Social Media and World History

Just for the record, the alternate title for this post was: "Twitter: Is it truly for the birds?"

Is there a much larger can of worms to open than the idea that social media is something that can be adapted for the classroom environment?  Much less that I'm going to be using... *gasp*... Twitter?  Almost immediately, the potentially horrifying implications jump to mind.  How will you regulate its use? How is that useful for students in a classroom? Why is it necessary to the lesson plan? Is it part of the curriculum? How about the state standards? 

In a 2011 article called "Learning Takes Flight with Twitter," Andrew Mercer calls twitter a "blogging tool with a twist...a micro-blog." He highlights my first point (and my argument for the use of twitter as opposed to other social media in my World History 1 class): that is, that with Twitter, "authors are forced to 'make it brief'" as they are limited to a mere 140 characters per tweet.  Students will be creating school-specific twitter accounts and those are the only ones that they will be allowed to be on in the classroom.  It Twitter specifically named in the Massachusetts state standards? No. But, the idea that students should be able to summarize and paraphrase is both there and in the Common Core Writing Anchor Standards.  Also in those standards are the ideas of analysis and creation (higher-level thought processes).  By having to think like a character from, for example, the Renaissance and tweet as, say Leonardo Da Vinci, students are using their knowledge as opposed to simply remembering and understanding historical facts and figures.  Twitter "provide[s] enhancement during group discussions" (Mercer 2011) and, as such, is an incredibly useful tool.

Another important reason for using twitter as a platform, and why I defend this choice, is that, as Mercer reminds, "the interface is very simple and intuitive and will have new users tweeting in minutes." There are various privacy settings and all students will engage in the highest level of those settings while only following their fellow students and myself.  You are also welcome to create an account and engage in the conversation, or just follow along! Additionally, as graded work, students will be held responsible for their postings and will be required to tweet a certain number of times as any given historical figure.

The link to my Twitter page is here:
https://twitter.com/MsLaRusso
Please ask to follow me and I look forward to everyone tweeting and reading about

Reference:

Mercer, Andrew. (2011). "Learning Takes Flight with Twitter." The Canadian Music Educator53.1: 35.

A WebQuest Update

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back from my blogging break!  I'm excited to share some new details with you about what students will be completing in class over the course of the two weeks that we will be studying the Renaissance in Italy. We will spend those two weeks almost entirely in the computer lab (or with the computer/iPad carts!) and everyone will be working in pairs on a set of tasks that will make them Renaissance experts. By following directions and completing two assessments (with lots of help from online experts in video and in print along the way), your student will become not only knowledgeable about politics, economics, intellect and the arts, but also more tech-savvy. These skills will serve them well for the rest of their academic and post-academia careers.
One task that everyone will accomplish is to create their own Prezis.  If you go to prezi.com, you can take a look at some sample presentations. This presentation software is fantastic... and mobile! No more forgetting the jump drive that your powerpoint is on and having a panic attack. Students will also have certain elements that they will be asked to embed into their Prezis (for instance, a youtube video and images).

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Another task that all students will complete is the creation of an assessment for the rest of their classmates to take after having done the WebQuest and created their Prezis.  This is something that each student pair will turn in (with an answer key!). They can create a test or quiz, a graphic organizer, an essay prompt, an assignment for creating a poster, or any other way they can think of to test their classmates' knowledge.  That said, students will really be reaching to the top of Bloom's Taxonomy as they make their way through these WebQuests, first learning about and understanding what the Renaissance was, then beginning to apply and analyze it via their Prezis, and finally creating their very own assessment about the topic to evaluate someone else's understanding.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!