In the past all of the specialist teachers at our school had tried to connecct to every UOI but we noticed that most of the time you are not making good connections. One example would be doing water painting during a unit about water in the world.
If you are going to try to do that, one thing I found to be benificial is to pay a lot of attention to the concepts and skills that are being covered in the UOI and see if you can make a connection with them. That method still created a problem with the fact that I found myself very limited in time trying to introduce, create and present projects and/or lessons that would never fit in the one hour a week that I have with each class. With only six hours of teaching per unit there still were many problems.
Last January I started to change how I integrate with our teachers. I meet with them at least on a bi-weekly basis where we discuss how we can work together. It has gone really well. I might connect with the UOI or even with something they are covering in Language or Math that might be taught as stand-alone.
What I am trying to do is make my lessons more part of what they are doing in their classrooms and not a seperate class. Yes I still spend time introducing new software and skills but when I do it I explain that we are learning this software to complete part of their work in class. It could be part of the summative or formative assessments or any other part of the unit. At times I will co-teach lessons with the classroom teachers to help the students see how everything is interconnected.
This is a little more difficult with the Year 1 classes, where I tend to begin the year getting to know the students and their computer skill level. This helps me when I will begin to integrate with them on a more later on in the year.
