HOW IT WORKS
The Jewel of the Nile focuses on Ancient Egypt for its cultural wealth and historic implications. Technology advances students’ resources by providing a great deal of research materials and enabling each student to organize materials found by using semantic maps. This hands-on approach personalizes the understanding of the subject matter and makes for a more meaningful learning experience. Selecting catchy titles such as "The Jewel of the Nile" for this program and “The Mummification of Pyrus Malus” for an iMovie the students create makes the students hooked on learning. 

Early in the program, the class takes a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view the Ancient Egypt exhibit. Within a classroom of 30 students, the children are placed on four leveled teams. Each team has a leader who has computer skills. The teacher trains these students before and after school to become “mini mentors” for their peers. This process is ongoing, with the goal of each child becoming proficient on the computer by March. All the research that the children gather is placed on the desktop in a folder labeled “Egypt Research.” The main activities used for the mummification of pyrus malus (an apple) are gathering information on the Internet, utilizing note-taking strategies, writing a report, narrative procedure, and poetry in standard form. Children are trained to use a digital camera. Then they import the images onto an iMovie. This movie is shared with the entire school at an annual science fair. The students create a web page displaying their iMovie so that other students can view the “The Mummification of Pyrus Malus.” 

THE STAFF
Candice Lowe graduated from Towson University with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and recently received her master’s degree from Long Island University in Computers in Education. She has been teaching in the New York City school system for four years, has always utilized the computer in the classroom, and has expanded her knowledge of technology and incorporated new components each year in order to enrich her students’ learning. She is also a turnkey trainer for the language arts standards and shares her expertise with her colleagues. 

THE STUDENTS
This program follows the third grade curriculum for New York City. This activity is appropriate to use in grades three through five. 

WHAT YOU NEED
Several iMac computers with Internet access and one printer are necessary, as is written and Internet material on Egypt. This material, along with technological support, enhances the childrens’ learning. The computer applications that are used are iMovie, Inspiration, and the Internet. The hardware used is iMac computers and digital cameras. 

OVERALL VALUE
In The Jewel of the Nile, all New York State standards are met. Curriculum areas include Social Studies, Science, Math, Technology,  and Language Arts. 

Today’s children are highly visual learners. Therefore, creating an iMovie within the content areas enables the students to have complete ownership of their learning by using their higher-order thinking skills. If children are educated in technology early, they have a good career foundation. This style of teaching opens an array of creativity for all of those who are involved. The students’ self-esteem is raised when they have participated in the actual process of creating a product (their iMovie).