Project 3

Part 1 : The problem I have chosen is that of plagiarism. I have experienced this as a student, and know how discouraging it is to work hard on something and then get a worse grade than someone you know cheated. However this problem not only hurts the honest students who are discouraged. Plagiarism is harmful to those who get in the habit of "taking the easy way out." Here are just a few scary statistics:

"A study by The Center for Academic Integrity found that almost 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once.

According to a survey by the Psychological Record 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing written material.

A poll conducted by US News and World Reports found that 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined.

The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996) states that 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989." (from http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_facts.html)

Part 2 – There are new methods, however, of limiting plagiarism through fascinating technological devices which attempt to detect cheaters. The most prominent of these are online plagiarism detection devices such as turnitin.com

The goal of such sites is to make sure that papers are not recycled from one university to another, from one class to another, from one student to another.

For this project I went to the turnitin.com site and read articles about how it works, as well as watched the tutorial video. Then I called my sister who is signed up with turnitin and got her password information so that I could log in and see what it is like to navigate the site. Through this I found turn it in to be extremely useful. There were ways to grade the papers digitally (thus saving paper), and allowing teachers to type their feedback (which saves them time). Teachers could use it to have their students peer review each others work, thus encouraging positive types of collaboration without eating up class time. There was also a place the students could go to see their grades and find out how they were doing in the class, and there was a way to send messages between classmates/teachers. This researched showed me that not only does turnitin help plagiarism (by comparing papers in a huge database) but it can also be used for so much more. Turnitin, however, does do an excellent job attacking plagiarism. When the papers are submitted by the students, they are compared to millions of articles and papers across the globe, through originality check. If matches are found, the teacher is informed and they can act accordingly with that particular student. I was extremely impressed with turnitin.com and would be very tempted to use it for my students. This new technology saves time, money, paper, and drastically limits plagiarism.

This year

• How have you used technology to increase your knowledge in your content area?

I have found it very helpful for projects like the movie, and website projects for me to search the web to see what it out there. I was really impressed by what a plethora of material is available to those who will look for it. Therefore, if you know where to look there are lots of great websites where those teachers with more experience have explained how they use technology/cool assignments they have given.

• How have you used technology to collaborate with classmates?

We used the blog method for a while, and google reader (which was pretty cool), but I think that is something that I personally did not do too much. I feel like collaboration will be even more vital when I am actually in a working environment.

• How might you use technology in your classroom?

I would use technology to increase communication between students, parents, and me (the teacher). I would use it to help students get excited about the material we are covering. I would use it to give students assignments online (through a website/blog/movie project). Most importantly I would use technology to help link the information that I need to teach them with those things which are familiar and "cool" to them (technology).

• What did you learn in this class?

I learned that there is a lot more to being a teacher than just knowing about your subject. Presenting that knowledge to your students is a huge part of teaching. Therefore knowing about the technology out there to help you increase your options of presentation is quite vital.

• What will you use that you have learned in this class?

I think the thing that was most helpful to me was learning how to create a website. That is a tool which is essential for a teaching to know how to do. I also liked the fact that the way we did it was really trial and error. It taught me that even without a technology class to help me step by step, I can figure things out through trying it out. Simply learning that was extremely helpful.

Project ideas:

Actually, I just decided that I will try and do my third project on anti-plagiarism technology. I know that there are some methods which aid teachers in eliminating plagiarism, but I would like to research what those are and how to use them. I think that this is a vital part of technology which is essential to a "oh just google it" kind of world. Teachers need to be informed on how to use this type of technology.

I will be working by my self, and will not be doing the competition.

Alright some problems that I have noticed in schools are:

• huge amounts of paper waste
• helping students connect (inside a classroom) with places and things which are far away
• Helping students have more one on one involvement

I am tying to find a way to fix at least one of these with technology, and am hoping that I can find one in class today.

Internet Safety:

We as educators have a responsibility to aid or students in remaining safe while on the internet. There are many ways in which we can do this.

1. We can have strict rules and consequences against going on non-educational sites.
2. We can teach our students about internet safety and explain why it is important.
3. We should never require our students to put personal information on the internet.
4. and put all computers in open public parts of the school

Movie project

The assignment for my class would be to pick one of the founding fathers of which we would have studied about and create a movie about their life and contributions to society. They can do a song, skit, or documentary type video. They can do it in groups or by themselves, but the groups should not be any bigger than 5 people.

Download

I downloaded a video from youtube. It was super easy. I was so amazed because I could just click and download. I experienced no problems! As far as fair use, youtube is free game. I can download and watch/show anything I want as long as I say where I got it. Had I ripped a movie however, it would have to be for an educational purpose. I am glad that we had to do this because it really taught me how to do something simple which I had no idea of how to do it previously!

copyrights

I had always known the general idea of what copyrights are, however, today I learned that there are ways that you can use material under copyright. I also discovered the fact that there are places to go to get material, on which the copyright has runout, or the owner has a creative commons copyright on the product. This information is quite valuable, because it means that although I need to restrict my use of certain materials, there are many options open so that I should not feel "restricted".

Here are some fun websites:

http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos

http://manybooks.net/categories/CCL

I decided to do an example of a project that students might turn in. Therefore, I will include my movie and a copy of the assignment. My plan for my movie includes images of Thomas Jefferson's life, and footage of someone rapping. The rapping will be the main audio, but will be supplemented by music. Here is a rough draft of the words:

Text:

Common little children let me tell you a story

And teach you a lesson all bout fame and glory

There once was a man by the name of TJ

Born in Shadwell in the great state VA

Known for his skill in putting words together

Adams and Franklin they gave him a feather.

And said, "Mr. TJ we’re coming to you

Write against the stamp act and the Georgian king too!"

So TJ wrote: the grievances we cannot stand

We declare independence yup that’s what we demand

Well push came to shove, and they started to fight

A new nation was born, as if over night.

His wife Martha died – thus ending their romance

But TJ moved on and was ambassador to France

The great things he accomplished did not end there

He fought for freedom until his red head was bare.

He fought hard with federalists for states rights

Became U.S. president with political might

Louisiana purchase, foundation of UVA

Contributions like these still affect us today.

So remember my children, how to be great

TJ is one of the best examples to date.

PLN's

I have actually found Google reader to be an excellent PLN. For it to be truly effective, I will need to build up my contacts, so that I can increase the amount of discussion, and exchange of information. However, I have found it very useful for getting information from blogs which I can then share with others. One of my favorite things I have discovered is: online museums. I have been following the blog of a world history teacher, who put up a link to the online museum for the Met. It is a great resource for displaying art history. It organizes art by location as well as chronology. I also loved Grant's 95 thesis Rap! I have already learned so many great things through Google reader.

Blogs to follow

After searching for some good blogs to follow, I discovered there are really lots of good materials on the internet. Here are a few that I found particularly helpful.

http://historyiselementary.blogspot.com/2010/09/wordless-two.html

The above site has fun history facts, and stories. It also has good information about how to prepare for the first day of school, etc.

http://historyiselementary.blogspot.com/2010/09/wordless-two.html

This website has a great compilation of helpful history trinkets.

http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/great-divergence-series.html

This has lots more online content, and technology that could be useful to history teachers.

These websites really helped me get excited about the amazing things that are out there to help us all become a great history teachers.

more information about why using blogs!

http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/weblogs/#value

Uses of blogs

As discussed in class blogs can be very useful in a classroom setting.

1. Blogs can be used to provide a fun way for students to share his ideas with each other.
2. Teachers can use them as ways to get students to answer prompts.
3. They can improve communication between teachers.
4. Also allow chances for teachers to share ideas with other teachers.