As I continue my study of educational technologies, there comes a point when I must put theory into practice. With the school year rapidly approaching, I am reviewing my lesson plans and integrating new concepts.
One lesson I decided to revise, focuses on Native American culture and their interactions with Europeans. I chose this lesson because, for me, the early years of the United States is a difficult time period to get eighth graders interested in. The United States did not exist, it was a “long” time ago, and Hollywood has not made a recent blockbuster of this time period.
The technology I’ve decided to incorporate is thinglink.com. The goal of this lesson is to have students research and learn about a specific Native American group and present their findings. The reason I choose this website is the ability to add multimodal information in one spot. Students can add text, pictures, and videos into a single presentation.
The content of this lesson focuses on the Native American tribes and their interactions with Europeans. As a group, Native Americans are often glanced over. As a history teacher, it is difficult to figure out which groups should be discussed in class and which groups students will need to research on their own. Not being able to cover all of the Native American tribes, this will expose students to multiple tribes I would not have time to discuss.
If there are other topics in History, or any other subject, students want to know more about they have the ability to research and learn more on their own. By researching, students are able to answer their own questions and develop deeper questions. This type of questioning will allow students to ask better questions both in and out of school. Berger (2014) discusses the need for students and professionals to ask better questions, to seek better answers. Berger references the of IBM’s Watson for medical students. As students used Watson, their questions became more specific allowing Watson to provide better answers. These types of questioning and research skills will be vital throughout my class, other classes, and post high school. There is so much information available today it is important students have a way of accessing and sharing it with the rest of the world. This lesson helps students develop and refine those skills.
The last part of this lesson, allows students to create something and share it. Students have chosen their topic, conducted their own research, and created a way to share their information. All of these skills are important in the 21st century. Mishra (2012) discusses how creativity is found within specific content, as well as across multiple contents. This lesson allows students to combine, art, music, technology, history, etc. into one presentation.
This is a chance for students to present information about the Native groups in an exciting manner. As I stated at the start of this post, students do not tend to find this time period very interesting. Challenge them to make an exciting and informative graphic to share with the world. This is their opportunity to put the Europeans “on blast.”
I am excited to try this lesson out. I hope my students will find this valuable and learn new technology, research skills, and historical content. If you are interested in using Thinglink.com please see my lesson plan.
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References
Berger, Warren. (2014). A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.
Mishra, P., & The Deep-Play Research Group (2012). Rethinking technology and creativity in the 21st century: Crayons are the future. TechTrends, 56(5), 13-16. Retrieved from: http://punya.educ.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Mishra-crayons-techtrends1.pdf
Alex Gorton 
