Mr. Peklo's intro to EDU 642.

My name is Shawn Peklo and this is my first blog post for EDU 642: Instructional Multimedia. I am currently the Middle School Social Studies Teacher at St. Patrick's School in White Lake, Michigan. My wife Christina and I live in Shelby Township, Michigan with our fun and energetic dog named Finn. Christina is a pre-school teacher in Romeo Community Schools and has been teaching there for four years. I am finishing up  my third year at St. Patrick's and I love every minute of it. From the staff to the students, it's truly been a blessing to be able to work there. In addition to teaching social studies at St. Patrick's, I am also the quiz bowl coach at the school. We qualified for the national tournament in Dallas for the third straight year and I am looking forward to competing against different schools from across the country on Mother's Day weekend.

I am looking forward to learning about new educational technology tools that I can use and provide to my students in the classroom. From the blogs, I am also looking forward to learning new ideas, tips, and strategies from my classmates as well. Having another viewpoint or idea can go a long way in the classroom and can open my eyes to many new things I can use. I look forward to a great eight weeks!

Thank you,

Shawn Peklo

Title for Lesson plan for May 14^th, 2017: The Great Depression vs. The Great Recession

State Standards: 7.1.2 Causes and Consequences of the Great Depression – Explain and evaluate the multiple causes and consequences of the Great Depression by analyzing• the political, economic, environmental, and social causes of the Great Depression including fiscal policy, overproduction, under consumption, and speculation, the 1929 crash, and the Dust Bowl (National Geography Standards 14 and 15; p. 212 and 214) • the economic and social toll of the Great Depression, including unemployment and environmental conditions that affected farmers, industrial workers and families (National Geography Standard 15, p. 214) • Hoover’s policies and their impact (e.g., Reconstruction Finance Corporation)

Source: Michigan K-12 standards Social Studies. https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/SS_COMBINED_August_2015_496557_7.pdf

Use in the Classroom

Goal and Lesson: Compare and contrast the Great Depression in the late 1920s-mid 1930’s to the Great Recession of the late 2000’s-2010.Use the Padlet to see images, charts, videos, and speeches from people who lived during the Great Depression and those who have lived and been affected by the Great Recession.

Outline: The reason why I want to use the Padlet to help my students learn is I want them to see what similarities citizens in the United States experienced in both eras. There are going to be job losses in both eras and different causes of each economic disaster. There were different causes of each era and students will grasp what caused each economic disaster in the United States. My goal is to use the padlet so they can see images of both eras, videos of citizens discussing what they went through, and charts of percentages of people who were without work.

Learning objective: Students will compare and contrast the two eras by examining the factors that caused the Great Depression and Great Recession and what citizens had to go through in their lives in both eras. The students will then explain what they saw and read about in regards to the two eras and will write a five paragraph essay on the information.

I will incorporate copyright into my teaching, creation of multimedia materials, and student creation of artifacts because myself included; I think that anything that we put on our slides, assignments, etc. is open to anyone and you will not be punished for it. The same goes for students as well when they are doing a project. If they use a picture, video, chart, etc. they aren’t obtaining permission from the main source and neither are most teachers who use them in their everyday lessons. What I have begun to do and taught my students to do is that if they use a picture for a project or presentation, make sure they have the hyperlink of the website with the picture. That way you are covering yourself from copyright infringement laws.

                After reading the information from the principles that we learned about, my lesson on the Great Depression aligns with a few of the standards. Especially with the voice principle and the image principle because during the Great Depression, students have no idea what millions of Americans went through during that period. Hearing people’s voices in video and all that they had to overcome will go a long way in conveying the overall message that I want to get across. They will hear the pain, suffering, and to an extent the joy that they experienced when it was over and they were back on their feet. In regards to the images, students need to see what people were living in during the Great Depression. They need to see the food lines, the poor soil, the shelters, etc. that everyone had to endure. My padlet has these two principles well embedded in it. It has given the students a chance to hear and see the videos with people who experienced the Great Depression and images and allow them to reflect on how fortunate they are. It will also give the opportunity to realize that if we do not learn from history, we are bound to repeat it and what the consequences will be. I used these two principles intentionally because they were the best way to portray and understand the harsh realities that people had to endure during the Great Depression. The reason why it was intentional was because I wanted their eyes to be open to what exactly went on and feel how these people felt when they had nothing and nowhere to go.

                My thinking has changed this week because I know that before this class, I wasn’t making sure that I was giving the proper credit to the source. I was infringing on the copyright laws prior and thinking that everything was free reign. I have spoken to my colleagues at school about this and they have followed the same procedure in regards to making sure that they are not breaking copyright laws with their lesson. The information that stood out in my mind was the issue of fair use. Most teachers are not trying to make money when they use something that is copyrighted in their lesson. Is it commercial or non-commercial? You have to give credit to where the source came from in your work. The question over fair use came up in a few of the videos and it showed to me that it is difficult to understand what is fair use and not fair use. The example they used that might not be used in a classroom was about filming a video and a song comes on in the background are you breaking copyright laws? The answer is no in that case but, it is always advised to give credit where it is due. The other piece of information that stood out to me was the creative common licenses and the different types of licenses that are out there. Whether it is share alike, noderivs, non-commercial, non-commercial share alike, non-commercial no derivs, they all gave greater insight into how someone must give credit to the originator.

                I did not see any tensions between the content and design principles that I used because I didn’t have a hard time finding the licenses for each picture, video, chart, etc. It all came very easy for me to use the image and voice principles in my padlet. I enjoyed all of the videos and insight that I learned on how to ensure that you give credit to the creator and it leads into my next point about growth. Most teachers probably put out information, videos, photos, etc. without giving proper credit to the source. I have learned a lot about this from the copyright laws and now I make sure that when I use any of those resources, I make sure that I give credit to the originator and am not stealing their work to use as my own. What I enjoyed was finding all of the artifacts for the Padlet and using the advanced search with Google to find what was able to be shared and what licenses were the most accommodating to anyone who wants to use these licensed materials. I also learned that we as teachers have to we teach our students to follow the exact same method of asking for permission for using the work of someone else. Always make sure that you geting permission before you used the work of someone else!

Week 3- Digital Images.
The collage that I created will be helpful when we study the Revolutionary War in my class. This picture/collage will give them an image of what the Patriots had to do to win to war against Great Britain. This picture of Washington and his troops planning a surprise attack against the British shows the courage and perseverance the Patriots used to win the war.

Photo by Flickr member Scott Wright

This meme that I created would be for my students who ask this same question every single time whether its on a test, quiz, or homework assignment. 

Since we are studying about the process that a President has to undergo to become President, I created this GIF to bring about prior knowledge from previous years. It will be a simple and short message of what they have to undergo. 

The infograph that I used in my classroom is the basic process that the President has to undergo to be President of the United States. We have gone over the basic requirements such as age, citizenship, etc. before dealing with the primaries, debates, and election day. 

Lesson Plan Idea: Students will look at images and videos of how someone who is qualified becomes the President of the United States. By looking at images, videos, and the steps of each part of the process, students will be aware of how long and tedious this process is for each candidate. Candidates have to persevere through debates, conventions, primaries, and Election Day to be elected President of the United States. This infograph will give students a simpler and better insight on how one’s dream becomes a reality.

Use in the classroom: For my 7^th grades students, I decided use the images that I adjusted the color scheme of and effect to show them the importance of the Revolutionary War and how this event changed the course of history not only in the United States but, the world as well. I used the GIF to bring about prior knowledge with my 8^th graders about the election process and what each step each candidate has to go through to become President. This GIF will carry over to the infograph and make each step of the process that much easier to understand and comprehend. They will be able to fully understand the steps needed to become President with this infograph The meme will be used for 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade students and the goal is to have fun with it. However, it’s for them to realize that they need to follow directions at all times unless I say otherwise.

Learning Objectives-Bloom’s Taxonomy:

·         I will design and create and infograph that will allow students to comprehend, understand, and apply the information they have learned on this topic in the school election that we have each year.

·         The students will understand through images and videos of how certain candidates won individual elections and use the same steps in school when we begin the election process. They will understand and remember the steps and then use the same process to choose candidates for student council elections.

Application:

From the readings in week one to the assignment we have been given this week, I feel that I used the segmenting principle because I used a step by step process to show students how a President is elected into office. Having students learn step by step rather than all at once will help them comprehend the information much easier because it is spread out. I used the image principle as well to make those images relevant to them with people and things that they actually know. This also brings into light the pre-training principle because the images that I have used are people and places that we have already learned about in previous chapters and through current events by staying up to date on certain topics and people. Having prior knowledge of an image they have already seen will help students perform better when they are tested on the given topic. With the GIF that I created, the special contiguity principle is being used because students are seeing images and graphics that will help them build upon their knowledge and make connections. With the steps to becoming President of the United States they know realize that in order to be elected into office, they have to follow this step and by seeing that images and graphics, even without prior knowledge, it will help speed up the learning process.

Reflection:

This was the most enjoyable week so far in this course because it allowed us as teachers/educators to be more creative in our classroom. I have already used the meme in my classroom and my students got a laugh out of it because they have prior knowledge about this person and his antics. The infograph was tough do for one reason, I had so many different ideas to choose from but, I believe I chose the right one because students in my social studies class were so fascinated when we discussed the election process a few months ago. Like I have said in previous reflections, using multimedia in the classroom I believe is the best way to pique the interests of students because they are so attached to technology and how to utilize the best way possible. With the infograph, when students see these images, they recognize them from previous chapters and they have background information on them. When they have prior knowledge on the topic at hand, they perform much better and are more interested in expanding their knowledge on the subject.