Incorporating a site like Flickr.com might not be possible because of the filters we have on our computers at school, but if we can use Flickr there are all kinds of interesting possibilities. Students could lookup photos from the Great Depression and answer questions such as: (1)What kind of clothing are they wearing? (2)What type of life do you think they were living? (3)What do like about this photo? (4)What can you infer from this photo?
Another interesting project would be to assign a current event and have the student create a picture stream with captions to summarize what is taking place, or a weekly picture stream to summarize the week’s news. In geography this would offer an interesting way to do country projects, landforms, climate zones, etc. For government the students could create a photo brochure on one of the branches of government, or possibly the latest scandal!
If, for some reason, we cannot get the computers set up for students to use Flickr, I could put together photo streams on any given subject, save them to a hard drive, and show them that way to a class. There would be more than one benefit to learning a service like Flickr: (1) This would help make learning fun. (2) Picture streaming would be a break from the routine of reading, worksheet, quizzes, etc. (3) Students would have a chance to use their creativity. (4) A teacher could reinforce an important lesson. The list could go on! The biggest concern would be the danger of students getting on forbidden web sites.
The biggest difference between developing an Instructional Design process and the process of developing my lesson plans is numbers. I have six different classes to prepare for everyday. We are a small school and I am the Social Studies department. An Instructional Design model takes a team of people to complete, with each person having a specific job. I do everything. The process of developing your lesson plans is similar to developing an Instructional Design Model. You try to develop lessons that have a variety of ways to learn. After implementing your lesson plans you look at your results. Did the students learn what they needed to? If not, what can you change to make your lesson better next time? A teacher is always analyzing and redesigning lesson plans to make them better. What worked a few years ago might not be the best strategy now!
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Mark,
ReplyDeleteYou had some great ideas. I did not even think about having internet filters at school. That is something I struggle with in my yearbook class as well. For me that would mean, having to upload photos from home once again. When you were talking about using photosharing for current events, would you have students take pictures or compile pictures from the internet? Just a caution if your plan was to get them from the internet, if the pics are blown up they tend to be really pixalated. (That comes up every year in yearbook class)
Jackie Sowle
I thought about the same things regarding the schools restrictions to certain sites on the website access. I agree when it comes to being in a small school and the numbers associated with the amount of work that goes into the instructional design.
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