One of the biggest challenges facing educators today is incorporating 21st Century Learning technology. Cell phone use with high school students can be a distraction to learning, however if you incorporate the use into a lesson, perhaps you might be able to see some positive results.
This lesson came in response to a student saying “I hate Google.docs. I can never get onto it.”
As I was driving home, I was thinking how to demonstrate to the students that the use of google.docs can be very useful to their learning. So at the start of the next class, I handed out a blank piece of paper with the following verbal instructions.
1. Write #1 on your sheet. Next to it write the following phrase: “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em”
2. List the device you are currently using.
3. Log on to X2 and list your highest and lowest mid-term grade.
4. Using the internet, find the title of the autobiography of Frederick Douglass
5. Log on to Google.docs and open “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” the document write this phrase: Google.docs Rocks (Share the document with the students before class starts)
6. Write a definition for Dorethea Dix
7. Find a political cartoon of the abolitionists movement – describe it.
I use this image for a writing prompt. The students may discover other great images of political cartoons depicting the Abolitionist Movement. You also could ask the students to search for political cartoons for the Underground Railroad.
8. Find a political cartoon for the temperance movement.
9. Find the political cartoon for “The Drunkards Progress”
10. Flip your page over and draw a picture of “A HS Druggies Progress” use this cartoon as a model. The cartoon should have the starting stages like reach the middle, then spiral downward.