Integrating technology brings excitement and the sense of a discovery experinece into the classroom routine. Effective use of technology supports learning in several ways.
At Social Studies classes taught in WBAIS High School you can witness students' excitement when Ms. Chill announces a topic for a discussion. She incorporates articles from the contemporary press which can easily be posted on line for students to access and asks the students to lead the discussion based on those articles in a “Text and Talk” seminar style. "Fish Bowl" style discussion circles include an inner and outer ring in. While the inner is an oral discussion, the second is an on line chat discussion employing the Todaysmeet.com web based application. This technology gets everyone, even in large classes to take an active role in the discussion. Students visit informative web sites to amplify accessibility to materials including primary and secondary sources and visual materials. The PBS site on World War One, for example, makes short interpretations by well known historians available to students expanding their awareness of different perspectives.
In class, the internet can help students clarify facts and details which become controversial in the course of interactive lectures. In a way it is a relief for the teacher to be excused now and then from being the final arbiter of the veracity of facts and figures. The responsibility of verifying such matters can be placed on students who become instant "research assistants" in a collaborative spirit.
Ms. Chill uses technology for the mundane day to day teaching tasks as well as for
the inspirational highlights and truly interactive, mind expanding activities that she is perpetually seeking to find, craft and create.
Watch a movie taken during one of the discussion sessions at HS Social Studies class.
TodaysMeet in a Social Studies Class, WBAIS.
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