Reflection

The tool that I have chosen to use in my classroom is video conferencing. I am a history education major and a part of the curriculum is geography. I think a really fun and educational activity for your children and my students would be the opportunity to video conference with someone else in the United States and in another country. It would allow the students to not only learn about and use this form of technology, but also learn about the different region, culture, language, foods, cities, etc., that are all over the world. It opens the students minds and helps them realize that there is so much more out there besides the city they live in. There are so many different kinds of people and places out there that they can learn about by participating in this activity. These are the many wonderful pros of this activity.
A few of the cons would be the unpredictability of what will be discussed. There will be times where the students can ask questions to the person on the other side of the video conference, and though I will not allow inappropriate comments, there may be questions and comments that were unexpected. Another con of this activity could be the possibility of technological difficulties. But, unfortunately, this is the case in many activities that deal with technology.
Overall, this activity would be very beneficial and one I that I believe will teach students more than a textbook or lecture can. The opportunity to talk to someone and learn about someone who lives somewhere else in the world is one that can impact a student and should not be missed.

The next tool I hope to use in my classroom is digital cameras. Cameras are a great way to portray a student's life. For one of my lessons, I want the student to create their own history. They will accomplish this by taking pictures of things they believe to be important and pertinent to their lives and then create a power-point slide show. This is a great way to familiarize students with how to use digital cameras and downlaod the pictures to a computer. Also, it allows them to explore their creative side and what they think had made up their history ths far in their lives.
A negative with this activity will be the need of digital cameras for those students who do not own them. But overall, it is a great activity that I hope the students will be excited to participate in.

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