Intel Thinking Tools

Intel Thinking Tools is a set of free applications made by the Intel company for teachers to use to help them incorporate technology into their classrooms. There are three tools: Seeing Reasoning tool, Visual Ranking tool, and Showing Evidence tool- all of which include project ideas and lesson plans to inspire teachers to use the pre-existing plans and also allows them to easily make changes to the projects to better suit their own needs. The Seeing Reasoning Tool is an application that uses an interactive diagram, or "casual map", that helps students to lay out their ideas and make connections with a comment feature that allows for other group members or the teacher to make notes. The Visual Ranking Tool is an application that utilizes an easy-to-use list feature where students can list, rank, change, comment, and compare their projects. The Showing Evidence Tool is more complex. Here, the students state a claim, add and rate evidence and sources to support their claim, and interact with other members of the group and the teacher.

Using the Showing Evidence Tool, I selected a lesson plan for 5-8 grade students about the National Debt. The goal of the project is to support (and dispute) the claim that the National Debt is a major problem. Then, after learning about the debt and using the Showing Evidence Tool to see evidence of the problem, students are instructed to create a media message about the problem. This lesson incorporates the TPCK approach to learning because it incorporates technology with the use of the Intel tools, as well as a well-thought out lesson plan (Pedagogy, and reinforces the content of what the students are learning, while inspiring the students to research and make use of their research. Below are some screen captures that document the project process.

(Project Description)

(Teams)

(Example) This activity relates to the ISTE NETS T Standard 4b: 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. b. Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources This goal was accomplished by showing us the Intel Thinking Tools that incorporate a number of different learning styles with their digital tools and then providing lesson plans to help us to achieve these techniques in our own classrooms.