempts to explain own views of a text
  • Support for own views with references to the text in small and large group discussions
  • Discussions of structures and features of text and their impact on the reader
  • Discussion of the structures and features of a text and their influence on the meaning of a text
• Sees a text as a construction through:
  • Identification of some of the ways in which information is presented in popular and information-based texts
• Understands the influence of familiar structures and features on the meaning of text through:
  • Identification of some structures and features of familiar text types
• Begins to identify the view of the world presented in a text through:
  • Making of inferences, when prompted, about the view of the world presented by the text
• Recognizes self as a member of a reading audience

Competency 3: To Represent Her/His Literacy in Different Media

Essential Knowledges:

• Uses a repertoire of strategies to unlock messages/meanings in various media texts:
  • Use own questions in order to predict and confirm
  • Draw on prior experience with familiar media texts to understand how they are constructed
  • Rereads/looks again in order to clarify and extend understanding of a text
• Uses structures and features of texts:
  • Compare structures and features of familiar media texts
  • Uses visual texts to communicate information in group productions of media texts
  • Locates similar structures and features in media texts (i.e. a movie and a poster)
  • Uses familiar structures and features to respond to and produce media texts
  • Applies her/his understanding of the structures and features of a range of familiar (media) texts to unlock their messages/meanings
• Makes meaning of a media text by:
  • brainstorming
  • drawing on prior knowledge
  • sharing responses with peers
  • making connections to own experiences
  • returning to text
  • considering some of the functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
  • Using structures and features of the medium and text type in order to clarify meaning and explain her/his response, in collaboration with peers
  • Responding to messages on the computer
• Consider some of the functions of the media through:
  • Collaboration with peers in pairs, small groups and whole class to clarify, decode and respond to media texts
  • Recognizing and naming of familiar media: television, radio, film, magazine, video, Internet, CD-ROM, children's magazines
  • Identifying her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of familiar media texts
  • Looking at some functions of different, familiar media in relation to her/his understanding of the messages/meanings of a text
  • Locating texts that entertain and inform by searching the Internet
  • Describing some of the features of media texts, with content aimed at viewers of the same age and younger, that entertain, inform and promote
• Understands that texts are social and cultural products through:
  • Own response and responses of others:
    • Compares own response with those of peers in order to support and enrich own understanding
    • Explores, with guidance, some of the structures and features for communicating and presenting information in age-appropriate popular and information-based media texts
    • Explores how the structures and features of texts shape meaning for audience

Competency 4: To Use Language to Communicate and Learn

Essential Knowledges:

• Shares information with peers and teacher
• Talks about responses and point of view with peers and teacher
• Asks and answers questions from peers and teacher
• Participates in collaborative improvisation and role-playing activities to communicate experiences and responses:
  • Creation of a scene, given a framework
  • Modelling possible social roles and behaviours
  • Enactment of a specific solution or problem, during a process of discussion or problem solving
• Responds to the ideas and points of view of others with sensitivity and interest
• Talks through new ideas and information
• Examining of alternative points of view and providing reasons for choosing one over the other
• Uses language (talk) for learning and thinking by:
  • Participating in collaborative reading, writing, viewing, visually representing, listening and talking activities:
    • Brainstorming
  • Participating in role-playing, improvisation and storytelling activities to try out new ideas in new situations and for other purposes
• Use of technology resources for collaborative writing, producing and publishing projects for peer audiences
• Listens critically