Into the Next Millennium
Social Studies
Middle Grades 6–8
Purpose
“Into the Next Millennium” develops a major concept of time. The main purpose of this learning activity is to put world history in perspective, utilizing a variety of visual resources in combination with textual historical information to give readers a global view of happenings in widely separated parts of the world. Student developed projects using new technologies of networked multimedia and the Internet enable students to use a constructivist approach along with a technology focus to re-create a global sense of time.
Description
Students are asked to develop a project that demonstrates their knowledge of an overview of time, dating from the ancient world to the 20th century, eventually projecting to the 21st and 22nd centuries. The project requires:
_ Researching three major time-related categories (people, places, and events) using resources available to students, accessed via a variety of indices (maps, time lines, and digitized archives of documents)
_ Narrowing down a topic from one of the major categories and tracking its evolution, from origin to the present
_ Synthesizing and recording material in order to create a sequence
_ Projecting into the next millennium to predict change
_ Producing an evaluated presentation product that shares information with an audience
This project utilizes an Internet resource that provides a synchronoptic history chart and a digital timeline using visual art forms (maps, graphics, and colors) in combination with historical information. (Synchronoptical means “seeing at the same time.” A synchronoptic chart enables the viewer to see many things at the same time.)
Software Review-Inspiration
I enjoyed using the software program Inspiration. I really feel that concept maps can be an additional way to describe or outline a lesson plan for a classroom presentation. It can also be used as a review resource for students to use. What impressed me the most was the fact that the designer has complete control over the appearance of the concept map. It gives the designer not only a variety of shapes to choose from but it also gives him or her the ability to import images from other sources into the same environment. The software allows you to depict a flow of thoughts 50 which can be illustrated with directional arrows. It allows the designer to display images such as Venn diagrams when illustrating two different subjects which share common elements. It has a large assortment of images that can be conveniently added to a concept map. It comes with a variety of existing 50templates to choose from. These templates provide examples of concept maps in language arts, planning, science, social studies and thinking skills. It allows you to transfer your document directly to a word processing file or make it a hyperlink and add to another page.
I think that students could use this tool in a wide variety of ways. It would help students to organize their ideas and create a functioning outline for creating a project. Students could use it in science or math which might require unique shapes or structures to depict or illustrate concepts. It can help students to classify or organize ideas in different ways by simply clicking and dragging. The interactive capability empowers students to alter their concept map at any time. Students will find that the use of concept maps can dramatically improve learning lesson content. Creating review concept maps can help students to retain information in preparation for assessment.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to be exposed to Atomic Learning.com. I had wondered if such a tool existed that enabled someone to view a software tutorial prior to its purchase. I see the tremendous value of this tool for teachers and school districts that have limited resources and unlimited learner needs. I think that by using this tool it can save a tremendous amount of time, energy and resources in searching for software tools, testing programs for applicability and viewing tutorial to examine functionality. If you don’t know someone who has previously tried the software then the tutorials can be a real benefit for evaluating the usefulness of the software to you or other teachers.
Software Review-iMovie
I really enjoyed the using the software program iMovie. It is another excellent tool for use by teachers or students which can incorporate both audio and visual elements to create high quality presentations. For a novice like myself, I found the software to be simple and straight forward to use. The individual tools are simple to understand and learn and the results are surprisingly quick and amazing. I think iMovie is a great way to record your students classroom contributions as well as demonstrate how the student is progressing.
I believe that iMovie would be a great tool for the classroom. My students could use it for making social justice presentations using their own video clips. Students could iMovie to discuss a book, a historical narration or a short journal or personal narration of an aevent. The students can use iMovie to learn a variety of video editing skills that will increase their tools of self expression and in the process increase their self confidence. They will learn to make transitions between clips, add special effects, make still shots from a single frame, add introductions or credits on top of a slide or on black and add an audio element. Students could easily grasp the required skills for making outstanding presentations.
I cannot say enough good about the incredible tool called Atomic Learning. We all know how limited our schools financial resource are and it is extremely important that we make the most of every dollar spent for software. Having access to Atomic Learning would save both time and resources. If we don't have access to either a demonstration of a software program or know someone personally who has the software we might waste valuable time and resources in our search. Worse, we may inadvertently purchase a product that proves to be either user unfriendly or incomprehensible or inappropriate in content or level. I enjoyed using Atomic Learning (or the concept of video self-tutorial in general) to see how iMovie functions and I found them very straight forward and clear in explaining each step. I was amazed to see the extensive selection of software tutorials available. I was able to view tutorials for a number of educational games or interactive programs that I found for ELL and disabled students. I think Atomic Learning should be available to all teachers to help them make better informed decisions regarding the selection of educational software.
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