6.5 Candidates use technology to gather, sort, and analyze information needed for their own research projects.
Technology is a quickly increasing field that surrounds nearly everything we do today. It can be fairly intimidating to those that are unable to always keep up with it in fact. I freely admit that I am one of those that seems to have a love/hate relationship with most technology. I adore having a laptop and a cellphone and my kindle fire, but I do not really use them for much other than their most basic uses. I read books on my kindle, I make phone calls and text on my phone (in fact it's a very old fashioned looking flip phone with no camera and barely any internet capabilities) and my laptop is mainly used for web stuff. I've been becoming more aware since I came back to school that technology is becoming more and more commonplace in our education system. I am surprised at the sheer number of applications and websites available to use for educators, students and parents though. I think one of the most intimidating aspects of it all though is how many are out there. A person can literally spend forever just looking up different sites and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. That is honestly what terrifies me most about all of this: that I'll always be behind on what the good sites are to use or that I'll get so caught up in sites that are dead ends. This class has helped me to see that there are lot of useful sites out there for me to use as a teacher and that many of them connect to each other fairly easily.
I think the most useful aspect of learning about these various sites is that it will help to keep my files, information, etc. organized. I really like Evernote so far because I feel like I have an actual binder on the computer, but a much more intelligent version of a binder. It is important to be able to separate the good sites from the garbage sites, and to be honest, I do not feel one hundred percent confident in that ability at this point. I am discovering, however, that many teachers that a much more tech savvy than myself are more than willing to help direct me towards sites that will be more beneficial. I feel that it is important to be able to utilize this network because otherwise many teachers that do not feel confident in their technology usage with get left behind.
The following are links for research articles about middle school social studies. I opted for general middle school social studies instead of a specific grade because the majority of the relevant articles are for the whole grade range of middle school.
Ryan, A. M., & Patrick, H. (2001). The classroom social environment
and changes in adolescents’ motivation and engagement during middle
school. American Educational Research Journal, 38(2), 437-460.
Pye, J., & Sullivan, J. (2001). Use of computer-based instruction in teaching middle school social studies. International Journal of Social Education, 15(2), 92-104.
Braun Jr, J. A. (1999). Ten ways to integrate technology into middle school social studies. The Clearing House, 72(6), 345-351.
