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Ancient Civilizations Podcast


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Keywords: Ancient Civilizations
Subject(s): Information Skills, Social Studies, Video, Technology, Podcasting, Journalism, Special Needs, Drama, History, Speech and Language
Grade 7
NETS-S Standard:
  • Creativity and Innovation
  • Communication and Collaboration
  • Research and Information Fluency
  • Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
  • Digital Citizenship
  • Technology Operations and Concepts
View Full Text of Standards
School: Southern Middle School, Lexington, KY
Planned By: Ryan King
Original Author: Ryan King, Lexington
Students are put in groups to research and to write a script for the newscast. Each group is responsible for covering material from one of the major units of study from the year (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Greece, Rome, Middle Ages).

Students will select roles in each group. Roles include video editor, director (time manager), head script writer, set design.

Each newscast will include an introduction and news stories on a war, government, entertainment, an interview with a famous person, and a story about an invention. Of course, each news story will be from the perspective of the time period and location of each civilization.

The introduction will be an informative speech including the location of the civilization, the years that it ruled, and some of its major contributions to the world.

Students will get the information from the text book, select library books, class notes, and internet research.

Students will complete the following graphic organizer to help create their podcast script:

1.Introduction:
• Location of Civilization (use maps, drawings, globes, etc.)
• Years Ruled
• Major Contributions
• Fun Facts!

2. War Story


3. Government Story


4. Entertainment Story


5. Interview (famous person from the time period)


6. Invention or major contribution

Comments
This lesson supports multiple intelligences and a wide variety of learning styles. Students will enjoy using technology to edit their podcast with the help of software and a lap top.

Middle School students tend to really love acting, technology, and the drama involved in the scripts that they create for their newstory.

Cross-Curriculum Ideas
English and writing for the scripts
Drama and speech for the performance of the podcast
Technology for editing, downloading, and saving the podcast
Follow-Up
Students will watch each podcast and take notes on each civilizations culture, achievements, and interesting facts. They will also critique the production value of each podcast based on the simple application of editing, creativity, completeness, and overall quality.

After watching all the podcasts students will have a Formative year-end Summative Assessment covering all the major civilizations that we have studied.
Materials: Video Cameras, Flip Video, CDs and DVDs, Flash/USB Drives, Podcasting, Video Tools
Other Items: 7 Flip Video Cameras , $170 each, total of $1190.00
10 Flash/USB Drives, $10 each, total of $100.00
1 DVD - R, $50 each, total of $50.00
1 podcasting/video editing software, $75 each, total of $75.00