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All Along the Watchtower: Some Kind of Way Out of Basic Writing Using Emerging Technologies. B y Desiree Dighton In Desiree Dighton’s article, she admires bringing in media projects filled with digital formats, and networked communication to actually help students progress in their writing. She believes that schools adopting technology-driven education can enable themselves, their instructors, and students to gain the self-efficacy necessary to claim their portion of societal influence leading to a successful future. “By failing to engage these students and equip them with digital media skills alongside of composition skills, we place new barriers between them and the academy, and we continue to perpetuate social and educational inequality” (Desiree Dighton). She goes into further argument explaining that a student’s low economic status, which increases every day, should not stop them from receiving the proper and needed writing skills they go to school for. Many upper level instructors believe in tools like blogs, social networking sites, and other informational websites allow students to learn on their own the information needed, and absorb or practice proper literacy, but for students who come from low-income families these resources can be very difficult to have outside of the school, if they even have it. The main question comes to how can we, as educators, help students that are left out of the digital education loop and provide them with great education? Although many schools are struggling, there are options. Making the best out of any situation is all one can do. Here I believe it is crucial to try to involve technology in any way possible, even if there is only one to five computers for a class of twenty-five. Some ideas are group activities where students can give a lesson on the computer, or if a student has gotten a high grade on a test giving them the first computer privilege. Although her article does not go into specifics of what to do, it offers a real problem today in the education system. Leaving educators, and future educators such as myself to brainstorm ideas to ensure students receive the resources they need to keep them on the right track, in the right amount of time. Making all of us think, what can we do in this situation.
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= Public Opinion on Long Island about the Vietnam War: A School Year Project Using Local Sources and Perspectives in the Classroom and in Student Research Papers =

by Charles Howlett
Charles Howlett admitted, “It is not enough to accept what is found in print, but to examine as well the way in which historians arrives at their conclusions.” In addition to the previous statement, this article is a great source to look at when exploring a long, memorable assignment for the class. He explains **one** assignment about the Vietnam War, involving his students to be greatly immersed in the community and class over the course of the year. The students learned to work with real evidence, including people instead of paper work, and how to use resources around them, and in some cases, far away. He set aside the first week of school to explain the goals of the projects as well as the correct way to research, investigate, and interpret the evidence they would be studying. In addition, he gave out example letters and questions, for the interviewees, to ensure the students were respectful and professional in their research. The focus, and treasure of this assignment, was showing the students how the Vietnam War still affected them and their community today. Although, some teachers may not have as many resources such as college libraries and historical centers, similar projects can be used to get the same underlying lessons and historical importance. Some of these can be even related to my lesson, the Roman Empire by asking them to find relations to today’s world from then. Only if it is introduced and given the amount of attention/ instruction, like Charles Howlett gave to his class.

Writing in the Social Studies Classroom by Peter Pitard. [|Text] Peter Pitard, a principal at Bath County High School, has a strong view on the importance of writing in social studies classrooms that not only helps history educators, but all educators. His article explains his three specific reasons writing is important as: writing is a fundamental intellectual activity, writing helps you learn history and writing clarifies your understanding of the subject. Not only are these concepts for educators but for students, especially during those time when they complain and wine about writing. For it is crucial to make it clear in the class that it is important to write at least once day to ensure the ability to write well. In addition to this, Pitard mentions having students summarizing, at the end of each class what they learned from the lesson, that way they are getting in their daily writing and can be an easy grade to give them a boost. His theory to this is that over the course of the year, their summaries will improve and in the long-run greatly enhance their writings (long and short). Some other ideas he mentions is reminding social studies educators that writing is a process not just an assignment, and is always in need of improvement at this age. To help support this, making a chart for the classroom, similar to the ones the English department has is a great idea to remind students the proper correct structure writings should be in (5-7 sentences makes a paragraph, into - > thesis statement - > body- > conclusion). Towards the end, he narrows in on tips to do when teaching in a classroom, many of which may seem obvious, yet are often over looked and forgotten about. Over all, his entire article gives great reasons writing is important in history, yet this can be related in other subjects as well! I would gladly have my students write summaries at the end of every class, not only does this show to me their understanding, but also gives them extra material to study when the tests come around!

Technology in Social Studies Written by: Kim Boughan and Matthew Kerwin 2006. Edited by: Demetri Orlando 2006. [] This article focuses on the integration of technology into the Social Studies classroom, although, it can seem as a tad basic and obvious, it is more for those educators looking to do it better or get the basics of it, by offering guidance and ideas explaining how to integrating technology to social studies teachers in the middle through high school levels. They first discuss the standards and goals of the general curriculum of grades 6-12 Social Studies classes, then explore opportunities/ bright sides of using technology (although, by now I think we all know them). I find the next part to be of importance, where they spend time explaining the importance to plan where you would like to improve and use the technologies and how to determine what to use. To do this, they ask educators to consider the complexity (produce activities that are easy for students to access and learn from), compatibility (integration is consistent with the educator, and the students, cultural values and beliefs), trial ability (can be tested out before in the class) and observe ability (showing the success). They offer more guidelines of setting up the class with technology such as the ones listed above, in addition to examples of technology to use, and how to use it. One example, out of the many, is Online Search Engines and Databases that allows students a variety of options, however focusing on a virtual trip to a country they are studying, using the internet to research that country and historical sites that they should visit. In many ways, this web is helpful in my teaching area by giving tips and instructions to ensure I, and other educators, are incorporating technology correctly in our classrooms, this I feel is extremely important since there is no use in having technology in the classroom if you are not using it correctly.

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