My website is fixed

So I went through and fixed my website, creating a disclosure document, a Google calendar, and clarifying the different classes I teach from each other.  I found this to be the most useful assignment in the class.

https://sites.google.com/site/msdanielleduffy/home/u-s-history

We Didnt Start the Fire

Alright we finally finished our multi-media project. It took a long time but I am very pleased with how it turned out! This movie clip will serve as a great way to introduce modern American to a U.S. History class. It would either be used as an anticipatory set prior to the units of America from about 1945 to 1989. But it could also be used as a summation at the end. It does a good job of explaining the culture and major players of the modern world. One of the Utah State Standards is that students will understand the United States' domestic and international position in the Cold War era. This movie clip gives an overview of that time. The narration that was used was the actual lyrics to the song. We debated putting text in the movie clip but decided that it created too much confusion with how quickly the images were moving.

The next obstacle we faced in using movie maker was how to make the movie clips short enough to go along with the words of the song. It took us a day to figure out that we could zoom into the storyboard part of our movie so that we could make the picture clips really short. We had a few glitches with uploading the movie to youtube but we were finally able to make the movie work. It was an interesting experience using a movie maker program especially one that we were not very familiar with. But I think that overall we made a nice product that could be used in a history classroom.

Google Demo Slam: Translate Beat Box

Okay I found this really interesting its called google translator. I think that this could be very useful when emailing parents of students who do not speak English. I know that most language teachers will not approve but I think it could be really useful in communicating. It allows you to send a message in another language. And allows the parent to send a response in their native language and then you can translate that so you know what to do. This i one thing that I have been worried about in teaching because I want to teach in Arizona where there is a higher rate of Spanish speakers.

MultiMedia NightMare

Well for the multimedia project, I decided to create a movie slide show to the song "We Didn't Start the Fire."  This song written by Billy Joel, talks a lot about the events of the 20th century and how they affected America.  So Mike my partner in crime and I decided to use Windows Movie Maker.  A program that you will soon discover that both of us are not familiar with, however we have conquered the system.  So the first thing I decided to figure out was how to upload the song into the program.  This took a really long time because I have the song in i-tunes but movie maker would not let me import that song in the file format.  So I had to figure out how to do it different.  After going on the internet and trying to figure things out, I discovered from a you-tube clip that you can't import music that you have downloaded from i-tunes into movies maker.  So what I did was ripped the song from i-tunes onto a CD, and then downloaded that song into windows media center and then I was able to upload the song.  Then I figured out how to import the pictures which was a lot easier than figuring out how to use the music.Also I turned in my movie outline this week.

The Spirit of '43 starring Donald Duck

This clip is an excellent way to display WWII propaganda. Its fun and enjoyable for students because its from Disney and it shows how propaganda became an aspect of very part of American life. However, I would like to make a note about the movie clips I have been using on this site. I have used a lot of them. And in my observations of classrooms I have noticed that movies clips are a little over used. I found this clip via google reader, but I think that I will try and find different types of technology that could work in my classroom other than movie clips. I find that it is difficult to find these different tools with things such as history but last week I did find the interactive map. I get a little frustrated with the blogs for teaching history because I don't think they focus on a wide variety of technology.

Sherman's March to the Sea

So this week I was preparing for a lesson that I was going to teach at the high school.  The assigned topic was to discuss Sherman's March.  I was trying to find different video clips that would work for the topic.  While looking for this, I stumbled across a really interesting interactive map on the history channel that I found very helpful for teaching this topic.  It shows the three phases of the march.  You can click on each phase then and see the different battles.  It provides a nice visual for the students to use.  It also allows them to pick individual battles from the march.

Video Links: Sherman's Legacy: Hero or Monster 
                    Sherman's use of Total War     

Map Link: Sherman's March to the Sea

 

Website

Well I still have some kinks to work out on my web page but here it is.
https://sites.google.com/site/msdanielleduffy/

Billy Joel - We didn't Start the fire music video

I really like the idea behind this movie with the music from Billy Joel "We didn't start the Fire" it goes through the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  It would be a great way to start the a unit after WWII. I think it also does a good job of summarizing the whole time period.  Because teachers are usually crunched with time to get to this last section of US History I think the overview it provides is important.  Also there is some adult content in here with different issues such as drug use and birth control.  At first I hesitated to use this clip but I think it is an important part of history that students still need to be aware of.  I think it would be helpful to send home a letter to parents explaining that we will be discussing these items in a historical context. 

Also, in different history teaching course and I taking we did something similar to this.  We did a unit on Jamestown and broke it down into different groups.  Then we split up into small groups where we brainstormed ideas about different songs that matched those historical parts of Jamestown.  We then presented all of ideas from the different groups and voted on what song we thought would work best.  Our teacher then found clips of the songs and put them to a slide show.  I really liked how this worked out.

National Archives

This week as I was going through the history blog.  I found someone who posted about the National Archives on youtube.  I went through to the site and found it helpful.   Some of the stuff is not riveting for students but it is neat to see the actually primary film footage.  I was able to look at some film footage of events transpiring before the march in Washington which I found really interesting.  This made the people see like they were really human.  I think it would help students create empathy for each other.
 
http://www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives

Started making a website.

So this week in class we began making a classroom website for our students.  I have never done anything like this before.  It should be interesting to see how it works.  In class other students recommended that you start with a blank website because you can make it how you want it.  Well, I didn't listen  to that advice and used the template.  However, after trying to embed different things into the website I don't think that was a wise choice.  I think that I will start over now and make my own website.


https://sites.google.com/site/dduffyclassroom10/

What will education look like?

After watching the last movie about students and technology I have become increasingly aware of how important it is for students in history to see how history relates to their situation today.  As I was looking through the google reader I found this video clip about the current state of education and found it really interesting.  It uses cartoons as part of the discussion to explain the history of education and many of the problems apparent today.

Internet Saftey

So this week we are looking at internet safety.  For this I decided to look at the movie done by Frontline called Growing Up Online.

It is an hour long documentary on different high school seniors and the world they live in on the internet that their parents are not a part of.  I know I just said an hour but the movie is actually very interesting and you probably will not even realize that an hour has gone by.

This movie brought up really interesting issues in the social networking of our students.  I found a lot of parallels between this movie and the adolescent development class that I took.  Increasingly adolescents try and put on different personalities.  The internet via Facebook, blogging, and my space allows these students to take on these different roles, while their parents don't know about them.

After watching the film, I discussed the issues with a few of my friends that are teachers now.  They have also watched this film.  We discussed the possible solutions to this problem.  Being part of this younger generation we understood the need for these students to begin feeling independent of their parents and making those steps but we also saw the points made by parents that cyber bulling takes place, you limit your studying and social skills.

I think this also brings up a good point is that these students are captivated by this type of technology.  It made me think about as a teacher then how am I going to get these students interested in my field of study when they have these media images flying at them?  

The last thing I did was look at an article by David A. Bednar entitled "Things as they Really Are."  I found this really interesting.  The main point of his article was to examine the difference between the real and virtual world.  It made me realize how many times we begin to live in a virtual world. 

Frank Sinatra - "High Hopes" with Jack Kennedy - 1960 campaign song

This is the campaign song for JFK while he is running for president in 1960. The song is sung by Frank Sinatra with a slid show of images from the campaign. I do not believe that this violates copyright laws. It would be being used for an educational purpose and if you only played 30 seconds of the song while the students are walking into class it would be fine. Furthermore, you could also purchase the song off of i-tunes and play the song for free. Overall the maker of this slide show is abiding by copyright laws. I think this would be a great resource to have playing while the students walk into the classroom.

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

I believe this video clip does not break copy right law. Some people might not agree because the music is taken from a popular song and one of the main lines from the song is used from the popular song. I believe that from the fair use policy that I studied that this movie would fall underneath it. It would be an exciting way to catch your students attention. This movie is produced for education purposes by Soomo Publishing. The images are original to the company. I did some more research into this site and found it actually very helpful. The site is dedicated helping create effective teaching through technology and new methods. Here is the link to the website: http://soomopublishing.com/home/what

PLN

Well, I created my first Personal Learning Network via Google reader.  I connected to a couple of blogs about different history teaching ideas.  However, it took be about a week to figure out how to copy the screen to show that I had done this on Google reader.  It turns out that I have a genius roommate who knew how to copy it.  It was really easy.  I just hit the function key and the print screen and now I am going to copy the picture into the blog post.

However, it did not turn out to be as easy as I thought.  You had to copy the image into paint.  Which I had never used before to copy into paint you have to press control v.  So you were pasting from the clipboard into your program. 

Introduction

Hi my name is Danielle Duffy.  I am a senior at BYU majoring in history teaching.  I am enrolled in IP&T 286 so I am learning more about how to incorporate technology in the classroom. 

I really enjoy the outdoors also.  Last weekend I hiked to the top of Mt. Timp.