Social Studies: A World of Possibilities

Chapter 6:

Teaching with the Internet K-12: New Literacies for New Times

As I thumbed through this text book I found math a couple of chapters away and was wishing we were reading it for this assignment as our PAWS test is right after Spring Break in March. But I hurriedly jotted down a couple of math web sites that would be helpful at this point.

I took a good look at the five goals to reach by reading this chapter. Several sites were reviewed and some of the sites listed. The following is the information that I was able to compile regarding those goals.

The Library of Congress site, I found did not readily give me the information that I was looking for on Wyoming or Western History and mountain men so I went on to check out two other sites. At the American West.com site Copyrighted 2007 was found information that covered Archaeology, Cowboys, Critters, Emigrants, Expansion, and Films. Early and more recent western films were reviewed. Then the other site which was the Best History Site was exceptional and easy to use. Many periods of history were listed. I checked on the Westward Expansion and then the West Lesson Plans which listed Native Americans, Railroads, Images of the West, the Donner Party, Gold Rush, Lewis and Clark, and the Trail of Hope. The Donner Party included a map, review of a film, and a transcript of the film.

Since I had not previously ventured into an Internet Project Registry site, I looked at a few of these sites. One of the Project Registry sites I found most useable and applicable for our curriculum and fourth grade class was the Global School Net Projects Registry at www.gsn.org/pr/index.cfm. I liked the fact that you could select an age level to use as criteria to research. The site I found useable for our class was the Native American Tribes of North America unit. You can register for it beginning on the date of 9-5-06. The project will continue until 6-16-08. At this site children can share the information that they learn regarding the tribe with other classes. This covers the culture, community, history, Social Studies and the technology used. Available sharing formats were listed as E-mail, List Server, Desktop Doc, Sharing Text, Stories, essays, and letters. From this site, I copied all eighteen active project sites listed to share with teachers.

The other site that I liked was the Australian site that has Flat Stanley listed. This is the Oz Project Web Site. They listed “Gator Tales” which would have been fun to complete. This site was outdated but a good sample of where two classes shared state history, culture, population, and symbols. For participating in this activity, you would have received a stuffed alligator from Florida where the project originated. This activity would have been most appropriate for our class.

Finally, personally I wanted information on “Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid it”. http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml. This site was written more for college, Sr. or Jr. High School level but I discovered the examples were excellent. The article clearly defined to me what plagiarism is. This information could be condensed and passed on to younger children.

Then the awareness issue was raised about a site’s authenticity. “Teaching Zack to Think” was a very good example of what can happen when individuals are not aware that the site is not an authentic one. He obtained some false information regarding the Holocaust. (Several examples were given of checking on the author, evaluating the address, and looking for information regarding the author.) Zack had run into the awareness issue where the author was a holocaust denier and who was a hate monger. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/index.cfm

Finally, evaluating “Webpages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask” was clearly located on a Berkeley University Library tutorial for a scholarly full text evaluation of content online. A five minute review of a site, with questions, helped decide whether or not it was scholarly work exemplified. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/

Then for anyone person who is working on their graduate paper the St.
Martin’s online citations were a very comprehensive source for writing styles from the MLA, Chicago, APA, CBE, to the on line styles for www, E-mail, Listserv and Telenet.

Last of all another helpful feature was how to place PC Web address files into folders in the “Favorite Site”. Recently I set up several different folder headings and have placed my files into these special folders in my favorites at my home. Then when I get back to school, I will attempt help set up folders for the Bookmarks with the Mac computers so that I can assist the teachers in learning how to obtain this skill using the folders to store similar bookmarks.

This Social Studies Chapter had a lot of meat to it. It took time to search it out and digest it all.