Zach+Hamilton+8th+Grade+Social+Studies

Integrating Technology in the Classroom:

This year I participated in Technology Trailblazers with Jim Wenzloff and learned a ton about using technology in my classroom to be a more effective teacher. I'd like to share some helpful hints with you about some projects that I did in my 8th grade Social Studies class using this information.

Wikispaces: One resource that I used successfully was Wikispaces. Wikispaces is great because it provides students a bigger audience. They take more pride in their work and are more motivated to do their best because it's not just going to be the teacher that sees what they do. If you go to wikispaces.com you can create a wiki for students to use. You can add all of your students to the wiki so they can actually help to manage the site. When I used this in my room I created a project that had multiple groups. Each group had a different topic about Colonial Government. Students worked to upload information to the wiki about each of the topics. By the end of the project we had a great site that explained everything students needed to know. It was a great idea because they could each add from different computers and even work at home if they wanted. Students also presented what they learned at the end of the activitiy.

Go to: http://hamilton1sthour.wikispaces.com/ to see an example of one of my hour's work.

IMovie projects: I had my students create IMovie projects about the Constitution. Students worked together to create videos to show the rest of the class to teach about Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and Federalism. These were not only a lot of fun, but just like the Wikis they motivated students to do their best because others would be watching. This sort of activity can also be used to do things such as movie trailers for books in Language Arts.

Diigo: Diigo is another resource that could be used very effectively in the classroom. Students can create their own online favorite places and have them everywhere they go that has the internet. Diigo is great for setting up projects where students are researching websites because it allows me to make notes and highlight things on the site as a teacher so the students are given extra instructions when they get on their way.

Enjoy these 3 project ideas! First though, you need to teach the kids how to properly research on the internet and cite where they find information.