Innovative Instruction Competition

I think I liked Amy and Beth's project best. I really enjoyed that they made sure that they focused on having students learning how to really write and not just learning tools disconnected from actually writing. I especially liked that they used Mighty Authors in order to allow students to publish their own books. When I visited a charter school, Walden, there was an English class that had their students create their own books. The students seemed really proud of their work. I think that it is great for students to be able really create something and to feel that they are good at something.

Overall it was neat to see all the different projects. I was able to see how beneficial technology can be for students. Students can really learn better through some technologies. I felt that teachers do need to be careful to not overwhelm their students with technology, but I saw a ton of technology that could be really helpful for students.

iMovie

So I have decided that I really enjoy I movie and it is actually really easy to use once you get the hang of it. I made my movie for the innovative instruction competition last night. It was my first time using iMovie and it was really fun and not too had. I made about a 4 minute video and it took a while but it was fun.

Here is the url to my video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTENUBMV0ew

I learned a couple of things that I thought I would share:

1. To upload the video to youTube you click share and then click youTube. You have to get a youTube account. That is pretty easy too. You just go to youTube and click account. Then you can pick a user name and use your google account to make the youTube account. Then once you put your youTube account into iMovie, iMovie pretty much does the rest.

2. To insert text, click the "T" button in the bottom right quadrant. That will give you a variety of options. Hover over the options and you will see what the text does. Click and drag the option you like right onto one of your images in the upper left quadrant. That will put the text on that slide. Then you can change the color, outline and size of your text by clicking the "text" button on the toolbar.

3. Inserting audio from freeplaymusic is really easy. You just have to go to freeplaymusic and download your clip. Once it is downloaded you go to your downloads and double click it to make sure it plays in iTunes. This will assure you that your clip is saved in iTunes. Then you should be able to click the button that looks like two 8th notes in the lower right quadrant. That should display your iTunes music. Simply select the music file you want and then drag it to the image you want it to start playing at.

Anyway, I learned a bunch of other stuff too, but those were perhaps the aspects that gave me the most trouble. iMovie was a really fun program to work with and I feel like I am much more open to making movies in the future since now I know how the technology works.

Story Board

While playing 30 seconds of the audio from the youtube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhHwnrlZRus

Your mission is to discover the murderer of 20 million people. This is a cold case. It has been closed for more than 95 years. It will be difficult to find the killer after all this time. Your only hope will be the primary documents.

Image of a detective : http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowshot/3400087352/

2nd Image of a detective : http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowshot/3360563547/in/set-72157616048823537/



You will have to look at these documents carefully, analyze them closely. The website below will be your guide. On it there is the list of suspects. I have already gathered some primary and secondary documents on each of the suspects. It will be your job to analyze these documents, narrow down the suspects, and find the killer.

Image of girl with magnifying glass : http://www.flickr.com/photos/etringita/854298772/

Image of man with a magnifying glass : http://www.flickr.com/photos/paurian/3550755709/



When you have discovered the killer I expect you to create a video explain what he, she, or it did to cause World War One and kill 20 million individuals. The following is an example of the type of video I am expecting you to create. The killer you choose does not have to be Gavrilo Princip. You may choose whoever you like; I simply chose to create my example video on Gavrilo Princip.


While playing song without words opus number 19 http://freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?t=f&i=84


Gavrilo Princip was a murderer. He was born in 1894. His father was a postman.

Murderer Image

Information on slides on Gavrilo Princip taken from : http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/princip.htm
and http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand



As a young man Princip joined a secret terrorist organization called the Black Hand. The Black Hand was a Serbian Nationalist group. Their goal was to make Serbia, a province of Austria-Hungary, its own nation. Princip was ordered by Dragutin Dimitrijevic, the leader of the Black Hand, to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.

Image of a black hand : http://www.flickr.com/photos/74528046@N00/1574135349/



Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. An assassination of him would send the message to Austria-Hungary that Serbia was serious in its demand for independence.

Image of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne : http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasroche/2619038721/



Others were also given the order to kill Franz Ferdinand. Gavrilo Princip met with them to plan the assassination.

Image of where Gavrilo Princip and his friends planned the assassination: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beograd/1335580049/



On June 28, 1914 the plan was put into action. Franz Ferdinand arrived at the railway station in Sarajevo and was driven to the city hall to give speeches and greet the people. Those assigned to assassinate Ferdinand were waiting for him. Nedjelko Cabrinovic, one of the assassins, threw a grenade at the archduke’s car. It, however, bounced off, and exploded underneath a nearby car. Two of the people in the car were badly hurt.

Image of grenades : http://www.flickr.com/photos/20692718@N00/2723164955/



The Archduke was able to arrive safely at the city hall. But he was distraught. During the welcome speech for the Archduke, Ferdinand interrupted the mayor and said, “What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit, and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous!"

Image of quotation



After the festivities in the city hall, the Archduke decided to travel to the hospital to visit the two people who were badly hurt by the explosion of the grenade. While in route to the hospital Gavrilo Princip spotted the Archduke’s car from the café where he was hiding. The car was driving over the Latin Bridge.

Image of the Latin Bridge where the assassination took place : http://www.flickr.com/photos/spdl_n1/2568537790/



Gavrilo Princip shot his pistol from five feet away. His first shot hit the Archduke’s wife in her abdomen. Princip shot again and hit Franz Ferdinand in the neck. He called out Sofia, the name of his wife. They both were killed.

Image of the car that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding in : http://www.flickr.com/photos/govert1970/3040981621/



Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. The people of Austria-Hungaria were angered. The actions of the Black Hand were inexcusable. In their anger, the Austria-Hungarian government declared war on Serbia. Other countries that were allied with Serbia or with Austria-Hungary were pulled into the war and then countries allied to those countries were pulled into the war. Within the span of approximately one month all of Europe was at war.

Image of Gavrilo Princip : http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackelijmrooster/3826600228/

Copyright Assignment

I know copyright is important to protect the people who have produced things, but to be honest I think copyright laws are kind of annoying. I think teachers already have so much to do. Then to require them to only show 10% of a movie or song seems like it just adds to the headache of everything a teacher already has to do.

I am glad that teachers have options such as Flickr with a creative commons search. The search brings up quite a few hits. I was able to find a few good pictures of WWI trenches. I found Wikimedia a bit difficult to use though. I tried to find an example of music played by hippies and I couldn't find several songs I searched. I also couldn't find an image of the famous Kent State shooting. I didn't really like freeplay music that much either. None of the searches I made except Beethoven had any hits. It looked like the website had lots of options of different sound clips, but they didn't look like they were very recognizable or meaningful clips. Maybe I'm just a "negative nancy" (term said by Courtney Yates on CBS's Survivor: China, aired September 2007).

On TeacherTube I searched for a video about the holocaust. I found this one:

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=106062

The teacher who put up the video (a collage of pictures) did not cite where he or she got any of the pictures. At the end of the video she showed a quotation. She atleast attributed the quotation to Anne Frank, but she did not state when or where Anne Frank wrote or said the quotation.

I looked up another video on teacher tube that again was a collage of pictures. The author of the video did not tell where she got any of the pictures from. The author also put up a quotation from Rosa Parks and one by Martin Luther King. The author cited that Parks and King said the quotes, but she did not say when or where the quotes were said or where the quotes were obtained from. The author also had Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech streaming in the background, but the author did not attribute it to Dr. King or say when it was given or say where she got the clip from. The author did, however, have text on the video that labeled some of the images. It seemed like those labels were written by the author herself so that is good. The url to that video is:

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=140073&title=Martin_Luther_King_and_Civil_Rights_Movement

Google Docs

I never knew how easy it is to keep the formatting of a document I want to post to my blog. I remember hearing that I was supposed to post my lesson plan using google docs. I went to google.com and went to google docs. I created a new document and then copied and pasted my work into it. The formatting changed a little so I had to fix that. I made my document public. I also selected that I wanted to post the doc to my blog. All I had to do was enter my gmail information and name of my blog and the document posted itself. Plus the formatting looked really good. I liked how user friendly and simple google docs is.

Pasting... Cancel

 

WWI Lesson Plan

A.      Anticipatory Set

a.       Show images of soldiers in the trenches and have the students write down how they feel

B.      Objective

a.       Students will come to their own conclusion about who or what started WWI and will be able to write an essay clearly arguing their opinion.

C.      Input

a.       Trenches

     i.       Stalemate war

     ii.      Cold/ wet

     iii.     Rats

     iv.     Disease

     v.      Shellshock

     vi.     Trench Foot

b.      Weaponry

     i.      Machine guns

     ii.     Barbed wire

     iii.    Poison gas

     iv.    Airplanes

     v.     Tanks

     vi.     Flame thrower

c.       Facts

     i.      Deaths

     ii.     Length of the war

     iii.    Countries involved

d.      Treaties

     i.      Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

     ii.      Versailles Treaty

D.      Checking for Understanding

a.       Ask students for questions

E.       Modeling

a.       Demonstrate how to use the website to do adventure learning.

F.       Guided Practice

a.       For your homework assignment you will look at who or what should be blamed for the atrocities of WWI. You will do this using the following website: https://sites.google.com/site/causeofthegreatwar/home

b.      You will go to the pages of the website and follow the links to analyze potential causes of the war.

c.       Take the class to the computer lab to introduce them to the website and the assignment

G.     Independent Practice

a.       Continue exploring the website at home and then write an essay that argues who or what caused the war.