Veterans and their contributions

As someone who grew up surrounded by the military, not only are both my parents Army veterans, my father served both in Vietnam and Desert Storm. Not to mention it has been on my mind lately, I decided to focus my attention a service learning plan focusing on veterans of foreign wars.

Brief Description:

Eighth grade students interviewed veterans from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War as part of an interdisciplinary unit in social studies and English language arts. The veterans' contributions and insights made the curriculum more meaningful, real, and relevant to the students' lives. Through the veterans' first-hand knowledge and experiences, students learned valuable lessons about humanity, patriotism, and sacrifice not provided by textbooks.

Veterans

In looking at this service plan, it is a well-thought out interdisciplinary plan utilizing both English and Social Science. Not only does it address the many aspects of inquiry in social science, it gives students a new appreciation for the service that veterans have done. It allows students the opportunity to interview Veterans, giving them access to primary sources rich in information. It also offers students a unique perspective on war, bravery, and patriotism. The veterans can really emphasize how war is not like what students watch at the movies. Learning about war through a first person perspective and some of the long term effects, such as life altering disabilities, students can have their perspective’s drastically changed.

The combination of interviewing, compiling, relating, and creating all work to make for an in-depth experiment in social science. The students honed their research skills by interviewing the Veterans, learning to formulate questions that gained the information needed. At the end the students extrapolated the data they needed to get a real world picture of what the Veterans faced and how the ramifications of which affect them today. It gave them insight into the Veterans’ psyche and an idea of what bravery and patriotism really looked like. In the end the students worked together to create a quilt representing both the students and the Veterans’ accomplishments. This is one part of the service learning plan. The English portion also involved reading relevant literature and relating it back to what the soldiers might have experienced. Creating their own personal works to communicate what they felt about their experiences with the Veterans. It resulted in a long term relationship between the school and the Veterans. Not only did one class benefit, but future classes as well.

Several challenges that I could see, would possibly be not enough students to interview the volunteering Veterans and perhaps the students’ reticence in interviewing Veterans. I think students would hesitate only because they wouldn’t know how to react to the Veterans. The plan mentions they overcame the problem with the Veterans’ by creating a panel for those Veterans’ not interviewed to evaluate and observe the students. It might have further helped with the students’ reticence if perhaps two students interviewed each student. It has been my experience that students usually feel braver when they have a partner. Overall, the plan is really well thought out and could potentially be someth

GIS in today's world

Back in 2000 I worked in the Supervisor of Elections office. It being the beginning of a new century we were about to undergo the census. What this meant for us is that voter districts would be rezoned based on the new numbers provided. I was interested because of my interest in technology, but we were pretty busy because it was a huge election year. We were excited because we going to be using this new software call GIS. At the time I had a vague idea of what that meant. My friend was thrilled though because as a geography major it might new and exciting things for her field. Come to 2009 and the software is being discussed for use in the secondary classroom.

In “Teaching with rather than about Geographic Information Systems,” Hammond and Bodzin are examining ways for this software to successfully be used in the classroom. In order to grasp some of the more technical aspects of the program I was required to do a bit of additional research, in addition to reading the full article. Not only did it help me grasp the full scale of what the software is capable of but it gave me a good idea of how it could be used in the classroom. It also helped me differentiate between GIS and programs such as Google Earth. It becomes readily apparent upon reading the article that one of the biggest obstacles to successfully implementing the software is the user. The software is highly technical and does require some in-depth instruction in its use. Although simple steps such as changing file names to easily identifiable ones can be the first step in making the software easier to use (Hammond, T., Bodzin, A., 2009). Ultimately it will be necessary to teach about the program so that it can be successfully integrated into the classroom.

Not only does it give you more control over maps and geographical tools. You can deconstruct maps layer by layer, which could be useful in a geography or a geology class. It allows you to see how the geography of a city developed, but you don’t have to limit it to this function. You can use Google Earth in conjunction with this software. The lack of familiar landmarks sometimes makes it difficult to students, using it with Google Earth you can do an overlay so that students can see those familiar landmarks as well as the relevant information provided by GIS.

For instance, in a unit about the Silk Road you can use GIS to map the Silk Road. Students would be able to learn that the name is deceptive and that the Road was more a route containing many paths. You would be able to examine the branches of the road and the difficult terrain that traders had to endure.

I liked the idea of mapping the Black Death pandemic, but once again proving that everything has already been done before, I found a lesson plan which utilizes GIS. It seems like an excellent idea, I would expand on this plan. Rather than limiting it to Britain, I would examine how it affected all of Europe. You could integrate it into a lesson about how the Black Death affected the economy, culture, and population. Discuss the anti-Semitic feeling that was prevalent at the time. Depending on what is being studied in science at the time, you could include the history of the disease. It would be a content spanning lesson.

Other ideas include having students map the Trail of Tears, the forced march by Native American tribes in the Southeast.

Students could map the Seminole War, pinpointing significant encounters and population groups. The questions to ask would be: How did the Seminoles evade American forces for so long? At what point could have American forces gained the advantage in battle?

My lack of knowledge in regards to the software at this point would make it difficult to plan an in-depth lesson plan because I’m only marginally aware of what it is capable of, but look forward to exploring it more. I downloaded several articles to read, hopefully they will provide me with more ideas.

The question to ask would be what difficulties do you think you would have in using and integrating this software into the classroom?

Hammond TC, Bodzin AM. (2009) Teaching with rather than about geographic information systems. Social Education, 73(3), online article

Ruminating

Don't mind the verbal chaos about to ensue. I have to mention I like the feature of being able to make text cuts, so as not to spew over everyone's screen. Anyway, not relevant. I wanted to answer the question: What is education to me? If I had to take a stab in the dark and without any academic support. Like I said, for me. Anys, I would say education is most decidedly not about getting students prepared for the work force. It makes it sound like our job is indoctrination. Make sure they're willing to do what they are told and never question. I think it is more about making global leaders, people who are knowledgeable and well-spoken. People who are capable of critical thinking and making a well-formed argument. Students need to know that while we are a powerful country, we are not the only country. I know history is often told from a national bias, but I think it is important to show other points of view as well. I don't want students to unquestioningly accept everything America does as gospel. I mean aren't we meant to question the government, so as to keep everything in check?

Okay, so that was much shorter than I expected. What do you think?

Thanks Angie for the idea!

Pods, Blogs, and Wikis . . . Oh My!

When I first read about this assignment, I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. I had never heard of a wiki before this class, which is surprising considering my usage of Wikipedia. As for podcasts, well, I’ve downloaded them several times, but my backlog became so great that I would usually just throw my hands in the air in frustration and delete them from my iPod. It happens pretty much like clockwork. I succumb to what sounds like a potentially interesting podcast, download all the episodes, get behind in listening, then delete them all promising never to do it again. I will admit that during the course of this assignment I found some potentially interesting podcasts and downloaded all the episodes. Hopefully I can stop the cycle of futility here. Blogging was the easy part. Of course, finding relevant blogs might prove challenging.

In the end I think I may have gotten a little carried away. Let’s start with the blogs. I found several blogs that were written by social science instructors. The reason for my interest in them is varied. For one they blog about their experiences in the classroom, relevant social science topics, and they are technology focused, which I thought was especially relevant for this class. I know it can be disheartening to hear about bad classroom experiences, but if we’re honest we know that it isn’t all roses nowadays. Here are 3 of the many I discovered . . .

The Tech-Savvy Teacher

It is written by two teachers, a social science and a science teacher, who are interested in sharing ways to use technology in the classroom. You can also follow them on Twitter @techsavvyteach. I will admit this blog focuses more on technology. It does discuss the pros and cons of using tech in the classroom and provides classroom solutions when using technology.

The Henricus

I liked this blog because as the subtitle indicates it provides "New Approaches to Teaching Social Studies." It provides interesting topics for discussion relevant to the social science teacher. For instance, can history be taught thematically? Not to mention the loads of other links it provided to social science related blogs. I'm sure you're not surprised but they can be followed on Twitter @TechWarrior.

2¢ Worth

He talks a lot about education, not just social science. Not entirely sure that makes it relevant to the assignment, but I'm including it anyway. He also does a podcast. Okay enough with the blogs. I found a dozen more besides, but I'll tag them on my my delicious account.

Next we have podcasts, I managed to restrain myself to 2. The first is the 60 Second Civics. It provides you with a daily dose of civics lesson in a compact lesson of 60 seconds. Exactly what is advertised by the title. I liked it because sometimes I find civics extremely boring because it can be very dry at times. 60 seconds would probably be just the right amount. I'm sure it would be very useful for highschool students who feel the same way as I do. You can easily subscribe via iTunes, not to mention follow them on, you guessed it @60SecondCivics. The second is Stuff You Missed in History Class. My reasons for liking this is because I've always been a fan of the untold stories in history. Paul Harvey-esque type stories as it were. It also reminded me of the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen which I really liked.

Next are the wikis, again I found two. The first wiki is a student created wiki about Asian history. For those not in the know, I'm a huge fan of Asian history and I was interested in seeing how this one developed as it is a work in progress at the moment. Shanghai American School Asian History Wiki is being updated by 9th graders from within China. The second wiki is Classroom Google Earth. I chose this one because of my software project which is, coincidentally, Google Earth and its many uses.

As I said I may have gotten carried away. Nonetheless it has given me lots of reading material.

Social Media Is Bigger than You Think

Similar to the "Did you know, shift happens," but just as interesting.



Facts can be found at http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigger-than-you-think/

Treading those Technological Waters

Why should technology be integrated into social studies classrooms? How has the learning from our first session influenced your answer? Please support.

It has been 10 years since I completed my undergraduate work at the University of Florida. During my time here there was not a push like now to have technology in the classrooms. It was becoming the norm for engineering students to be required to have laptops, but that was a far cry from the rest of the campus. Now it is almost mandatory that all students have access to a laptop. I can’t say the change isn’t welcome because in this society of ever growing reliance on the Internet for news and information it is almost a necessity. So, when I discovered that I was going to be taking EME5432, I have to admit that I had preconceptions. I was expecting more instruction on creating lesson plans that would incorporate technology into the classroom as I have encountered in my other classes. I wasn’t overly dismayed by the idea, as I am a huge advocate of technology in all its forms. I’m glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in more of a “media literacy” class. I like to consider myself somewhat technology literate, but the video “Did you know, shift happens” had some interesting facts. Examples just to give a few:

If MySpace were a country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world

and

Today, the number of text messages sent and received every day, exceeds the total population of the planet.

Can I say I’m completely surprised? Not really. I saw how quickly Twitter caught. One day I knew nothing about it, a week later it seemed like I was seeing it everywhere. How can we expect students “. . . to disengage from this interpersonal, producer-oriented, digital world” (http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/medialiteracy)? The Kaiser Family Foundation national study on media asserts, “Without question, this generation truly is the media generation devoting more than a quarter of each day to media” (Rideout, Roberts & Foehr, 2005, p. 39). It is imperative that we as secondary education teachers give students the tools they need to navigate the Internet confidently, but while utilizing caution as well. It is important that students realize not all sources of information on the Internet can be trusted. Even Wikipedia should be used with some caution, although it can offer links to excellent, trusted resources. In addition there has been a push by Wikipedia to become more legitimate, it “. . .  has decided to screen edits to encyclopedia entries about living people . . .” (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/wikipedia-will-limit-changes-on-articles-about-living-people-ny-times/).

As teachers, how do we go about this task? As November states in Web Literacy for Educators we need to teach students how to interpret URLs and how to break them down. Once we accomplish the hefty task of teaching students how to navigate the Internet, we will have access to one of the largest, if not the largest, information sources on the planet. The question was how can we incorporate technology into the classroom, the answer is how can we not? We would put our students at a grave disadvantage by not availing ourselves of this resource. A plethora of information and programs are available to teachers on the Internet, it is just a matter of utilizing them properly and instructing students likewise. Just a few examples are teachers utilizing programs, such as Google Earth to map the progress of human civilization or the ability to go back in time and explore Rome as it existed in 320 AD (http://www.google.com/educators/p_earth.html) or using Twitter to keep students updated on class activities. Teachers can help give students a louder voice in the World by having them keeping a blog.  Not only are you being technologically savvy, but you’re also being green by saving on paper. In addition to programs, teachers and students have access to hundreds of primary sources available on the Internet (i.e. http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/education/index.html or http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/) for document analysis and research purposes.       

After all this, I must drop a note of caution. It is important to consider the legal ramifications of having your students participate in some of these activities. Teachers need to ensure that students have the necessary Internet access to keep things fair and even.

And on that note, I’m blogging the updated version of this video for my own bookkeeping purposes:

  

courtesy of http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/