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.

Video Project

This week in our class we finished up our video presentations. Mine is on Genghis Khan and is an example for what I would expect students to make as an end of the year project. I think that with a video presentation students are more involved with their material and therefore internalize the content better. This kind of video project also helps students be creative and choose a particular character in world history they felt was most influential. This process of evaluation is highest on Blooms Taxonomy of higher order thinking. This particular project covers the UEN standard 3 objective 1 in the core curriculum for the Utah world history core. I thought the project was challenging but fun to do. Now that I have done it once and learned the skills necessary to make a basic video I will be able to apply this to other classes and projects in the future. This is also beneficial for students who would similarly complete this assignment. Bellow is my video and you can also find it by going to this address! Here is a lower resolution form of the same video. Both should work

World History Podcasts

Last week I shared a collections of American History pod casts. This week I feel it is appropriate to also offer a series of world history pod casts that are also free to access and great to show to a class. Since world history and American history are the two most common history classes taught in our public schools I feel it would be a good idea to represent both on this blog. One website called learn out loud offers scores of pod casts that cover the classical times all the way to modern world history and anything in between. I listened to a few of the pod casts on this site that dealt with Greek Mythology since it is an interest of mine and I thought they were very well done. You don't have to pay for anything and there is a lot of great stuff and most of the pod casts are short so they would work in a high school class if you wanted to show one. Rather than showing a podcast in class they could assign a podcast for homework and have students write a reflection on it. Enjoy

BackStory with the American History Guys

On our voicethread this week I commented about a podcast group that I once followed after having to listen to several during a history class at BYU. The group is called BackStory with the American History Guys. It is a group of professors who all specialize in a different century and address several different important themes in history and how they have changed America. They are witty and the podcasts are very well done. I think that it would be a great way to introduce podcasts to a history class and it also teaches a lot of really great insights into american history. Hope you enjoy.

Interactive maps

While I was searching around this week for a new history related website I cam across Interactive Maps which is a website that has tons of interactive maps which can be downloaded for free. I thought it was really cool. Its downfall is that it focuses solely on the US but could still be used when talking about different states or in a political science/geography course. When you click on the map of the US you can click on any of the different states and then find out a ton about each state like its economy, political standing etc. I think that if you were teaching a class on the different states in a geography course it would be fun to assign a state to each of the students and then have them research it and do a simple presentation. I thought it was pretty cool. Enjoy

The Great Khan (storyboard)

For my video project I am creating a short video on the rise and accomplishments of one of the most feared leaders of all time, the Great Genghis Khan. Feel free to look at my storyboard and let me know what you think!

Copyrights

I was able to learn a lot from the three copyright videos that we watched for this assignment. First according to the third video there are some CONFU guidelines that help teachers be more responsible about what media they show in class and post on educational websites. Some of these guidelines include the use of only 10% or 3 minutes of a video whichever is smallest and 30 seconds of a song. Now this is related to songs and media that they acquired legally but do not necessarily have permission from the author to use in its entirety. Also the first video explained that the copyright laws were not used to protect the author financially rather was suppose to help science and information spread and increase and improve. Copyright laws help encourage people to produce their own good work not simply copy others all the time. Finally, I learned that if a video is going to be showed in history class, for example, and it was bought and used for educational purposes then its okay to show the whole thing but if you are showing it for a reward our extra filler time then it is prohibited against copyright laws.

In this first video that I found Mr. Johnny Williams offers the students the chance to look at what might happen if the United States were to change drastically in a short period of time into a northern confederation led by a charismatic but then oppressive leader. He poses questions to the students to think about whether they would fight back or simply go with the flow under such conditions. The presentation is well done with music playing in the background and pictures. The problem is that at no point does he offer the viewer any reference for how the music/pictures were obtained or how they could be found. Since it is for educational purposes and non profit this may be okay if depending on how he obtained these media sources but he should still offer a works cited page at the end or footnotes during the presentation demonstrating where he obtained the media sources and giving them their rightful credit.



In this second video done by Isaac Rosete, a junior in high school, he presents a rather interesting conspiracy theory to 9/11. In a history class I think it would be interesting to show a class a short clip like this and see how they respond. My experience in the past tells me that most students would immediately accept this as fact. It sounds convincing to some if they have not studied the facts and I can't point to any of his facts and say that they are necessarily false but I do doubt his presentation for one main reason. He does not site his sources! Not only do we not know where he got the music, although he does mention the titles in the abstract on the youtube blurb, or his pictures but his information as well. As a historian it is critical that one sites their sources to add authority to the paper. It shows that proper recognition is given to others who are more informed than we or who may have a greater voice. Similarly giving recognition to media sources is important. It shows that we acknowledge the work of another. To help this presentation the student should have added a list of where he got his information and where he found his media sources. Without it he loses credibility.



The first video sources can be found on at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwX8pSTWqlo and the second at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcxVvZq0REc

Website

Hey all if you want to look at my new website please feel free to do so and let me know what you think. Website.

Youtube applications

When I returned home from my mission in Brazil all of my friends told me I had to check out this great website called youtube where I could watch just about anything from comedy bits to TV shows. One of the great things about youtube is that anyone can make a posting. This does lead to some concerns however in the academic world. Although youtube supposedly monitors new videos that are posted for inappropriate materials they cannot catch everything and what may be appropriate in their mind may be unacceptable in the mind of another viewer. Partly due to these reasons many school districts have placed a blocker on youtube in the classroom. It is a shame because there are several good short clips that could help in the classroom. Luckily there are ways to pull youtube clips off the website and post them in different formats that would be acceptable in the schools. A history teacher and more is a website where a teacher has posted several different ways to download and store these video clips online for school viewing purposes. To download the video off the site he suggests using KeepVid or Oyoom. After looking at these different sources I would suggest Oyoom since it allows you to do more with the video and is more informative. After the video has been downloaded you can return to A history teacher and more to check out how to convert this file into a variety of different files for storing purposes or embed it on a powerpoint. I think this is a useful tool. There are a lot of good sources to be found on youtube and if they can be taken out and placed on a powerpoint I think it makes it a safer tool. A teacher can also have students use this process when teaching mini lessons as well. They can download clips and place them in powerpoint presentations or place them on blogs etc.

Lesson Plans

One of my main concerns for teaching is being able to think of interactive lesson plans for my students. One of my education professors told me that rookie teachers need not feel like they need to invent a whole years worth of lessons. Online there are thousands of great lesson plans within a click of a mouse that offer new teachers great lessons and interactive activities. One website that I have used and think is helpful for aquiring lesson plans and other activities on a variety of history topics is edtechteacher. This website offers a ton of free lesson plans, interactive maps and games, and other cool activities. Some of them may be better for the junior high level but can be applied to high school as well. For example the other day I was talking to my wife about gladiators and showed her a game on this website where you are given a slave and then in a certain time period have to equip him with the correct weaponry for his style of fighting. After the battle is over you can continue and then read more about which gladiators were favored and why. It is just one example of the types of activities that are on the web for new teachers to use. When I find good, free lesson plans online I like to save the websites for a future date because I know there will be busy times my first year of teaching where I will need to draw from other sources to stay ahead.

To use or not to use that is the question

This week I would like to address some of the pros and cons of the ever popular history tool wikipedia. When I came home from my mission in 07 my friends that knew I had an interest in history told me about this great online tool. They claimed wikipedia could tell me about any historical figure or event and was totally reliable. It is true that wikipedia does offer a lot of general information about a wide range of topics. I myself have crammed for a test last minute by looking up all the information about King Alfred or the Spanish Armada etc. It is also true that most wikipedia pages are policed by fellow users to correct falsehoods and wikipedia does label how firm information is based on citations. Nevertheless, I think that it is important that students that use this tool understand that they should do so with a skeptical eye. Anyone can post what they want and you can never be sure if someone is simply offering their opinion or if it is researched data. My little brother for example has tampered with several pages for fun. Granted most of them were quickly changed but still not everything on there is true. I have found several posts to be incorrect. I think that an important tool that historians develop is the ability to question and research their statements. It could be good for a teacher to have students look up a topic and question whether or not what is written is accurate or not. They could research and show why it is true and then cite the post or they could explain why they think that it is wrong. Students should not simply read a post and then quote it in a paper assuming that it is a hundred per cent accurate. The same could be said about textbooks or academic journals.

PLN assignment

On my twitter account I have begun following three accounts. The first is called explore history and it seems really cool. It is an account that connects students to several onlince exhibits and activities from the Smithsonian. I have not looked through all of them of course but the ones I checked out seemed interesting so far. The second twitter I chose was the museum of Tacoma, WA. Since Tacoma is one of the places my wife and I are considering moving to after graduation in a year we thought it would be cool to follow what the historical museum of Tacoma offered. I think it would be a great place to take students to on a field trip. The final twitter account that I am currently following is capitol history. It explains what is being discussed in politics today in the United States and could prove useful in a governments course in the future.

On my google reader doc I am subscribed to a number of different accounts. Some of these include: This Day in History, the White House, American History blogger, PBS teaching, the Journal of American History, and a few others includding our class website and Diigo group.

The white house follows what discussions were made in the white house that day. It seems a little dense to read but is seperated by topics and could be useful in a political science course or government.

American History blogger is just that it a blog set up by a grad student and a list of helpful sources he has gained while studying history

PBS teaching offers, among other things, a list of what people in the country are saying about our teaching program and how it can be modified.

The Journal of American History is a collection of publications by academic scholars on american history similar to JSTOR offered at BYU.

While most of these seem like they may be helpful the one that really caught my interest at first is This day in history. Each day it gives a series of posts explaining what key events have taken place on that particular day in antiquity. I think this would be interesting for students to use in a history course. My wife said that when she was in high school her history teacher used a similar site to show what happened each day and then had students connect what happened in the past to what was occuring in the present. She said it was a really successful exersize that did not take much time each day to draw out the interest of the students.

I'll keep you posted when I find anything else new to add to these accounts .

Why this design

On my blog you will notice a baseball theme. In the corner is a picture of US Cellular field which I visited this summer. I have become an increasingly more addicted white sox follower as I have gotten older. My wife is loving enough to put up with my constant rants about the White Sox and has even taken the time to memorize some of our starting roster. I have heard that those that love the game play, and those who can't play coach, and those that can't do either waste away their lives following the sport. I fit into the final category when it comes to baseball. I was able to change the background by visiting the site thecutestbloggerontheblock and following their step by step directions to add the field of dreams baseball background. On the side I was able to add a link to some of my favorite websites including my wife's blog and mlb.com. This was accomplished by going to design then clicking on the add a gadget. Once a list of possible actions pops up I was able to add a link list and then add the URL's of some favorite links.

The Super Awesome Me!!

My name is Chris Taylor and I hail from the great windy city of Chicago, IL. My parents were both raised in Utah but moved to Chicago while my mom was pregnant with my twin brother and yours truly. Four years later my little albino brother ...actually all my brothers are now taller than me : ( ... was born and two years later a final little brother. Four strapping young men. Growing up I loved sports and started out with baseball in little league. I was never an all star with a bat but played a pretty good second base. Even though I gave up baseball my freshman year I became an active follower of the Chicago White Sox and still am today. When I got to high school at an incredibly beefy 76 lbs and standing a whopping 4 ft 9 inches I felt like my aspirations of being a great athlete would never materialize. Then the wrestling coach approached me and told me in wrestling you only are faced by opponents your size. I joined and quickly fell in love with the sport. This year I will be assistant coaching at Mountain View and have coached wrestling for 3 years. When I graduated from highschool I moved by myself to Provo to attend BYU. I am a history teaching major and coaching/phys ed minor. After a year of BYU I went on an LDS mission to Brasilia, Brazil. When I got home I continued my studies at BYU and there I met my lovely wife Christina who also works in education teaching kindergarten. Three weeks ago the two of us had our first little baby, a little girl named Mariel Marie.