I am a big believer in allowing students to express their opinions.  This is a tool that they will take with them for all of their future endeavors.  However, opinions without backing and organization are often considered moot when young people express them to parents, professors, or bosses.  Since I believe that, I feel it incumbent upon me to teach these students not only the social studies subject matter for which they are responsible, but also how to express their opinions about that subject matter in a thoughtful, intelligent manner.  The concept mapping tools that I looked at this week appear to offer some organization of thoughts as well as some degree of flexibility in their use.  In this way, any student can shape their use to his or her needs.  These tools may also be useful to teachers in that they may provide some insight into the thought processes of their students.  This insight may allow us the opportunity to direct their thoughts or their expression to more accurately reflect their final opinions.  If we are really trying to prepare them for their future, isn’t this the direction that we should be looking in?

I love to use online databases, particularly those that allow you to search for articles or THOMAS, which allows you to search congressional bills and find statuses, authors, cosigners, etc. Many of these databases are becoming necessary when teaching Social Studies. When searching for databases for my web-based lesson on Ancient Rome, I found it to be quite difficult to find an accessible, appropriate database that students could use to help them with their endeavors. One that did stand out was Godchecker, an online guide to the Gods and Goddesses of numerous civilizations and faiths. Students could use the section on Roman Gods to help them with both their research and newspaper articles. I would expect the “official” papers to have a God “spot” or article about one of the temples or in some way involving Roman mythology. I would expect the “subversive” papers to involve Christianity or Judaism or some other faith contrary to the official faith of Rome at the time. This site would offer students some insight into the mindsets of people at the time and aid the students in creating the most authentic product possible.

I have logged on to United Streaming and have found it to be full of incredibly useful videos that would be difficult to find elsewhere. What I like most about the site besides the videos themselves is the fact that most of the videos are accompanied by a teaching guide. These guides are full of useful information, discussion questions, vocabulary, and even a sample lesson plan. What an excellent resource for a teacher! As a social studies teaching candidate, I am particularly interested in those videos that will support the content of history, government, and geography classes. Videos about the ancient world, civic responsibilities, and world regions can break up subjects that many students find dull or uninteresting. I hope that many teachers make it a point to visit this site and take advantage of this wonderful resource.

I created this podcast about an impending disaster in central Asia for my ITEC 501 class. Click here if you would like to listen to it. Click here to read a transcript of the podcast. I was trying to think about the best way that I would actually use a podcast for my classes when the idea came to me. I could use this quite effectively as an opportunity to expand the course content a little more for those students seeking a challenge. This is one way that I could possibly differentiate the course for those students who show a knack for the content. Further, though, by offering grades for those students who complete these optional assignments, I could use this as an opportunity for some students to make up points at the end of a grading period. Some people do not believe in extra credit, but I believe that, sometimes, we have to make up for the failings in the system. This becomes just another method of assessing what a student truly knows about a subject and how to apply it to everyday events. No SOL or quiz is going to test for that. Some students will never need that type of assessment to do well in a class. Others have a hard time making it through without it.

I had to create this screencast for my ITEC 501 class. Creating a screencast for even a relatively simple operation takes a surprisingly large amount of planning. A teacher using this method to create a tutorial for a class may have to recreate it several times to ensure that no mistakes are made. I chose not to include voice in mine and that meant adding a plethora of notes. I think I underestimated how many notes it really would be for a simple 3 1/2 minute demonstration.

I would love to see students use this in the classroom as part of a project to demonstrate their process knowledge as well as their content knowledge. A simple use in Geography might be to have students record the screen as they identify places on an internet map site. As they fill in the notes, they might have to list a few pieces of information about the place.

Other ways that I might use this in the classroom would be to record an internet research lesson that I could show to multiple classes. It might mean a bit more work on the front end, but during the lesson, I could pay more attention to the class itself and attend to individual questions without interrupting those who may already be familiar with the content.

Besides the obvious spell checkers and grammar checkers with which we are all accustomed, technology can help students to become more engaged in and to look more critically at their own learning.  With technology, tasks can become more authentic or useful to the student.  They can visit the Pyramids and other sites in a way that was not possible only a few short years ago.  Assignments also become less theoretical and more applicable to life after high school.  Since the assignments are to be completed through a medium with which the student is comfortable, they are also much more likely to enjoy the task and will put more effort into it.  Perhaps the most significant role that technology plays for the student is by way of the sheer volume of information through which the student must sift in order to complete an assignment.  As teachers, we are responsible for guiding the students’ searches to that information which is both credible and reliable.  In this way, students begin to look much more critically at information, in general, and that skill will eventually work itself into all facets of their lives.

Critical thinking involves a complex mix of analytical and evaluative skills.  In my classroom, I intend to introduce real-life problems and issues for which the students will work, both individually and collectively, to provide solutions.  These “case studies” will provide the basis for developing critical thinking skills and will be based on both historical and present-day events.  Social studies is ripe with possibilities for endeavors of this nature, but other subjects can benefit from this approach as well.  Case studies force students to break problems down into their component parts and apply their knowledge to those parts.  Further, students must evaluate the problems and develop theoretical solutions to them.  Lastly, presenting their solutions to the class allows other students to see the number of potential solutions to a single problem.  Hopefully this will teach them to weigh their decisions carefully as they move forward in life.