History made meaningful

One of my super cool third grade teachers, Ryan Jones, is a real geek.  When I asked my faculty to get going on wikis, his was up and incredible within minutes.  I suspect he will continue to develop the wiki as his students have input.  I loved that he has links to this funny cartoon about the history of the Presidents of the United States at his wiki.  Click here to explore his wiki Ryan Jone's Wiki.  Click on the link there on the left for social studies and then see the Animaniacs cartoon. 

Then, I just checked out this cool video at www.teachertube.com (my favorite educational video freebie):

This is the kind of thing that can be integrated throughout the students' instruction to stimulate their imaginations and inquiring minds.  And, it makes me want to search for more interesting videos.  Imagine taking this video and having the students do the research to discover fact/fiction/more information.  Imagine having them create their own video.

Of course, there is the school of thought that all the facts we have taught can be distilled down to 5 minutes of instruction.  Check out the memorable and funny Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) from Saturday Night Live:

The future is here... grab it.

Comments

[diane]

Dr. Jan,

Loved the links! When I went to TeacherTube, I happened upon a clip based on Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", which gave me some great ideas for my current events class.

Father Guido and Billy Joel each gave us an illustration of focused, condensed learning!

diane