Current Events #9: A Day in Pictures

"No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline. --Kofi Annan

This post from Free Technology for Teachers inspired me to rethink the opening of my Social Studies and Civics classes. On many occasions, I have used a news clip to start my lesson, but what if every class started with a photo taken in the past 24 hours? What a conversation starter!

Richard Bryne (at Free Technology) uses BBC's In Pictures, but another excellent resource is the blog, The Big Picture, which posts amazing (although sometimes disturbing) imagery of what is in the news. You can use Google Reader to subscribe to both resources.

Connecting with current events visually brings the stories alive, leads students to ask questions, and puts global citizenship at the forefront of the classroom--a great way to make Social Studies meaningful.

References

BBC. (2011, November 18). Day in pictures: 18 November 2011. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15791213

Byrne, R. (2011, November 18). Using pictures for current events [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/11/using-pictures-for-current-events.html

Nelson, P., Turner, L., & Young. L. (2011, November 15). Dangerous work: "the mine" in Guatemala City [web log post]. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/11/dangerous_work_the_mine_in_gua.html

Goals for this Web 2.0 Adventure

"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe, "Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name." --Sir Walter Scott

What would I like to gain from this adventure?? Inquiry-based learning requires that students “identify what they already know, ask intriguing questions about what they do not know, investigate the answers, construct new understandings, and share those understandings” (Berger & Trexler, 2010, p. 11). While the first post in this proposal outlines my starting place, the questions below, in this final post, will create a framework for learning for the next two months.

Five Essential Questions:

1) Why should teachers and students use Web 2.0 tools?

2) How can Web 2.0 tools support the development of community and collaboration?

3) How can Web 2.0 tools assist teachers and students in sharing and delivering curriculum content?

4) Which web tools work well (alone or together) to increase efficiency and organization?

5) Where do I want to go next on this Web 2.0 journey?

I anticipate that the eight tools I have selected for investigation will increase my comfort and expedience with using Web 2.0 tools both at home and in the classroom. With each tool I investigate, I will be asking myself both ‘how can I use this?’ and ‘how could my students use this?’ I hope that each tool I have selected becomes a regular part of my learning, teaching and living routine.

REFERENCES

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Current Events #2: "The Life Project"

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” ~Confucius

I found my Current Events post for Week 2 as I was reading Will Richardson’s chapter on RSS in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.

I was using Figure 5.1 on pg. 76 to add subscriptions to my Google Reader. When I subscribed to Dean Shareski’s blog (http://ideasandthoughts.org ), I discovered a recent post entitled “The Learning Project”.

I really enjoyed this post for the simplicity of its theme: you become a good teacher when you become a good learner. To summarize his blog, he describes a new learning project he is doing with student teachers in his course at the University of Regina and he outlines four steps:
a) learn a completely new skill
b) write about it
c) collect resources and
d) take a snapshot of where you are at with the skill at the beginning, and then compare it to a snapshot at the end.

Wow, I thought, this is exactly what we are doing with the inquiry project! He is an inspiring blogger and I look forward to following his adventure to learn to play guitar while we learn Web tools.