Week 9 - March 28, 2012

     One of the most challenging facets in the creation of a technology-infused unit plan lies within the fact that technology is not wholly and completely integrated in classrooms on a day-to-day basis...yet.  As a result, there is no set precedent; I feel as though we as a class are learning an entirely new way to teach our students.  I find the creation of a technology-infused unit plan difficult simply because we've learned to plan units without technology; with technology; the entire classroom environment is altered.

     While this is the case, I do find the use of certain elements of technology useful for students, especially in the case of the flipped classroom.  Through the creation of wikis with the use of WikiSpaces and the use of instructional videos with tools like Jing, students can learn at their own pace and come to class prepared to work.  I also find Blogger to be a useful tool for assessment; I think it'll work well as a way for students to complete written responses and other assignments of that nature in a way they might find more comfortable.  This is especially when considering the fact that compared to our generation, future generations are going to be much more integrated with technology in their day to day lives.

Week 6 - March 8, 2012

     After reading the information on cell phones in the classroom and the various uses they can present in the classroom, I found that TextNovels seemed like an excellent idea for students to compile information about a particular topic for themselves.  For instance, if they're getting ready to compose an essay about Ancient Mesopotamian cultures, they can use this resource to lay out their main points about Mesopotamia and how the culture had changed over time.  They could do this just as easily with a sheet of paper and a pencil; however, teenagers love their cellphones and using cellphone based technology would likely encourage them to retain their focus on the topic.
     In addition to textnovels, Twitter can be used as an excellent resource for answering questions in class; specifically, for preassessment.  Not all students have smartphones, but twitter is also accessible via text message.  By limiting answers to 160 characters, students can quickly give brief responses to a central twitter account run by the teacher.  This would be a great way to discover student's misconceptions of a particular topic prior to its introduction in the classroom.

Week 5 - March 1, 2012

http://www.sascurriculumpathways.com/portal/Launch?id=32&bhcp=1

     The link above is a link for an interactive document analyzer containing four documents on the Mexican-American War.  I'm currently creating a unit plan for another class on the Mexican-American war with the use of a primary source document reader; I think these documents in conjunction with the primary source document reader would provide a more interactive and entertaining experience for students.  Additionally, this SAS Curriculum Pathways resource provides a few videos providing background on the war as well as a video providing directions on how to analyze primary source documents.  I may even consider using this resource in conjunction with the unit plan I'm currently designing in order to give this idea a test run to see how effective it can actually be.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/timeline/index.cfm

     This link was a link I found through Thinkfinity; I found it rather interesting.  It's an interactive map of American History, provided by the National Museum of American History on behalf of the Smithsonian Institute.  It provides an interesting overlay of Cultural and Political elements of American History in an organized format by year and era.  I would use this in the social studies classroom; while I might not use this for a lesson, I think it would be a great resource at the beginning of the year for a U.S. History course for students to get a general idea of what they're going to be covering for the year.  It's also a good way to keep student interest in what they're learning; sometimes interactive materials can help to break up the monotony in the classroom.