Final Reflections

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

My favorite discovery was definitley bookmarking and delicious.com.  I wish I had known about this earlier! It would have been such a helpful tool for me when doing research projects.  But I am now glad to be familiar with it so that I have the opportunity to use it throughout my career as well as with my students. 

• How has this course assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

This course has assisted my lifelong goals because it has taught me ways to expand my resources as a teacher.  In this career, it is important to always be learning in order to provide the best for your students.  This course has not only given me tools that I can use in my classrooms with students of all ages, but it has allowed me to expand my data base of resoures that I can use to help my students learn to the highest extent.

• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this course that surprised you?

Many of the things that we learned about in this class I have heard of before.  But through discussions with the other classmates as well as with Professor Yang I have learned how to apply these web 2.0 tools in ways I likely would have never thought about before on my own.  For this i am very thankful. 

• What could we do differently to improve upon this course’s format or concept?

I think it would be interesting to explore some of the photo websites as well. But overall, I really enjoyed each of the modules and learned a lot from them all.

• If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

I would.  I went into this class not knowing what to expect but I am happy to say that I learned a lot.  The information that I have learned in this class is some that I was lacking in my knowledge base, but to have familiarity with web 2.0 is very beneficial not only to me, but to the students of my future classrooms.  Because of the knowledge i have now the students in my future classrooms with have a great number of opportunities to expand their learning through technology.

A Book in Time

http://www.abookintime.com/

A great resource that teachers can use for materials in their classroom.  It gives book lists on books that include information about every kind of social studies subject.  It also provies time lines, maps and activities for different topics in history.

Social Studies Games

http://www.gamequarium.com/socialstudies.htm

The home website includes games of all different types of subjects and interests.  But in particular, the social studies tab includes some great games that allow for students to be quizzed on all different types of historical events.  Teachers can use these games to help students learn about U.S. and World Geography, Presidents, Women in History, Black History and even the Olympics.  A fun resource for the Social Studies classroom.

PBS Social Studies

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/socialstudies/

Provides interactive videos of historic landmarks and cities in the United States.  They are narrated by two fun loving characters and show them in each place while they give facts about the landmarks in a fun and exploring way.  A great resource for teachers to show children in their classrooms.  And, they are free!

Museum Box

http://museumbox.e2bn.org/

This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box.  This is a fun way for students to explore an event in history and provide a new and exciting way to present information to classmates and teachers.

Place The State

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

A Geography game that asks you to place each of the states onto the North American Continent in the right geographical location.  I personally tried this and sadly, needed some practice.  But I believe this would be a really fun way for students to test their knowledge of the location of the states in their nation.

White House 101

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/white-house-101/

Gives detailed facts about each of the Presidents of The USA and would be a great resource for children on research projects. It also includes fun facts about Presidents and well as the "first pets" of the White House.