PBL Project

For the past week, Kaitlin, Melissa and I worked on our PBL Video Project. It was a lot of fun and I really hope to find a way to incorporate that into a classroom. I did however come up with some good ideas for field trip sand projects based on the Civil War. We are basically in the heart of Civil War battlefields and realized that not enough schools utilize this resource enough. These are basically free field trips that are highly educational. I think the students would love going out and exploring/ discovering a place such as Stones River Battlefield and learning about what happened there 140+ years ago. One project I thought about doing would be to have the students pick out some names from the grave and see if they can find any information about those names and where they came from and what group they fought for. I think this would be a fun project as well, just to see what the students could come up with.

If you feel like checking out our video just click here. 

Teaching & Technology Issue pt. 3

So with the advent and popularity of popular sites such as Wikipedia, how can you tell if the information you are reading is accurate or not? That is what I have been researching over the past couple of weeks. And to tell you honestly, there is no real way other than looking at multiple resources and checking to see the credibility of the website or article itself to see if it is sponsored or in affiliation with a credible organization. Use your gut instinct if something seems to be 'off', there's a chance that it might warrant looking somewhere else, or at least referring to a different site to confirm the validity of the information. The website www.internetfamilyfun.com has another 'laundry list' of ways to check a sites reliability. They mention that the appearance of the site alone can help determine the validity. They use the example of 18th Century History and going to a site that has lots of cartoony pictures on it, might not be the best source of information. Does the site content match the site aesthetics? If not, you might be better off checking a different site. In conclusion, in order to find out the reliability of internet information, there are a few things to be aware of:
Who (if sponsored) is the site affiliated with?
What does the web domain end in? If it's .gov, .edu, or .(state initials), then it's more than likely legit.
Does the site or article author explain his/her credentials?
Does the site appearance reflect that of the content?
Was the info published and if so by whom?

These are just a few things to check for, but the best advice I could find and offer is to check multiple sources for reliability and accuracy. And don't forget to reference text books and other print media for confirming the accuracy of information.

Teaching & Technology Issue pt. 2

So far, my research about how to tell if the information found on the internet is accurate and reliable has led me to believe that there is no one true way to tell. There are many signs to look for to see if the information comes from a reliable source. The main thing to look for is to see if the site references or is sponsred in any part by an organization that you know is reliable, say, The FDA, for example. If you are looking up information about food safety and nutrition and come across a website that says it is sponsored by the FDA, then there is a good chance it is legit. But, at the same time you can not let that be the only way to tell, especially with the availability of website creators and editors, it would not take much to slap an FDA logo on the page and say it's legit. Be vigilant and do some research. You might also want to check out the FDA's site, as well as a few others to clarify that the info you seek is accurate. John Hopkins University has a great write-up on their library page that helps explain numerous ways to tell if the information you are looking at is reliable or fraudulent. Check out their site here.

Teaching & Technology Issue

I was thinking, what kind of issue would I want to research for a Teaching & Technology Issues blog. Then I though, there's all kinds of information out there on the internet, so how can you tell what is legit information and what is phony garbage or incomplete biased information? And, how can you teach students how to wade through the bad to get down to the good stuff? I'll be looking into that over the next few weeks and post my findings here, so keep a look out to see if anything might be worth using or teaching in your classroom.