I feel like I learned a lot in the class. I feel much more confident in my ability to learn new technologies and to figure out how to use them in my classroom. This will be extremely useful, because technology has become so important in society at large. Also, my students will be using it a lot and in order to engage my students in the class, I will need to use technology. One way that I will use technology is by using Google Earth in my classroom. This will help the students to understand issues of geography and how it affects history. I also plan on using a website to keep in touch with my students and their parents. This will ensure that we're all on the same page. I also plan on using teaching my students about internet safety, so that they will know what to do to be safe online. This class really helped me to see how adaptable I need to be in my teaching. I need to be willing to try new things in order to reach my students and help them to learn.
The video that we watched in class about the growth of technology and how important it is becoming in the world really struck me. I know that we talk about technology a lot, but all of the figures and numbers really showed me just how influential it has become in our lives. I was especially struck by the fact that many of the jobs that we will be preparing our students for have not yet even been created. This showed me just how important it is that we integrate technology into our classrooms, because our students must learn how to be creative in their use of technology and comfortable with experimenting with it. It also showed me how much the upcoming generations will rely on technology, and because of this, I must be up on the latest stuff if I am to be able to reach them and interest them in what they are learning. This means that I will need to integrated technology into my classroom as much as I can. I hope to use technology to present material to my students and get them into the lessons.
I learned a lot about internet safety through my thirty minute study. I signed up with i-Safe and went through a couple of the tutorials. One thing that really struck me was how prevalent internet bullying is in schools and how important it is that we discuss this problem with our students. When we're on the internet, we don't really think about others' reactions to what we say or do as much as if our interactions with them are face to face. It is so easy to send an unkind message or even a message that is not meant to be unkind, but is misread. As I was learning about internet safety, I was also struck by how important it is to teach young people about how they can be safe on the internet. They may not realize just how damaging and permanent something that they do, say or post on the internet can be. We need to teach them how to make wise decisions about using the internet to ensure their safety and the safety of others. I know that internet safety is not something that I have thought about much in the past, but there are some things that I would like to change as a result of my study. First of all, I would like to remove some of my personal information off of the internet and choose to be more careful about what I put up there from now on. I also feel much more prepared and knowledgeable about phishing scams and how to avoid being caught up in something like that. There were a number of things that I learned from the internet safety assignment and teaching opportunity. First of all, I learned just how much we often don't think about internet safety. I taught my fiance about internet safety and there were many things that we discussed that he said he had never heard before. One thing that he had never heard of was changing your birth day if you are going to put it on line. He had never thought to alter it by a couple of days in order to protect your personal information. He had also never heard about the free fire-walls that you can install on your computer to ensure that you don't accidentally go to any sites that are bad or have bad pop-ups on your screen. He had never heard of Canine or any of the other ones that I found out about and he thought that was a really good idea to use them. Internet safety is important and it is something that we should be talking about in our families and our schools.
There were a ton of really interesting things that could be used in the classroom that I saw at the Innovative Instruction Competition. One thing that I thought was really cool was the use of a blue-tooth keyboard and mouse in the classroom for teaching students how to write an essay. The teacher would pass around the blue-tooth mouse and keyboard and students would be able to take turns writing and editing different parts of an essay. This is a very visual and hands-on way to teaching writing to the students and helps them to learn about the writing and editing process. Another use of technology that I thought was really interesting was the use of a wikispace, primary documents, and the creation of a video to study the American Revolution. I thought that I was really neat how the presenters sought to have the students develop their own opinions about the Revolution. I also really liked how the teacher had the students defend their positions--by creating movie explaining how they felt. I also really liked the group that sought to use the asyncretous videos to perform a debate in their classroom. I liked this because I believe that it will give some students needed time to formulate an argument and responses to arguments that you don't get if you do an in class debate. This may also help students feel much more comfortable with the activity and sharing their real thoughts and feelings.
Although I had a very hard time with this project, I feel like it was useful for me to learn how to make a video. I believe that because of this project, I am much more confident in making a movie and I feel like I could do this again if I needed to. I also feel like I could construct a video assignment for my students, which could be a very useful learning tool for them. They could recreate an event in history or create a talk show to discuss a historical issue. Multimedia Project (Movie)
1. Must teach or enhance the teaching of a concept in a way that would be difficult to do without technology OR be an example of a video project a student might submit for your class (3 points) Your assessment:3/3 I believe that providing visual and video, the students will better understand just how powerful propaganda can be. My Assessment: 2. Must connect directly to teaching some aspect of the Utah Core Curriculum (see http://uen.org/core/) – (1 point) Your assessment: 1/1 It connects to the core curriculum by showing how Americans dealt with the war. My Assessment: 3. Must include a storyboard (due the first week of the project). If this storyboard is not provided BEFORE the project, then you will lose points. 4. Must include digital images or video (2 points) Your assessment:2/2 I used a couple of images for the project. My Assessment: 5. Must include meaningful narration or text (1 points) Your assessment:1/1 I narrated at the beginning, explaining what propaganda is. My Assessment: 6. Must include some background music that enhances and not distracts from your message (1 points) Your assessment:1/1 The music during the narration helped to engage the listener, making it more interesting. My Assessment: 7. Must have a credits page at the end where images, video, and music used in the video are properly cited. Note that many students lose these points because their credits are too small or move too fast to be read, or they do not describe a source exactly using generalities instead like “photo from flickr.com”. (1 point).Your assessment: 0/1 I don't think that I cited some things properly. My Assessment: 8. Must be engaging or interesting to view (4 points) Your assessment:4/4 I believe that it was very interesting and engaging. My Assessment: 9. Must teach the topic effectively in a way that could not be done as well without the technology (4 points) Your assessment:4/4 I believe that it is very important for the students to see visuals and movies to show just how propaganda works. My Assessment: 10. Must be uploaded to TeacherTube or Youtube and then embedded in your blog correctly (1 point). Your assessment:1/1 I completed this requirement. My Assessment:
Things have been going pretty well with my iMovie. I have figured out how to import movies, pictures, how to do voice-overs, and how to correct the view on images. I also have figured out how to rearrange things so that they can be in the right order. One issue that I am having, however, is that I don't know how to open a iMovie file that I have saved on my flash drive. I know that it is saved there, and that I have saved it correctly, but I am unable to open that file on a Mac other than the one that I have worked on it on. This is very frustrating. Also, I am not sure how to add a menu, an opening, or credits at the end. I am unsure as to how I can change the time limit on how long certain pictures are showing. I feel as though I am making progress, but it feels very slow and frustrating at times.
For my video topic I decided to focus on propaganda in the United States during WWII and how it go the American people to support US soldiers. To start out, I am going to have a number of propaganda posters showing. I will have a voice-over going at the same time the gives the definition of propaganda and how these particular posters were used during WWII to gain US domestic support. Then I will have a clip of a professor at a university talking about the way that Hollywood was able to gain support for our troops by portraying the war and our efforts in a good light. Then I will have a clip from a Donald Duck propaganda movie that calls on Americans to pay their taxes in order to support their troops. I believe that this will be a very effective way of teaching this concept, because propaganda is all about visuals and making an emotional connection with the audience in order to get them to do or feel what you want them to. I also believe that it will be much more engaging for the students to see propaganda rather than just hearing a definition.
I am currently a senior at BYU studying history education. I've always loved history and I'm excited to share my passion with others. I am the third of six children, and I love having a big family. It always keeps things interesting. 2010 is going to be a very exciting year for me, because I am currently engaged and will be getting married in April. My favorite color is green and I am in love with Indian food.
