I have been to quite a few conferences in my time. Some as a Director of Technology for the school district, some as a classroom teacher. And as the case, some were great and some not so great. The following conference was the best I have attended in a long time.
I had the pleasure to attend a county wide collaborative of Classrooms for the Future teachers.
The program had a variety of great topics presented by classroom teachers.
The first presentation was a lesson on developed by Mrs Prather and Mr Facemyere on "Diversity". The premise is that since the Burrell School District was lacking in cultural diversity, the social studies department felt that it needed to introduce a lesson on diversity. Using a variety of tools, especially wikispaces they try to as their objectives states, have students analyze how diversity impacts their own life by exploring multiculturalism at various levels of society. Through this in-depth project, all juniors at Burrell High School will reflect upon their own experiences with diversity and discover how they are part of a global society. This project positively promotes ideas of multiculturalism, diversity, globalization, tolerance, and understanding of one's own culture.
One tip that came from this presentation took me by surprise was to look at McDonald's Menu's from Around the World". The absence of meat on the McDonald's menu from India puts the idea of diversity to the forefront.
The following presentation by Dan Pounds was extremely interesting to me. It was based the idea that the movie "Wizard of Oz' was a parable on populism. He didn't go into it in great detail, but what a great take on a tough lesson. I could see the interest level rise in the classroom.
The next classroom idea came from Rob Jenkins. It was titled "What I did During the war" Scrapbook. Students were to pick 2 years during World War II. According to Jenkins, the area that will be covered by the scrap book will depend on what role the students chose. They can chose any 2 year time period during the war and really any role from a US soldier to German, to Russian, to British. They then choose 4-5 main events that they experienced during their 2 years the scrap book covers.
Great idea.
Showing a nice website, Jeff Leri presented "Xtranormal" This a sort of animator website that permits you do create an animated video using, avatars that speak, different camera angles and lighting. This is an excellent lesson. Below is an example of a video done by two of Mr. Leri's students
Mr. Leri makes Government Xtranormal
Mrs Marla Anthony discussed the ideas of "Edulogs", 'Timetoast and Inspiration. I wish I spent more time using "Inspiration".
Cindy Shaffer finished this fantastic day by discussing "Thinkfinity", the new SAS .
More info can be found at the following wikispace.
http://westmorelandsocialstudies.wikispaces.com/
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