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Here are the notes from
this past week in class:
This week we inquired into
the resources found on the
Internet to teach about US government.
We viewed the following
websites. Notes are provided here as a reminder of what
searching and/or pages we viewed on each site:
NARA:
The National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.archives.gov/index.html
This
site provides quick access to primary sources that can be easily
downloaded, saved and printed. For example, click on America’s
Historical Documents, then select the Declaration of
Independence to view.
Information for Educators (on NARA):
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/charters_downloads.html#declaration
there
are MANY lesson plans and corresponding resources for teachers
on the National Archives website. In class, we viewed one
example to better understand the depth of the resources
provided. We viewed a lesson
plan sample with on the topic of Rosa Parks:
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/rosa-parks/#documents
In class, I also pointed out ways that the National Archives
website has been created to provide students with interesting information.
We visited the following link:
http://www.archives.gov/education/
At the
above page, students were directed to go to the 'Sign
the Declaration' link and follow the directions to add their own
name to the Declaration. This proved to be an interesting
example of ways that this site is interactive for students' use.
Although
the above site does have pages that are student-friendly, the
site has been made for a much wider audience. Therefore, I
provided an example of a website that focuses on the US
Government for kids.
In
class, students visited Ben’s
Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids:
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/
This
site provides a kindergarten-12th grade,
student-friendly website for children to learn about our
government. In class, we spent some time exploring each link for gr. K-2 and for gr. 6-8
and inquired into the similarities and differences regarding the
different grade level materials.
In
class, we also spent some time on the White
House for Kids website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/
This
site provides much information on the Presidents, the White
House and our government.
In
class, we worked whole group to do the following:
View
History/meet the presidents
View
Tours/oval office tour with Pres. Bush
View
Traditions/Barney Cam
Some of
the above links were very interesting. You may want to revisit
Pres. Bush's tour of the Oval Office. We discussed ways
that such a tour provides a more personal experience for
students viewing this site.
In
class, I also spent some time discussing uploading documents to
the Cortland server. We used WS-FTP in the computer lab to do
so. However, this is not often a free application so I have
included a free file transfer program link to this website so
you can download a program to use to transfer files. If it is helpful for you to
review a Netscape tutorial, please
click here for one. If you'd find it helpful to have a
tutorial on how to use Core FTP, please
click here.
That's all for
this week. Keep reading, keep learning and keep coming to class.
~Kim |
