Emerging Technology 3: Youtube

It seems like I am committing heresy suggesting that youtube can be used in classroom for educational purposes. But how canone not look at this technology and not realize the huge potential for learning. Many students, if not most, can use youtube much better than their teachers, but we as educators seem afraid of it. There are undoubtedly dangers that exist with it. The comments section comes to mind immediately. Even given the dangers, It is too valuable a resource to block and ignore. Our students use it everyday, we must utilize it towards their education.

Having students make youtube videos on a specific topic makes traditional research papers seem very boring and outdated. I have students do research papers on a founding father, next year this will change to a youtube video.The research will still be done, sources will still be cited, even e-notecards can be taken. All the elements of the research will be there, but with a product they can present, share, and post. This will gain much interest and will produce a product that the students will be proud of. I can also envision students taking two sides of an issue and debating it on a video. This could take many forms. The students could each have five minutes to present their arguments, or they could go back and forth-responding to each others points. The possibilities are endless.

An even simpler use of youtube is simply watching the videos. The education side of youtube has an ever expanding list of videos on virtually any subject. I use this some today, but have always been afraid of the obvious danger and stigma of youtube.

In the social studies classroom, our subject is a big as the universe and everything in it. If we are to teach our students even a little bit of what is out there we must not be afraid to use every tool at our disposal.

Emerging Technology 2: Photo Editing - Picnik

In a history class, the challenge is always how to make the past come alive. We all know what that means when we visit historic places or listen to a speaker with first-hand knowledge of an historical event. The problem with teaching history in the classroom is the limits of the school building and the walls of the classroom. One way to overcome these obstacles is through the use of pictures.

With the use of photo editing sites like Picnik, a class could compile pictures of historical places, people, or things and create a class project. Individual students could use family vacation photos to make a display for the class to view. This would be a great activity for younger grades as a digital "What I did for summer vacation." I could see a geneology tree being done with the use of Picnik.

I am going to try this year to begin to make a library of pictures on Picnik for use in my history and geography classroom. I will ask teachers and other staff members to share their historical photos and photos of the world. After tagging these photos and organizing them I will have the students put together a class poster the last week of school. Stay tuned

Module 4-2: Digital Literacy

I think I am finally at the place in my technology education that I am not more and more overwhelmed the more I research. I found a great blog post on edutopia's Big list that helps teachers have fun in the summer learning new technologies. The writer says to start out by using the new technologies for you personal use and as a teacher you will probably think of ways to use it in the classroom. The article gives 10 technologies to become familiar with.

Using something called MIRO, teachers can make their own video vault for use in class. Itunes for videos. This beats trying to find a video off the internet the night before your lesson.

Bighugelabs.com is site that helps organize pictures into posters, collages, etc. I can already think of ways students could use this to enhance the learning of history.

Comic life by Plasq would really be enjoyable for students of all ages. Comics or graphic novels could be made for any unit of history and the students could create, create, create.

Newseum looks interesting. My students are interested in what is going on in other parts of the world, but are often very ignorant of the facts. This could be used daily or so to add a global perspective on our social studies learning

These are just a few ideas in the post. This is the kind of thing I like finding. Not just talking and discussing, real practical applications I can use in my life and in my classroom.

Module 4: Changes

The video of the man trying to learn the new technology of the book was hilarious. I look back at my first try at using different gadgets and technologies and think of how silly my questions would seem to someone familiar with it. That cannot stop us from continuing to learn new things, as these new technologies are coming faster and faster.

I have always believed people learn better when they are having fun. You want to participate, you want to be successful, and you may want to try it again if you are having fun. If our students are bored and not challenged with things relevant to their lives, what point is the 180+ days of school we make them suffer through every year.

I am going to put the video about how students learn on my desktop so I can watch it at very regular intervals. I hav become a believer that if we do not teach our students with technology as much as possible we are doing a great disservice to them, if not harming their education and lives. Students today expect and deserve to be taught using the most up to date technologies available. How do I do this, that is what I am trying to figure out!





This is one video out of a group of 8 that shows the use of different digital learning devices in the classroom. After watching all 8, I found that the one on using youtube would be the most beneficial to my classroom at this time. In my school, we have to be extra careful of confidentiality and my students are not often able to be out in the community. This make some technologies very hard to adapt. Youtube now has an education component that has been very useful already for my students. It is amazing how much more attention the computer screen gets than I usually do. I am firmly of the belief that teachers need much more assistance in bringing technology into the classroom. The time and learning curve issues are so great it is very hard for most teachers to learn the technology and then be able to make engaging lessons thorughout the year using them. I think this is why teachers so often fall back to more traditional teaching methods. The educational community needs to hand teachers good lessons they can use in the classroom with new technologies they can implement with little leg work. These videos do that. You can watch each one and get one or more ideas of how you could use a new technology in your classroom. I will continue to search for these ideas, and when I find them or create my own, I will share them with the teaching community.

My goal is to use our school's airliner, a powerpoint, and the mobile computers at least one day for each unit for the rest of the school year. I hope I can do this more, but if I can do them once a unit, that would be approximately 15 days of digital learning in my classroom for the remainder of the school year. I will report on my progress near the end of the term.

Emerging Technology 1: Thinkfinity

I have always believed the educational system does a great disservice to educators and students with its lack of support in lesson planning for the classroom teacher. With the multitude of tasks a teacher has, the more resources and access to others ideas are invaluable. The Social networking the web allows us, teachers around the world can share good units and lessons and hopefully create classrooms with more engaging and productive lessons.



The technology I am researching today is called Thinkfinity. It is a website by Verizon that is useful for educators, students, and teachers. If you would like to get a run-down of what it is all about clik here http://www.thinkfinity.org/tour/thinkfinitytour.aspx. It is a type of clearinghouse for standards based lessons and activities. I will be using a lesson this week I found through thinkfinity on Lewis and Clark. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/13/g68/object.html.



Lessons and activities are only part of what Thinkfinity offers. There is homework help for students, book lists, interactive games, maps and many other useful resources. I can see Thinkfinity being used in my classroom by myself and my students regularly.

Delicious Account

I have started a Delicious account as part of my research. (Also because it is a requirement for my coursework) http://delicious.com/scottcarlisle. Come and see how I am progressing and please give me some ideas. I would like to see if Delicious could help my students, any ideas?

Using New Technologies in the Social Studies Classroom

I am going to develop one well researched, useful, and engaging way to use new web technologies in my classroom this semester. My school has recently purchased a wireless cart for laptops in the classrooms. I am the social studies teacher at an on-grounds school at a residential treatment facility. A large percentage of my students are labeled as special needs. I see opportunities for them to get engaged in their own learning that I had never considered before beginning research in new web technologies.

I need ideas to get started. Please send any information on uses of blogging, social networking, wikis, twitter, etc. in social studies classrooms.