What Did They See?
They saw everything from...
...an analysis of the interactions between the British Regulars and American Patriots during the Battles of Lexington and Concord...
...to an introduction to the Romanov family and Czar Nicolas II.
How Does Technology Integration Make History More Fun?
In the Lexington and Concord lesson, students read through short passages about the different phases of the battle, and then turned their attention to the front of the room and watched short video clips from Discovery Education. Then we discussed the information from both the text and the documentaries. This is the short clip they saw about Concord.
Did the facts in the text and in the video match up? If not, why does that happen when we study history? Which provided more detail: text or video clip? What facts did they need help remembering? Ask each other! The students really ran the discussion and in the end everyone understood what happened. The integration of the video clips and groups discussions made the lesson more interactive and more interesting than a typical classroom where the teacher is up front and the students are dutifully taking notes at their assigned seats.
Yesterday was truly a typical day in my class. I didn't do anything special because the tours were coming through. These were simply the next topics I had planned to cover based on my curriculum. Perhaps the lessons were slightly tweaked from last year, but they were not specially made for the Blue Ribbon occasion.
Since there were about 40 educators from around the country who got the opportunity to peek, I thought, "Why not give my blog readers the same opportunity?"
I hope you enjoyed it!
Image and Video Citations:
"Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775." Map. World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011.
"Nicholas II and family." Image. The Illustrated London News Picture Library. World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011.
Battle of Concord. Discovery Education, 2006. Video Segment. 15 April 2011.
Did you get any feedback from any of your visitors? Thanks for sharing, by the way. Terrific.
ReplyDeleteThey asked a few questions and nodded and smiled, but no other concrete feedback. It was fun to have "outsiders" in the classroom, though. I feel like teachers should open up our classrooms more often to people who do not know about the day-to-day goings on in education.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your comment!
Good for you!
ReplyDelete