A few movie clips for class

My Best Assignment

In our last voice-thread it was encouraged to post a link to our best technology project of the semester. I like the post that I made on copyright laws because I think especially in history it is important to site ones work so that a reader can follow the source to see if the information is legitimate or not. However, if I were to pick my best project I would probably choose my Google Earth activity. I think that it is simple but would be fun for students and can be a productive lesson.

Final Blog Reflection

Now that this semester is coming to a close it is appropriate to reflect back on some of the valuable lessons that I have learned from this course. In my opinion I feel that the most useful technology that I learned is how to set up a website. I think that this can be a very useful tool in teaching. From the website I can set up online quizzes, take a poll about lessons, attach a syllabus or other assignments, and keep parents informed about what we are learning in class. For me, it is hard to remember everything that I am supposed to do once I get outside of class. It is helpful for a teacher to put the daily assignments online where I can look them up in case I forget. Also I love the option of taking a class poll of lessons. I think that it is important to get this kind of feedback from students. It will help me choose better activities and will demonstrate to the students that I am genuinely interested in what they want to learn about. This helps build a stronger relationship with the students which can limit disruptions in the classroom.

I plan on creating my own class website once I have my own class. Even in student teaching next semester I can work with the teacher to add to his website if he has one or create my own so that I can implement these tools in my own class. A blog such as this one can also be used since it is simple and easy to follow. I also love the idea of making video presentations in class. This may be a little more difficult for a student to construct but are great tools for presentations. I think that in the future I will plan on trying to come up with at least one video presentation that I can make and tailor to my class each unit. This way I can start making a few a year that I can save from year to year. I also really enjoyed my Google Earth lesson and think that activities like this will help allow students to be more active learners.

Technology is a great way to incorporate active learning into my lessons. Using the internet in a history class can be a great way to spark inquiry based lessons where students search out their own projects. Also if you teach students to create a video presentation it helps them really internalize the information they are working on. Even simple powerpoint presentations add a visual aspect to an otherwise dull lecture which help students engage in the material.

Weekly find

So this week as I was looking for a good history source with technology I stumbled upon teaching history with technology. This website offers a ton of useful information. On the left hand side there are a links to different podcasts, webquests, wikis, lesson plans and much more. I thought that not only was it useful to have the links to such technologies but each link also teaches you how to use the specific technology. For example if you click on webquests it brings you here. On this link it tells you that webquests were first developed by Bernie Dodge in San Diego State University in 1995 and have grown tremendously worldwide. It then links you to his two websites with webquests and then explains what a webquest is and how it can be applied in a classroom. It is a really great website. Hope this helps someone I know I plan to investigate further to see what it has to offer.

Personal Project Proposal

For my personal project I would like to use the technology of google earth. I have heard how cool of a tool it can be but have never actually used it myself. Standard 1 for the first half of US history is to understand how geography helped in shaping US history. A project I think that would help students learn how geography influenced the creation of the United States would be to use google earth to locate several colonies and look at their geography and how it influenced that colonies development. For example first we could look at the islands in the Caribbean which were among the first settled. By using google earth students could see how the tropical weather, easy coastal access, small indigenous population etc led to the possibility of opening sugar plantations. Further north we can then look at North American colonies. Viewing the more temperate climate here it became necessary that colonizers choose a new cash crop such as tobacco. Further north still with cold weather the settlers had to rely on pelts since they could not produce cash crops. These are just a few quick example of how history was affected by geography. With the use of google earth I can show the students a few of these initial colonies and then after they have identified what geographic features led to different types of colonies I can have a game in which I choose random places and based on the geography they see on google earth they will have to determine what type of colony they would build there. I think this standard is important because so much of history has been determined by geography. In one popular book guns, germs, and steel the author explains that geography was the key determinant in which nation would rise to power and dominate all others. Similarly geography could make or break a settlement in early times. It took a smart captain to survey what resources he had and then determine what type of settlement he would develop and this is something google earth can help teach the students.

Discussion blog

After doing the first half of this assignment I discussed what I learned with my wife. She agreed that the internet has so much to offer but we need to be careful in our home to make sure that it does not bring in unwanted material to be viewed by us or our children. As far as giving out personal information we decided that it would be best if from now on we do not give out our address, and social security unless it is with a trusted site like a job application we have checked up on to make sure we are not being scammed. We also discussed how we would help our little girl when she gets older and explain the positives and negatives with social networking and how she can be protected from internet predators. One article that we read is from the church website entitled Deny yourselves of all ungodliness by Elder Maxwell. In this talk he mentions that as members of Christ's church it is important that we stay away from all forms of ungodliness. He said that while boulders prevent the passage of any servant long trails of gravel can be equally discouraging. We discussed how the internet offers lots of good things like instant access to important information and a communication system to keep in contact with family. However there are also imposing boulders that could disrupt our life such as pornography and gravel pits such as its addictive nature that can deter us from doing what is important with our time. Unfortunately it is all to easy now a days to run across a pornographic image by accident. We placed a filtering system on our computer and have our computer placed in a high traffic area. If one of us is at home alone on the computer we keep it near the window with the blinds open. This way if we do accidentally run into something inappropriate we will be encouraged to click away as fast as possible. The gravel path that Maxwell mentions we see as the addictive nature of surfing the web. As I mentioned earlier in my first blog on internet safety I have been sucked into checking up on baseball stats. To prevent this from becoming an addiction we decided on restrictions of how much time we should be able to spend on the internet without working specifically on a school assignment. These restrictions keep me from surfing aimlessly on the internet where it would be easy to stumble upon bad material or just to stay away from idleness. I think this was helpful for our marriage and personal development.

Internet Safety

I read several articles and watched a few videos. One that stuck our for me was a youtube video about a mother that lost her daughter to sexting. Unfortunately some teenagers have begun sending explicit material via texts to boy/girlfriends or even strangers they have met online. In this particular video the girl sent an image of herself to her boyfriend who then passed the photo around. Soon the scanty photo got sent all over the school and the poor girl was harassed and made fun of where ever she went. Eventually it got bad enough that she took her own life. This is a sad example of what can happen to teenagers when they are not careful with media. In another video I watched I thought it interesting that one company discovered that one of the ways teenagers can get duped into giving out personal information is for false online job applications. Many teenagers may not trust giving out personal information to a stranger normally but if they think they are applying for a legitimate job they could easily be fooled. Since I have a little girl I want to make sure that when she gets older she understands that while social networking can be good she needs to be aware that some people that visit these sites are malicious and plan on ruining those they meet. She as well as students I may teach one day should understand that personal information such as social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates should not be shared on the web. The risk is just too high that someone can take advantage of you. Another article that I thought was interesting about getting sucked into the web is by Elder Ballard. He said gives a few suggestions of questions we should ask ourselves from time to time to see if we are addicted to the web. He asks do we sacrifice real world things for online things. I thought that was really profound. I love to watch baseball. Even though the white sox are not even in season I find myself wanting to check blogs like mlbtradrumors.com to see what is happening to the team in the offseason like trades etc. My wife one day asked me if I would stop checking up on the team every day and even told me that I was addicted and could not go three days without checking out what is going on with the white sox. I thought that was ridiculous but when I tried to give it up it really was hard to just let it go. I decided then to limit myself. Not only can students be taken advantage of with the internet or media like cell phones and texting but they can simply get sucked into wasting time surfing the net. Giving up our precious time for that which is not profitable. These are just a few things I learned while studying internet safety. Tomorrow morning I will discus this with my wife and let you know what we think about internet safety and how to avoid the problems associated with poor internet usage.