Students will have plenty of opportunity to answer essential questions by writing the standard 3-5 paragraph essay response, and there is nothing wrong with that mode of learning. However, why not mix things up a but and have your students answer an essential question or address a challenge by making a digital story. In the example below, I posed the following challenge to my students: Create a PSA that tackles an issue involving the Modern Day Gay Right's Movement. Watch the vid
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Blendspace is a digital curation tool that allows you and your students to create digital stories, lessons, stations of learning, etc. It's a powerful tool that is beginning to make its way into many of my ed tech consultations. Check out the sample below! After doing some research on copyright protection and watching the video entitled "What is Creative Commons", I decided to go with the above licensing. As stated in the video, "when you share your creativity, you're enabling people anywhere to to use it, learn from it, and be inspired by it." As an instructional technologist, working for a large school district, sharing my "work" is part of my job. In fact, I want my work to be "re-used, shared, built upon by the rest of the world", or at least my district. Thus, I made the choice I did. With Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported, I am enabling my audience (teachers, parents, students, colleagues, and Ed Tech Community) to have full access to my ideas and creativity as long as they acknowledge the original owner and maintain consistent licensing if alterations are made.
In this project, students were asked to address the following driving question:
After examining the Holocaust through our readings, class discussions, and documentaries, what were the primary historical elements and enduring lessons you learned? In order to answer this question, students were directed to Thinglink.com where they would create a "digital" response/reflection. Here is a sample from one of the classes that was submitted. As you can see, this student leveraged a wide variety of media to address the question, including a 30 second audio reflection using Soundclound.com. Click the link below to watch, listen, and read. Remembering the Holocaust Tricia Pizzi's AP Government and Politics class recently held a debate on the Supreme Court's ruling involving the use of medical marijuana. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to experiment with a back channel using Today's Meet. In the end, the debate was engaging and student centered with the kids applying what they learned in an authentic format. Plus, using Today's Meet gave the students who were a bit reticent another option to actively participate. Watch a quick clip below: |
AuthorAdam Pizzi an Instructional Technologist for the Westfield Public School System (NJ). He serves both Westfield High School and the two middle schools. Prior to his role in educational technology, Adam was a social studies teacher for 9 years. He has a masters degree in Instructional Media from Wilkes University & Discovery Education and is a Google Certified Educator. He believes that today's students need and deserve to take their learning beyond the content and into the 21st century. Archives
June 2015
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