On My Mind

There are a host of issues that Im thinking up about all of these individualized lesson plans. The primary concern is that I will become redundant with the ways in which I assess the students. For example I will continually ask factual questions, which obviously only addresses the surface of the issues that I may be teaching. What if I want students to go a couple steps ahead on the thinking spectrum and construct something at one step before they move onto the next step. How can I quickly assess whether or not they have met the level of understanding required to move on. Using PPt Kiosk it is very difficult in this regard because it is not going to be able to determine the level of competence. Anyone dealing with this issue? Are you going to go down that path where they have to construct something whether it be a theory, idea, artwork, strategy, etc?

Here is my favorite webquest so far! Its called "Who's Footing the Bill" This thing is an awesome inquiry type exercise where students have to figure out whether or not Federal Gov't deficits are a problem, then students get to fiddle around with a very in depth U.S. budget to see what must be eliminated to solve our budget issues. Lots of great links, simple guiding questions. If you're teaching about U.S. fiscal policy this is a GREAT webquest!


Another great piece is called Medieval Times Adventure. This quest isn't as interesting or dynamic as the one above but it is good at creating some historical empathy with some cool interactive digital resources that bring some aspects of medieval life alive.

Bienvenidos

Okay so my first impression of blogs was.... what makes everyone an authority figure on the news? Most people don't even have any training to determine what is important let alone what something means. Also why would news anchors such as Brian Williams actually tell us what they're thinking as opposed reporting one thing on the news then saying "go to my blog to read more." My next impression on blogs was, this is just another manifestation of our culture's selfishness. We are so caught up in ourselves, believe that we are the most important thing on this planet and we all have a story that should be published along with the great classics. If you need more illustration on this point just go see Julie and Julia (a movie I did enjoy by the way). I had told myself that I will do one selfish thing and NOT get involved in Blogs just to prove my own point that I don't want to get involved with something that I thought was just a fad of our selfishly instant gratified society. Well apparently the gravity of the Blog has sucked me in! As the case with so much technology consuming our world, tt wasn't a matter of if but when. Not only has the gravity sucked me in but I am now considering using Blogs in my teaching.

Let me reassess my earlier point of view. Yes I still hold true to some of these self-evident truths but some I must revisit. Blogs are a powerful tool for collaboration, reflection and composing cohesive ideas. I plan on using these in my class as a means to get students to think about the consistencies of history and what it all means to them. For example I want students to post weekly on what it means to be an American. This will be a great common theme that helps them determine their own identity while connecting all of the developments in our country and determine what it all actually means over the scale of time.

Ive also realized that no longer will our memoirs be contained in written journals but they will also be constructed for everyone to comment. Maybe Blogs aren't as selfish as I first thought? It is a way of taking my personal selfish thoughts to the world so that people can comment to actually make me a better person that makes the world a better place.

So be it, here goes my Blog! If you read it cool! If you don't thats cool too, I realize I am not the most important person out there, I don't plan to be, and don't expect to be so no hard feelings : )