History Day Wiki

Well, I finally have my wiki set up for History Day. Bachman and I are using the same one, so I got all our students on and made sure it worked. They only had to write their topic and key question down to make sure everything works-- simple enough. It worked fairly well. The best part of having the students have accounts is that their name is attached, so if someone decides to write inappropriate comments, it's attached to them. Let's just say, there always has to be one to try it, and that genius could not figure out how I knew it was him that was calling people names on the wiki.
Why does there always have to be one kid to wreck something? I did have to spend 10-15 minutes going through and deleting his comments, just so noone else feels like they have the freedom to do this. So, he has joined the ranks of wiki probabtion--- any more inappropriate comments and his access will be gone, and I guess I will need to babysit him. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH--Thank goodness it's time for break. Merry Christmas :)

Thing 6

Well, I thought I should probably do Thing 6 before the holiday season, or this month's would not get done. I did find it interesting to read the teacher's assignment on the students going in and fixing up wikipedia--what a good way to have students do research, yet also look for fallacies. I don't mind students browsing wikipedia for a topic search or just to get an idea, but many of them cannot break away from using it--like it's the know all end all source. I just attended a History Day Workshop yesterday, and they are trying to get students out of this habit too. They told us there really should not be any sources on their bibliography from wikipedia.

As for GoogleDocs, I cannot say that I have ever really used this. I have learned about them through MILI and have gone through the steps of working with one. I have even set one up, in case I get the urge. However, right now I feel that I have enough on my plate. In the future, I would like to look further into using them in the future--if I can think of a great reason to use it. I have talked to a few students about using it for History Day, since they are working with people in different hours or classes. So, we'll see if we get to try it out.

Moving onto wiki's, I will be setting one up for History Day. I am not making it mandatory, but will offer some extra points for using the wiki. So, I just got started on this process and will need to find out how it works.

History Day-- narrowing down topics

Next week, we start working on helping students find History Day topics. Since we teach World History, students are required to choose a global individual (Non-American) who made an impact and is a legacy. I have looked at the research process materials, and I believe that there are a few sheets I can utilize to help the students who are struggling with narrowing down a topic or topics. Has anyone used any specific one and found success?

Shopping for deals

I will admit that I was one of those crazy people who actually went out and braved Black Friday shopping. I always have, and I think I always will, but I went at 10--I'm not getting trampled by the extra craziness (I mean a Walmart employee on the East Coast go killed by people, when he tried to open the door to let customer sin). Anyway, I know you can shop online, and yes, I have done this before, but I don't like paying all the shipping charges. My sister has already done quite a bit of her Christmas shopping online, and she encouraged me to look, because there are good deals. Lots of places were offering extra 40-50% off for buying items online. Plus, many places are offering free shipping this year, even if you're not spedning lots of bucks. So, I'm off to check out some deals.

Thing 5

I remember as a child loving to go to the library, in fact I liked to read and would go through books so quickly that my parents did not want to buy them. In elementary school, I loved library time. I always had my books finished by the time it was to bring them back. In middle school, I liked reading, but stuck to the more popular series like Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley Twins--so my parents did a lot of buying, since the latest was not at the library fast enough. Our middle school librarian did remind me of the old lady in the movies-- there were 4 chairs at all the tables, but her biggest rule was only 2 people per table. It was like the 11th commandment or something.
Between being busier in high school with things and not having the weekly trip to the library, I usually did not visit too much ih high school, except for research projects. I did continue to read for pleasure, but I was not a frequent visitor to the library. In college and graduate school, the library was again more a place for research. This summer though I decided to get myself a library card in my area- Maple Grove. I have liked that they let you check out a lot of books at once and you can renew online-- in case you can't make it back in 2 weeks.I haven't really used it for much other than pleasure reading.
As for my students, I really am not too aware of their use of the public library. As a history teacher, I do take my students to our media center and teach them about the resources there, however, being that I don't live in Carver County, I am not that familiar with the libraries or student usage. I know that Larry Bachman and I are going to encourage public library use by offering some extra credit for history day and we are having public librarians come in and teach our students about the resources. Other than this, I haven't had a lot of time to think about better usage for students.

Mili This Past Week

I enjoyed looking at the data bases in class this week. I looked directly at Historical Newspapers, which I found to be a fairly interesting place. It was impressive to see how you could get articles and cartoons on historical topics easily, and they were from when it happened. I will need to explore this site more to be ablt to say exactly how I would use it.

Thing 4

Today I started to look at Thing 4, and worked at a customized homepage. I chose igoogle, basically because we have used many google things in MILI. Many times I choose to use yahoo as a search engine though, so we'll see how it goes. I will probably try this one and see how it goes, I can always change if I find something I like better.

I like the added information you can just check and add to your page. I am going to try this out as my page and see how it goes. I like the news, entertainment, and time features. I have always enjoyed logging into yahoo, because of the quick nes stories they have, so I think it will be useful to have these on a page I can make into a homepage, if I choose.

Lookin at the online calendar, I am not sure about using this. I already use the calendar in my email, and I have found this very useful to have right in my email. Someone emails me about setting up an appointment, and I can just check my calendar right there. So, I'm not sure I would change this.

As for the to do lists, they made me feel overwhelmed. It just felt like a lot of work to do in 1 lesson, so I think I am going to have to revisit this with a fresh mind. I am interested in taking a closer look at the project calculator, but today.... I feel overwhelmed with all I have already examined, so I think another day I will look at this more closely for how I could use this tool.

Wiki for History Day

I have decided to create a wiki page for History Day this year. This page will include a spot for both my students and Larry Bachman's, as we are working through this together. He's done History Day before, and hey-- I'm willing to be the one who jumps in to try and set up this wiki for our students. I have learned how to set up accounts without email addresses, and so I have done that step. Now, it's just a matter of teaching students how to use and figure out how best to manage this. Any suggestions???? I'll let everyone know how things are going once the ball is rolling--- should be early December when we start to use this.

Thing 3

Well, since this is going to be a very busy week with the end of the quarter and all, I thought I'd use my lazy Sunday afternoon for something productive. So, yes, I did thing 3.

Research is one of those things I really enjoy about teaching history. There's always so many things you can do, so sometimes I really need to think about the outcome of what do I really want my students to know leaving my classroom?. What is easy for me about research is coming up with the ideas for research assignments. I am an idea person, so that part of teaching has always been very easy for me.

The challenges for research, and I think many teachers would agree with me, is getting students to learn how to do quality research. I know that they can google something, but if what they are looking for is not in the first site, then they are not patient and say its not there, I need a new topic. Well, of course they don't get a new topic, but yes, I can definately use some tools to help my students research.

As I am doing History Day for the first time this year, I am glad that I am taking the MILI course. It has made me stop and look at all the things available for teachers and students to work on research projects. Yes, I am interested in the project calculator, and I did see some hand-outs that I believe can assist students with this project. While I believe the project itself is signifcant, overall I think that students will this year be getting better research skills along the way-- thanks to this class. I am also setting up a wiki for History Day students, not only for questions, but also for writing about how this process is going once a week.

I am trusting that teaching better research skills will have my student's trips to the media center be more productive. Hopefully, this will assist me in helping all these students' projects.

As for support, I believe that our media specialist is awesome here, and she's willing to use these resources as well. In all, I think that just like anything else you try with students, you just have to try some of these resources and see what works best for your classes.

All the technology we have and yet.....

After recent conferences, it has come to mind that while some parents use our technology, we have so many others that do not. We have been told many times that our World History textbook is heavy, ummm yeah there's a lot of history in the world that has happened. When you mention that the book is online and that we have CD Roms available, this still did not make some people happy! We cannot purchase 2 textbooks for each student at eighty dollars each, so either carry the book or use the online version. I had a few parents say, well it's hard to monitor their use, they may switch onto different sites--- hello I have to check on 30 plus students when we are in a lab-so maybe you can check up with your student.

So anyway, the real part of my post is that we have all these tools to use: Online book, parent portal, email, webpages with assignments posted and the actual assignments ready to print, and many times parents don't help their student take advantage of them. Even parents I had attend Curriculum Night asked me at conferences, can I see their assignments? He says he never has homework-- wake up this is high school, if he never does, his grade is probably not looking to good--- use the website, use portal!!! I guess my frustration is that we spend a lot of time with technology resources for students, but many times they are not getting used. Now, I know we have people who watch the portal hourly, and I don't want obsessiveness either, but with all these tools, if you have internet access-- check it out, and help your student use the resources.

Thing 2: RSS and Blogging

Well, I did it! I actually got to sit down and do thing 2. I have already enjoyed reading blogs on various topics of interest before this class started, and I have commented on them. I have never used RSS Reader, and while there are so many cool features, I am a bit overwhelmed at all the options. I can see how this tool can be useful, especially if you start getting into all these blogs. There are so blogs out there on any topic that you can think of.

I have started to read more of my MILI classmates blogs, and I learn a lot from each one. I am interested in setting up either a wiki or a blog for History Day starting in 2nd quarter. I think this would help students be more responsible for their research and would let me see more of what they are thinking about the project.

I will definately have to keep playing with all these new tools! As I get more comfortable with RSS reader I could see it as a nice organizational tool for blogs that I am interested in looking at frequently.

Helpful website for History Teachers

Hey History Teachers--- I found a great site for technology use in History classes:
teachinghistorywithtechnology.com

It has lesson plans and helpful hints for technology use for history classes-- definately something to add to your delicious account!

Tools for better searching

I am excited to learn tools to help students do better searches on the internet. It can be frustrating as a teacher to have students quickly type in one thing, and say there's nothing on my topic. For me, it always seems to be the student that probably has the easiest topic-- like Columbus.

This year I am doing History Day for the first time, and I am really glad to have this class to assist me before I jump in with this research project second quarter. I believe that there are some simple tools that I could teach students, and even if they just tried a few, I think the searching would be better. I'm excited to try this out.

Plagiarism

As students start to use more and more technology, the act of plagiarism becomes even more to the forefont. I have learned just how many students think they can get away with this just this week. My student teacher gave a small research assignment--- 1 page summary on a topic in Asia and share a power point slide in class. The students worked could work with a partner. Well, he started grading papers and let's just say.... things sounded over the top for 9th graders, so we checked sources---- 18 groups had copied and pasted items straight from the internet.



We decided to make this a learning lesson-- students could re-do their own paper for 1/2 credit and a parent letter was sent home. Most students felt we were being fair. We did have a few parents who claimed that their child did not write any of it-- their partner did, and so their child should get to redo it for full credit. Okay, so your kid did nothing and you are defending it! Interesting week to say the least! We did have a whole class on plagiarism, and next week we are working on summary writing and how to not copy.



This lesson got the Media Center Specialist and I thinking about how best to teach students on this and what media tools can help. We plan on practicing Google Docs, but any other ideas on how to be proactive on plagiarism???

Thing 1: Going Deeper (Yes, this entry is long!)

After completing thing 1, I have lots of thoughts and ideas about using web tools. The first article: "Truth Can You Handle It" reminded me a lot of my students. As many of us said this summer, we have great ideas implemented and we think students know how to best research it, afterall they're in high school, but sometimes we miss the boat on the research piece.

The students in the article mentioned that they just go with the first source, never thinking about credibilty. I know that when I have been in the media center with students, they give up rather easily. They spend 5 minutes searching online and if they can't find something, they are ready to switch topics--- but hey-- their mean history teacher won't let them. She knows it's out there, but it will take some time and diligence to dig through resources. Anyone have any great suggestions for this???

I desire to get my students to use a variety of sources and juust like the article, I have required my students to use books (yes, those things on the shelves with pages in them) and other sources beyond the web. Beyond this, I am looking for ways for students to be more research savy and going beyond wikipedia, just because it's first. People ar always saying that students are tech savy, and they are at many things, but I don't think that they are coming in with the best web research skills-- they can find a topic, but just like iguana guy in the article-- they want it now with all the answers, and oh my goodness they are going to have to look in more than one place!

I think that all these tools do work together, but I'm not sure that teachers nor students at this point know exactly how to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Teachers want students to use all these tools, but also desire for them to use them effectively--- I think students know how to use the web for entertainment, but I'm not sure they know how to use it effectively to research.

Overall, I believe how I gather information is somewhat like my students--- I would like it quick as well on a day to day basis-- like weather or directions to a place. However, when I am doing research on a deep topic, I still I guess would be more old school-- many sources, yes including the web, but also going to books, enecyclopedias, journal articles, and especially for history primary source documents. I believe that students should be looking at these by the time they reach high school. We spend much of our research time away from this, when we probably should head towards it more, and better teach our students to look for these. To store information, I have gone more electronic--- for everything from school documents to class assignments-- I think the day of the file folders is pretty much over for me!!!

I do believe that the definition of information literacy is true, because we have reached an age where we can take information with us. I think the thing that I have noticed the most with this course and the first steps of MILI are the web 2.0 tools. I remember when the internet was big news in college and we could use it for research. At this time though, we were just getting information and email was the cool new tool in the late 90s. I am member of facebook, and I am aware that there are sites we can cahnge out on the web, but I was not aware of the extent, nor the amount of things out there and the changeability of information. I think that our students would take whatever they saw as true, because they saw it on the web-- that's the part that's a bit scary.

In all, I am excited about sharpening my skills and becoming better at all the new technology out there for the classroom.

PB Wiki

I started playing more with PB Wiki after class recently, and I have discovered how to set up classes. I think that this could be a useful tool for upcoming discussions on topics of history. I would like to pose questions for students and then have them answer/ build on each others. Overall, I think this this would be a great tool to start off 2nd quarter with-- giving the students something new to use. I believe it could be useful, espeically for the quieter students, who many times don't feel comfortable sharing orally. Hopefully, this would give them an oultet to add their opinion.

It's Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! I'm getting into the school year, and getting settled in. Hopefully, next week the start of school will be settled in and I can actually start looking at more Metronet lessons. I am looking forward at implementing some of these new tech. items into my classes.

School has started

Well, with the coming of September, school has started. I think things are off to a good start classroom wise. Between getting everything set up for the year, and starting to learn 150 names (which I still don't know all of!!!), and having a student teacher, it's been a busy fall start up. So, I will admit, I have not blogged until today, and I have yet to look at my Metronet lessons--- I promise, I will get caught up. :) Hope everyone is having a great first few weeks of school!!

Learning About Blogging

Well, it's day #2, and I'm still learning my way through blogging. Yes-- I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I know it's something else I need to play with to better understand it and to feel more comfortable with it. I'm sure that once I get the practice in it, I will be adding it to my tech. box of tools. It's tough at this time, beginning of the school year, to think about all that needs to be done--- yikes--lots and lots. However, I am looking forward to learning better research and tech. skills.

Setting up a blog

Setting up this blog was fairly easy with the step by step instructions. At the beginning of the day, I was not too excited about doing one, because of others I have set up in the past--- they were difficult and not too user friendly.