This past weekend was the 2009 National Council for the Social Studies convention in Atlanta, Georgia. While I will have other posts on the materials presented, the one thing that was lacking was the presentations concerning new ways to teach or present materials. Many of the sessions were material related, which is needed because there are many minute instances in history that are unique teaching moments that create interest in the student. Still, providing students with the tools they will need in college and beyond is critical in the education of the student. Web quests and PowerPoint’s worked in 1998, but now we have a palate of delectable electronic materials that are used every day by students, but not in an educational setting.
One session, Social Networks in the Social Studies: Promise and Potential, was disappointing from the perspective of who attended. Only 31 people attended. A presenter at the seminar related the story of Club Penguin, a self described social networking site for 6-14 year olds, is a place with over 10 million registered members. With this ease and popularity of social networking among pre-High School students, why is it suddenly dying and then rearing up again in college? It seems that there is just a general lack of interest in this new wave of Web 2.0 interaction. Personally I believe that it is a stagnation of teachers to learn new materials when the old material "works" Additionally, with focus on curriculum and material and responsibility to parents who might only know the dangers of social networking and not its benefits, change is lagging. The attendance is sad, but I guess I cannot blame them.
The one enlightening seminar was by Kelly Jones-Wagy who teaches at Brighton High School in Colorado. Less than half of her students have internet access but over 1/3 of her grades come from online activities and exercises. She podcasted the 2009 Obama inauguration and has her classes do wiki's for grades. Quite possibly she was the most innovative of all the session presenters. Unfortunately she had the smallest room, available and it was packed, with a good 40-50 people. Her conference title, Wiki’s! Podcasts! Blogs! Great: Now How Do I Use Them?, is a much more friendly title and less scary than "social networking". Her materials are available at http://ncss2009.pbworks.com/FrontPage, are user friendly and quite possibly the most comprehensive recap of a presentation of any of the ones at the conference. In five years I hope that all the presentations from the NCSS conference are as accessible as this one.
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