Digital Badge #K - Chapter 6

I really liked the article about the student teacher and the Internet (Maloy, et al, 2014, p. 132).  I definitely think a subject like history really lends itself to the use of technology.  By adding primary sources to the lessons, students get a first hand account of history, rather than the narrative in the text book.  Teachers can even include fun things like music from the time period being studied to liven things up.


The section on social bookmarking was very informative (Maloy, et al, 2014, p. 135).  I can see how this would be super beneficial for any teacher, but especially for a first year teacher.  There are so many great resources on the Internet, but researching them can be time consuming.  How many times have you started to look something up and the next thing you know an hour or two has gone by?  Social bookmarking allows you to see the resources for a certain topic of interest that others found useful.

Photo credit to BarbaraLN on Flickr

I really like the section on WebQuests (Maloy, et al, 2014, p. 139).  The WebQuest project due this week was fun to put together.  I think WebQuests are a great way to get students engaged and interested in a topic.  I like how many of the WebQuests I viewed gave students the opportunity to make choices about what they wanted to research.  Although they are time consuming to make, I think WebQuests are a great tool, and maybe you'll get lucky and find one that's already been made that you can just revamp a little to fit your needs.


Chapter 6 covered a lot of very useful information.  From bookmarking to different types of educational websites, the topics in Chapter 6 were all things that any teacher, no matter what grade or subject, could jump in and start using their very first year.


References
Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2014). Transforming learning with new    technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.