Technology Integration: Examining Racism in America

My matrix is based on a step-by-step guide to having my students explore racism in both a historical sense, but also in the a very personal sense. By examining racism through historical footage, original documents, speeches and laws, and then having each student find how these events have impacted the people in their own lives, I hope to create context for one of the most enduring wounds in American history.

Technology Integration

Row 1:  Investigating the problem of racism in America begins by reviewing background and foundation information through historical works and video. This NJCCCS standard asks that through technologies currently available to all teachers and students, we have them investigate a problem in our society. EdPuzzle is a wonderful technology that allows teachers to break up YouTube videos and to insert into those videos quizzes, questions, and even audio of the teacher's voice to guide students in their thinking. Social studies is so reliant on historical incidents, that it helps to have video that is put into context to help spur thought in the students. The students would then use Facebook to locate friends and relatives that they can interview for a later video, and the internet in general to further research possible solutions to the problem of racial tension in America.

By integrating the ISTE standard that asks students to gather information from multiple sources, I hope to create a culture of real investigation in the students. Simply watching a few videos through EdPuzzle will not be enough, which is why I included the internet and Facebook, where the students can gather personal family histories and more general access to primary sources.

Row 2: This row is really geared toward giving the students a chance to go beyond simple investigation; this row is about collaboration, and building the foundational skills that each student will need to live and work in a diverse society, where coworkers are not from the same background and where ideas and solutions to problems will have to be hashed out through any friction that might exist. The main project in this lesson plan is a video montage that will be put together and posted on YouTube by each student group. The video is about how racism has affected each student's life and the lives of their relatives and friends. Each student will use GoogleDocs to create a document explaining where they found their information for the video, and some background on each person they interviewed. They can use the Smithsonian app to research particular events in history if they want to use those as a center point for their interviews. They will then use YouTube to collaboratively create a video with their groups in a format that gives voice to the harsh realities of racism. Each student group can chose what style, music and tempo they want to make their video, but it must give equal voice to the people interviewed by each member of the group.

The ISTE standard that relates to this row asks students to develop cultural understanding and awareness by working with learners from other cultures. Our area is so diverse that by having the students help to create a video that incorporates the lives of their classmates they will learn a great deal about other cultures.

Row 3: After completing their videos, each student group will assemble a report on the entire process using Padlet. Creativity, combined with structure, is the goal here. This NJCCCS standard asks that students become civically aware. After putting together their videos and collaborating with one another, their final activity is to give voice to that collaboration by giving a "behind the scenes" understanding of what resources they used, what hurdles they had to overcome to create their videos and what they learned about each other. They can post additional videos, pictures, sources and so on to explain how they came together as a group and how the creation of the video helped to serve their own understanding of being a citizen in the United States.

The ISTE standard for this row is all about wrapping up what they students have learned into a comprehensive report, but I wanted to do something a bit different and so I included the use of Padlet instead of just GoogleDocs. I want the students to be able to show me what they did but in  away that still rewards creativity and visual learning.

Padlet Unit Plan

The topic of racism and stereotyping have been in the news recently, both in the United States and internationally. I thought it was important to create a unit plan that reflected both current events, but also our country's troubled history on the subject. I think our history can serve to teach us the way forward on many topics, and hopefully on this one too.

My Padlet

I created the essential questions and unit goals for this lesson based on several different things: one was a lesson plan I found that focused on the topic, the other was recent news stories and incidents that provoked questions in my own mind about how we are handling stereotyping as a country, and the other was the historical perspective through which I've been viewing our country as I zero in on Social Studies as a topic.

I chose the apps and websites I did because it will give students the chance to not only express themselves, via YouTube and Google Docs, but also the opportunity to learn more about this topic, and others, if they so choose (the Smithsonian Channel's website). I also wanted to include a more multidisciplinary approach to the topic, which is why in my further reading section I include a psychology website, and the book "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Hope you all enjoy.

Share Ideas and Opinions: Google Docs

Google Docs

Google Docs About Page

Google Docs is a productivity suite offered free to Google users and something that has become increasingly common as a tool for students throughout k-12. Google Docs offers the user tools for creating documents, Excel-style sheets, or slides in a Power-Point-like format. What makes it so user friendly is that it comes loaded with dozens of templates that the user can use to create professional-looking reports or presentations.

Google Docs works perfectly in service of the share ideas and opinions learning strategy because it gives students an easy-to-use method for communicating their thoughts and ideas on a given subject; in my case, on Social Studies topics that I might want to teach them.

A good example is the Slides feature. Within the slides feature is a great template for doing book reports, which is a great way for students to express how they are interpreting a shared reading project. The template has a title page, an "About" page, a main characters page, and more, already ready for the student. By taking the formatting work out of the students hands, Google Docs allows them to focus on their own thoughts and feelings about historical works and figures. i would have my students read a short book about the American Revolution and then have them use the Slides feature to report on the main themes and figures from the revolution.

The only drawback to Google Docs is that it might make it too easy for a student to cut and paste information into the slides without much thought as to what is most important about what they are studying.

Supporting Instruction With Technology

This is the link to my Google Sheet
Interactivity #3

I chose this particularly lesson plan because it explores key topics in American history: stereotyping and multiculturalism. It's important as educators that we openly discuss the racial and cultural histories we share. 

From this lesson plan I learned that having students create their own original content, you can facilitate their learning far more than if you simply present them with someone else's original content. The idea of having students create a YouTube video (or DVD in this lesson plan) requires the student to gather source material but also to interpret it. Too often, students simply cut and paste source material into their papers and never delve deeply into their own thoughts on the subject. The video, teamed with the poem "Where I'm From," is a nice tool for getting students to think critically.

I believe this lesson plan aligned its curriculum goals, teaching strategies and technologies beautifully. It was clearly written a while ago, but have student immediately write their reactions to class material in ClassPress, then having them follow that up with their own video and poetic interpretations of the material is perfect synergy. At every step of the lesson plan, the teacher is developing students' abilities to interpret stereotypes and discover their patterns, while also relating these stereotypes and patterns to their own personal experiences. 

I think I could use Google Sheets for limited applications in my classroom; for example: I could have the students create graphic organizers for the material we read together in class, focusing on the key players and events in the events we study. 

Analyzing Visual Images and Stereotyping: The Smithsonian Channel App

The Smithsonian Channel App



















Smithsonian Channel App

The Smithsonian Channel App is an app designed to bring Smithsonian channel content to the mobile user. It has both full length episodes of its shows and documentaries, and snippets of some of the most popular shows on the channel. Users can also test their historical knowledge by taking a history quiz which provides photos accompanied by multiple choice questions. There is also channel information about upcoming shows and There is also a feature which allows you to enter your personal historical interests and then provides five clips from shows that might interest you.

The app is free and is available at the Apple apps store.

My subject is Social Studies, and while I enjoy learning about historical events, I understand that for some people, history can be dry and lack engagement. For younger kids, who are used to interactive games and tablets, this is especially true. The Smithsonian Channel App is interactive and visual. It gives the user the control to cater their viewing to reenactments and documentaries that they are studying. As a Social Studies teacher, it would be my job to teach my students how to analyze the visual historical images they see when studying a particular event. As an example, the images of the holocaust that many students are shown need context and explanation. By using this app, I could provide my students with instant access to short, pertinent content about WWII and how the concentration camps came to be. 

The only major problem I can foresee when using this app is that the interactive component may not be enough to keep the interest of older students. A more game-heavy application, designed to teach history, might be better. 

Sample graphics:

History of Technology in Social Studies

This short PowToon is about television's impact on teaching Social Studies. Specifically, how it gave teachers a way to actually show historical events, live, to their students, rather than having to use still photos or old film reels.

History of Technology in Social Studies PowToon

Compare and Contrast Ideas: The Opposites

The Opposites

The Opposites

The Opposites is a reading comprehension app which focuses on vocabulary through game play. The game is very simple and easy to follow and is based around a brother and sister "arguing" with words: they each say a word, which floats to the top of the screen, and as the words fill the room, the player must tap on a word and its opposite to make it disappear. The player must delete enough words to keep the room from filling up.

The Opposites costs $.99

Pros
The app supports teaching through comparing and contrasting by teaching how words relate to one another. I have a student with reading disabilities and one of his weaknesses is vocabulary, specifically how words interplay in the context of a passage. I have been looking for a way to help him learn new words in a fun way and this app is perfect. Whatever word he doesn't know during the game, he can look up in the dictionary function of the app (see below how this feature could be better).

Cons
This app is available on most popular devices and is engaging enough for most students. The only problem I see with the app is that the dictionary feature is not available during game play. If there is a word my student doesn't know, he has to exit out of the level to go to the dictionary to learn it.

Here is a screenshot of the game:

Reflection on Influential Technologies

The children in "Learning to Change, Changing to Learn: Student Voices" have grown up with technological devices--and the learning styles those devices facilitate--that I have only recently adopted as an adult with children of my own. I grew up without television, cellphones or GPS devices, but each these things has impacted how I learn about my world, for better and for worse.


My current television

Before the age of twelve, I had very little exposure to television. When I was a young man, my family lived overseas as part of my father's work for the State Department. We had few channels, if any, and I spent most of my days outside, riding my bicycle and playing with friends. I developed a real passion for foreign cultures and when we returned to the United States, I found that I could continue to experience those cultures through the many travel channels available from our cable network. 

I also used television to learn about American culture because I had so many questions about American music, sports, and slang. What did it mean when some told me something and then said, "psych"? I had to use television to learn, just as the children in "Student Voices" have probably done since birth. The only problem was that I watched too much television and began to miss out on what was happening in the real world. Now, with my smartphone, I can be out in the real world and still be ignoring it, just like everyone else! 

Actually, I use my smartphone as a  roving encyclopedia, allowing me to look up the answers to the many random questions that run through my head each day. I often make little notes to myself in class or at the playground with my children to look up the life story of a random politician or celebrity. 

The other day, I wondered to myself if Lamar Hunt, the former owner of the Kansas City Chiefs was still alive (he is not) and where his father, L.B. Hunt, had made his fortune. With my smartphone I had the information in seconds; as a child, finding the information would have involved a trip to the library with my parents, or a search of our encyclopedias. That kind of paper search is foreign to the kids in "Student Voices." 

The first boy to talk in the video stated that "writing and reading have been taken over by technology," and he's right. It's still a foreign concept to me to read a book on an electronic device. I still prefer paper, but the kids in the video are so accustomed to reading on a screen that they will probably prefer it for life. 

The students in "Student Voices" have developed communication and research skills that are wildly different from the ones I developed as a child. I do wonder if the kids in the video would know how to learn about Mr. Hunt's life without access to their phones. One of the young girls in the video mentioned that she wouldn't mind if her phone was glued to her hand, she felt that attached to it. I have come to use my phone in the same way; it is my entertainment, communications and research device all in one. I have a laptop and a desktop, but I rely on my smartphone ten times as much as I do those devices. In fact, it has come to replace another device on my list: my GPS.

I used to use my GPS to get everywhere. I had to: I seem to have been born without a sense of direction. With my GPS, I could go for drives without really worrying about getting lost. In fact, I would sometimes just drive for an hour or so, then turn on my GPS and find my way home. The kids in the video live in a different world technologically than I did when I got my license. The cars they will learn to drive are almost all going to be equipped with some form of navigation, and if they aren't, these kids will be able to use free GPS apps on their phones, just as I do now. I no longer need a standalone GPS device. 

My now abandoned GPS device. 

I like learning as the children in "Student Voices" do, but I'll stick to paper books for now. 

Pew Survey Results: Teachers' Technology Use

Reading the Pew survey results about teachers' technology use, I wasn't surprised at all to see the disparity in technology resources available to poorer students, the prevalence of technology in the classroom, or the knowledge gap between students and teachers. 

The Pew survey results are reflective of my own experience with my tutoring students. My students range in age from eight to fourteen and all of them use computing technology for their school work. All of my middle and high school students have class assignments, syllabi and textbooks available online, and some them can only access their school work online. These students are more typical in affluents areas, where technology is readily available at home. It's no wonder that 70% of teachers in the most affluent areas say that their school districts to a "good job" of providing adequate technologies to their students.

As a tutor, I have stuck to a more traditional approach with my students. I believe that technology has its place in the classroom, but what I see is an over-reliance on computing technology to fix fundamentally poor English and writing skills. The Pew survey states that 71% of teachers agree that "today's digital technologies discourage students from finding and using a wide range of sources for their research." I think it also discourages the study of grammar and writing.

My younger students typically have poor handwriting and a tenuous grasp on spelling. Their abilities to format sentences without the aid of a word processing program are, I think, negatively affected by too much dependence on technology. 

I don't want to completely discount technology as a learning tool. I know that I have a great deal to learn about educational technologies as a teacher. The survey stated that 64% of teachers under the age of 35 state that they were "very confident" with new digital technologies. I'm 37, so I have a lot of experience with new technologies but I wouldn't call myself "very confident" with it.

I'm like many of the teachers in the survey who say that their students know more about technology than they do. I was surprised to see how many of my students don't even use textbooks and how much of their homework is done entirely within the confines of programs such as Google Docs. I need to learn more about collaborative, online work. Hopefully, this course will allow me to improve in those areas.