TECHLESSON

è  Introduce key concepts in the geography component of Social Studies 11 and have students gain an understanding of how these are related to their daily lives and the global community. è  Shift responsibility of learning to students and generate more student-led discussion. è  Introduce students to wikispaces and the possibilities of learning by using them. è  Shift responsibility of learning from teacher to student. **Leverage empowerment** by having them use new sources of information, in particular other students. Move from a more automative teaching style to an informative one. è  Give students more opportunity to collaborate with each other. As teachers we are constantly reminded of the importance of “teacher talk” and collaboration time. “Student talk” is just as important in learning because much of what they learn comes from each other, not the teacher. (Where did you here that? Oh, my friend told me). è  Reduce the amount of time that students are isolated from each other. è  Computers / Internet è  Textbook è  This lesson can be either done in class or at home for homework. As this is fairly new for the students and I it would be a good idea to do this in the school library as a lesson the first time. Once the students are familiar with using wikispaces, these kinds of lessons could be shortened or lengthened depending on the topic. è  Eventually what I would like to do with these is use them for a short little homework assignment or a full length lesson. My goal as stated before is to generate more productive and informed discussion in my class and to increase the confidence of those who are not so keen to share their ideas. **What is the benefit of using this kind of technology?** By having them do exercises online, they will always have access to other student’s comments and ideas, decreasing the chance of them being stuck at home saying “I don’t get it” or “I don’t know what to do”. If they do get into this situation they will be able to look at what someone else has done or said and go from there. When they come in to class they will have starting points for discussion because they will have seen a lot of it online previously. è  On a downside, this kind of lesson or exercise does rely on the internet. If the district server was down for some reason I would have to change my lesson fairly quickly. There is also of course the chance of students simply copying each other’s ideas, but I know for a fact that this happens just as easily with a sheet of paper shared between three students. The hope is to give them starting points for their own ideas, not ideas to copy. This particular lesson was not totally void of technology originally. What I am doing with this is adding an “informative” section instead of only using the technology in an “automative” way. 1.)  Brief discussion of some of the key terms in the geography unit (Globalization, Standard of living, population). This is usually done in a “Think, Pair, Share” scenario. I always like to do a “What do you already know?” exercise at the beginning of each unit.    2.)   Students are shown a number of videos on Youtube relating to the topics discussed. 3.)  Students answer a series of questions relating to the videos using their textbook and own knowledge. There is not usually much time left so it always spills into homework with the expectation that we will discuss the questions the next day.    1.)   Same as before 2.)  Students define terms getting proper definitions from the textbook.    3.)   Students watch the videos individually, either during class time in the library or on their own time (school or home). 4.)  Students answer a series of questions relating to the videos using their textbook, own knowledge, and any other sources they wish. The difference is they are answering these online in the discussion section of the wikispace. The task for each lesson along with the videos and anything else needed is going to be put on a new page in my “CAMSMESSAGEBOARDS” wikispace. They will post their answers in the discussion section and as before, be ready to discuss them the next day in class. Everything will be online and accessible to students and parents to view. Every student should have a solid understanding of the discussion topics from viewing what everyone else is saying.  ** I HOPE TO EVENTUALLY DO THIS WITH MANY OF MY LESSONS AND POSSIBLY HAVE STUDENTS COLLABORATIVELY CREATED THEIR OWN PAGES ON VARIOUS ISSUES AS WELL. **
 * __ GLOBALIZATION AND THE INFORMATION AGE  __**
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 * __ What did this look like before/after technology? __**
 * __ BEFORE __**
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