Social Studies and Educational Technology

Thoughts about changing education

2009-04-11T15:37:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to continue this blog for awhile now, but haven't had:

time
the impetus
???

Now, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how much we as teachers do that compromises kids' futures though all we really want to do is help!

I'll probably start by sharing items I find through my reader that spark my interests or passionately move me (sometimes to tears).

This video is one of those, found in a blog post on Charter Schools by Carl Anderson:

How do we get to the point where we're truly working for kids - each and every one of them, in ways their own abilities and desires require???

Thing 22 - Nings and Social Networking

2008-12-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

I was already somewhat familiar with the concept of social networking and have been a member of several such networks including Tu Diabetes and Type 1 Parents. I also recently became a member of facebook - mostly to reconnect with old high school buddies (and to "check up" on my teenaged daughter - lol).
I found the Web 2.0 Ning to have a wealth of information -- and like others have expressed -- it was a bit overwhelming! I can't wait to have some time to actually digest all I've learned!
Exploring some of the discussion groups via the forum, I found several interesting ideas:

Use Ning as a platform for book studies
Share educational tools - though "games that teach history" was a disappointing find
Pageflakes as a platform for my Current Issues course - this is a grand idea I will likely implement spring semester!

Thing 13 - Better LATE than NEVER!!!

2008-12-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

Wow! Wow! Wow!
I put off this thing for so long I anticipated spending as little time as possible to accomplish the task -- ha, ha, ha.
I just spent the last several hours playing around with PRIMARY ACCESS, a web-based digital video editor for social studies :)

This is the best thing since sliced bread!

As a way to reinforce content knowledge, this tool enables learners to:

select images that portray a topic
write about that topic
get feedback on their writing/images
narrate the video and, finally,
apply motion in order to publish a movie -- how absolutely COOL!

The ability to scaffold student learning (as compared to PowerPoint creation) is amazing!
I plan to use this tool with my U.S. History students next semester -- we'll have a Film Festival to prepare for our End-of-Course Test :)

Thing 7c - Checking My Reader

2008-12-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I check my reader fairly frequently since it is front and center on my i-Google home page. A recent post from American Pundit caught my interest -- it seems that several cities and towns around the nation are planning to declare an annual holiday to mark the election of Barack Obama. I think this is outrageous. While having our first African-American president is certainly a significant event, it is my opinion (not to offend anyone) that a holiday honoring him is over the top!

Thing 21 - Flaky Pages!!!

2008-12-09T05:26:00.001-08:00

Pageflakes is very similar to i-Google, the platform I use for my home page. The Teacher Edition of Pageflakes has some additional features that lend it great utility as a classroom or course platform -- something I plan to explore for next semester in our non-traditional learning environment. The ability to have so much information right at your fingertips is incredible. I can make a single page for ALL Social Studies courses, then individual pages for each course I facilitate. This application may have some advantages over the wiki platform I currently use. I will need to discover how to/if I can add documents :)

Thing 20 - Doin' the Google Docs thing

2008-12-01T06:57:00.002-08:00

Google Docs is something teachers at the Performance Learning Center are using on a daily basis!

Our techie guru has created an attendance log spreadsheet for us to use (since our traditional student data system is not amenable to our situation). It is FANTASTIC to be able to "share" this information, collaborating so that it's a living document that is ever-evolving :)

In addition to its current use among teachers and staff, students can benefit from the ability to upload and share assignments with us as well as collaborating in teams to jointly create documents and projects!

Thing 19 - Tubin' It!!!

2008-12-01T06:57:00.001-08:00

You Tube search results:

I found an AWESOME Psychology lecture series from UC Berkley!!!

Here's a video for an Athens, GA Social Studies Conference about using music in video to teach 20th Century U.S. History :)

Now I know How to Decorate my Christmas Tree - British style!

Though not fun this video describes one young man's life with Type 1 Diabetes - a disease my daughter, and 3 cousins share :(

I also explored Teacher Tube - I have already posted my favorite video - I'm Just a Bill (an oldie but goodie from School House Rock) -- there are many good resources but I find it incredibly difficult to search this site!!!

I doubt I would produce a video for classroom use - students, however, might tape presentations, skits, procedural directions, etc.

Thing 17 - Podcasting

2008-12-01T06:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with this one! I guess I expected a bit more from this tool. I did check out a number of different podcasts and will share my thoughts:

Strange History podcast on the Byzantine Empire - this one was just a little boring. The podcaster droned on, reading from notes...
Several student-created podcasts - these varied in quality. Some were okay, while others were of poor quality (and some were not accessible)
The PRI Geoquiz podcasts were pretty good - I just can't see that they would match our GPS (fun for "extra credit" though)
Best were the podcasted college courses! I checked out an Intro Psych course, a Nursing course and one in Juvenile Justice -- pretty cool! (I can't see many of my students getting into these, however!!!)

I do see an application for these in the classroom, but like some of the other tools much better (voicethreads, wikis, etc.).

Thing 16 - The Library Thing!

2008-11-17T03:17:00.000-08:00

I LOVE books!!!

This is an incredibly cool and useful site for fellow book lovers, researchers, educators and students.
Its utility is boundless! Here's ONE suggestion:

Assign a book to students
Have students search Library Thing for the title
After reading the book they can join and post personal thoughts/reactions
Then, have them find a "similar" book to read :)

Thing 7b - Checking My Reader

2008-11-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

I have quite a few subscribtions in my reader...

Some have to do with education, some with politics, some with dietary issues, and others are just plain fun.

I've been caught up in the fervor of the recent general election, so many of my favorite feeds are political in nature -- so one that recently caught my eye was this one from The American Pundit called Still a Very Red Map. Since I'm a conservative who voted for John McCain, this was heartening.

Both CNN and The New York Times have similar maps (interactive) that I can get lost exploring!!! What a social studies geek I am :)

Thing 12 - A Slideshow!

2008-11-16T18:48:00.000-08:00

A Cold War Life -- some pictures from my past...

BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Thing 14 - A New Toy!!!

2008-11-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

Wow! So many things to play with... it's hard to select just one (or two) but one DID catch my eye. Quizlet is SO COOL!!!

I used it to create several Georia High School Graduation Test Review Sets for my students.

This is an amazing way to prep for VOCABULARY and CONCEPTS. Students can even use this to create their own study sets to share (wishful thinking for my own daughter!). The first step is flash-card-like. You become Familiar with the set through exposure. The next step is to Learn the set by typing in the correct term/answer. Then you can practice with a Scatter or Space Race game before you are Tested.

AND...
This one just took my breath away:

I used WORDLE to create this image of the Declaration of Independence!
The word sizes are relative to the number of times each word is used in the document.
You can type in your own words and even use RSS feeds to make these amazing creations which are also customizable by color, orientation, font, etc.
I'm going to use this next semester to either:

allow students to "introduce themselves"
illustrate eras of history

~very exciting~

Thing 11 - Getting "Flickr-fied"

2008-10-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/9804670@N06/870426187/in/pool-365415@N25, jramb)

I've been exposed to Flickr before but did learn a few things about its many uses in the classroom!

The picture above was posted on Flickr by my son as part of a history course at NGCSU in 2007. It is of my dad, a 22-year Army officer, in the mid-1960s, training for deployment to Vietnam.

The picture is part of a photo-journaling project in which students were required to find 4-5 family photos that symbolized an historic era, post and tag them, then explain the historic significance of each. My son's era was the Cold War, since my own childhood reflected the moves of an Air Defense Artillery officer.

You can view the class set of pictures/projects HERE!

I truly wanted to do this project with my own history students last year but was unable to get our technology department to allow me to use my scanner in the classroom -- what a bummer! I may try again (begging may work???).

2008-10-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Thing 10 - Getting Creative, Commonly!

2008-10-15T10:38:00.001-07:00

Well, Creative Commons was a totally new experience for me.

I have NOT seen (or else have not paid attention to) the CC logo on websites I've visited.
I DO believe CC will impact student project creation -- with the vast array of resources and license to share/edit/append, collaboration becomes that much broader and significant!
I constantly use digital images and audio/video clips from the web to teach my students!
I don't intentionally share information on the web -- but would love to participate in this with other social studies educators (especially those who deal with online learning).
Who owns my teaching materials??? Well, it depends -- I'm fairly certain when it comes to textbooks and ancillary materials purchased for educational purposes but when it comes to all the stuff I snag off the web... I dunno!
One obvious negative is relinquishing your complete rights to a personal creation. I imagine, though, that anyone willing to post work here would consider this drawback first.

I found some great stuff in OER:

this awesome American Government course
a really cool learning module about the first sustained American-European contacts (1492-1600)
a powerful web-supported lesson plan called Girls Speak Out -- teaches about the feminization of global poverty with amazing video clips

Thing 8 - World of Wikis

2008-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Wikis have been a part of my classroom environment for about a year now. I have found them to be tremendously useful and suprisingly flexible in their application to teaching and learning about the social studies in our non-traditional environment.

The primary purpose of those I've created to date has been as a course platform; a place for students to come for course content, project information and suggested links. I'd like very much to broaden their use to include student-created pages and collaborative learning environments.

I did examine many of the wikis shared on the K12Learning2.0 site, and gleaned many great ideas for the future of my own as well as my students' use of wikis in our courses. Here are a few:

The Holocaust Wiki Project is a wonderful example of students collaborating on a project to describe experiences and decision-making in an often misunderstood period of world history. Groups of students begin by creating an historically accurate family unit in a country or region significantly impacted by this tragic era, then follow their course through a series of decisions, even intersecting with the lives of other groups' created family units. It is beautifully done (though not as colorful as I'd like) relatively easy to follow, and neat in its presentation.
Welker's Wikinomics is similar to my own wiki in that it serves as a course platform but he has opened it up, wikistyle, to collaboration and addition by students and teachers outside his own school. The benefit, I believe, is that the site becomes a better resource, reflecting and serving the needs of a broader audience.
My favorite is Great Debate of 2008, a student-created wiki, open to learners beyond the walls of the creator's own school, allowing students in grades 8-12 the opportunity to explore and discuss the candidates' positions on key issues affecting our country as we approach this year's presidential election. I was especially impressed by the thoroughness of several contributions and plan to share this with my own American Government students!

Thing 7 - All I Can Say is "WOW!!!"

2008-10-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

I've been scanning articles in my reader now for days -- finding a few interesting tidbits and knowing I'd have to finally pick one to blog about in order to move on through this course.

Well, this morning something FANTASTIC happened! I was about to write about several sites I found for younger children (though I teach high school social studies) in the Infinite Thinking Machine blog post about the Freedom to Read. I discovered several great sites that actually read books to kids and offer a variety of pretty cool activities -- I'll pass them to my brother for my precocious nieces and nephews (you can look at these on your own -- I found something for ME!!!).

It's often difficult to "take kids back" when I find gaps in their social studies knowledge. Now, in terms of American Government, I have a few new tools!

My favorite is What Are The Parts of Government?

(pictured above)

Others include:

If you can't tell already, I'm SO excited about being able to link these to our course wiki so my students have another resource with which to remediate, increasing their knowledge and, ultimately, their ability to make connections (my goal as a social studies teacher).

Thing 5 - Look what I found in my Reader!!!

2008-09-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

I've been using Google Reader for a while but, once school started back, have been routinely "dumping" the contents (i.e. marking all as read) for lack of time.

Forced to pay more attention because of this assignment, I found a real gem! Though I teach high school, what I found appeals to me as a parent very concerned about this generation of young children:

not getting enough "play" time
not recognizing the benefits of serving others, and
not understanding potential dangers of the internet

Through a blog I follow (sometimes), Cool Cat Teacher, in which the writer, Vicki Davis of Camilla, Georgia, shares her Daily Spotlight on Education, I discovered a site called Woogi World, the aim of which is to teach young children about internet safety, life values and fun.

Follow this link to a short video that explains to teachers and parents what the site is all about!

Thing 4 - Beauties of Blogging

2008-09-16T10:28:00.001-07:00

I have followed several blogs (as time allows ;)) over the past year or so and have become increasingly aware of the POWER of blogging to communicate and network.

Some of my FAVORITES include:

Notes from the Trenches - courageous and hilarious mother or seven (also has celiac disease)
Pioneer Woman - awesome city-turned-country girl with amazing photography and culinary skills!
Gluten-Free Girl - amazing woman with celiac disease who's hubby is a chef :)
and Book of Yum - wonderfully illustrated gluten-free cooking

Of course these are all PERSONAL INTEREST blogs! I obviously need to add some EDUCATION blogs to my reader.

As I begin this journey, creating my OWN blog, I can gleen hints from these experts about style, presentation, and linking (I'm still getting the hang of this part!).

I especially enjoy embedded pix and videos -- when they help tell the story or provide details.

Here's one of my new fav videos (a true 'blast from the past'):

I'm Just A Bill

My Current Issues students are, for the first time, involved in blogging... we're learning together! The Comments feature is fantastic for providing quick, descriptive feedback.

Thing 2 - Thoughts About Web 2.0

2008-09-06T16:34:00.001-07:00

Two ideas came to mind as I viewed the videos and read the article: opportunity missed and disservice.

With tears in my eyes, I revisited the feelings I have had for quite some time about the current state of education in our country. We teach kids daily with an obsolete set of tools. We require of them the memorization of names, dates and events that most of them can find when/if needed. It’s the bigger picture of information assimilation we continually miss. We should be teaching kids that we value their ways of communicating and interacting with each other and the world rather than stifling the activities in which they are both interested and competent. We immerse them in the tools of a time they are both unfamiliar with and abhorrent to, forcing them into a box with few windows—and those windows that do exist are teacher-made!

I am so fortunate to work in an environment where all of our students have computer access throughout the day. I have long wanted to become better versed in the use of Web 2.0 tools to enhance their learning experiences. My Current Issues students have already created blogs and I’m developing a timeline project using Voice Threads for my U.S. History students.

If we resist embarking on a different way of educating our digital-age kids, we fail them.

Comments

Thing 1 - Reflections on Lifelong Learning

2008-09-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Considering the habits, all of which are critical for lifelong learning, some are in my nature and come easy while others are more difficult, posing a challenge to me as both a teacher and learner.

Accepting Responsibility for My Own Learning is one of the easy habits as I am naturally curious. An information seeker, I am constantly searching for answers, digging for details, and trying out new ideas. I know that I drive my own learning and will likely NEVER get enough :)

Teaching/Mentoring Others, especially the tools of technology, is a true challenge for me. I am sometimes frightened by the speed at which the world is moving and feel ill-equipped to lead my students through a world that is more theirs than mine. Of course this just means that I must embark on a journey WITH them! Exciting, sure -- but my 'control freak' nature (certainly evident here), makes it personally risky!

Creating My Own Learning Toolbox is by far the most important habit for the task at hand. As an ADHD adult who tends to float from idea to idea, trying multiple methods as they seem to fit the situation, I need to organize these tools so that I can both understand and easily access them -- for the benefit of my 21st century students :)