[Bracket] » Teaching http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket images, teaching, technology..... Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:05:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 The Future of Teaching the Past, Part II http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past-part-ii/ http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past-part-ii/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:56:18 +0000 sleon http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/?p=447 As a follow up to yesterday’s slides, here is a link to the Omeka website that I developed to support the talk at the National Council for History Education. It’s much better than the slides because you can actually explore the resources and tools.

Have at it and let me know what you think.

The Future of Teaching the Past: Digital Technologies and History Education in the 21st Century (http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/workspace/OmekaEd/)

]]> http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past-part-ii/feed/ 0 The Future of Teaching the Past http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past/ http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:34:29 +0000 sleon http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/?p=439 Slides from a keynote at the National Council for History Education Annual Meeting, March 13, 2009.

The Future of Teaching the Past: Digital Technologies and History Education in the 21st Century
View more presentations from Sharon Leon.
]]> http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/the-future-of-teaching-the-past/feed/ 0 Any minute… Zotero! http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/any-minute-zotero/ http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/any-minute-zotero/#comments Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:20:24 +0000 sleon http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/any-minute-zotero/ The launch is pending for the exciting new browser citation tool from the most-excellent team of programmers at CHNM. Zotero is going to be the coolest thing to happen for academic Firefox users since tabbed browsing.

I can’t wait to get my download, because it will help immeasurably as I’m beginning to work on my new project (I’ve got research cites scattered all over the place…). Then, I’m gonna suggest that all my students download the toolbar, because it should really help them compile their materials for the edited collections that will be their culminating projects for the semester.

]]> http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/any-minute-zotero/feed/ 0 Conversation starters http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/conversation-starters/ http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/conversation-starters/#comments Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:08:13 +0000 Sharon Leon http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/sharon/bracket/?p=33 I’m teaching a course this semester in the American Studies program at Georgetown University, generally known as CIV III. [I'm using the beta version of Jeremy Boggs and Josh Greenberg's courseware plug-in for Wordpress to run the class, and I really like the set-up. Hopefully, soon the plug-in will be available to the world.]

This is an exciting chance for me, because this was the actual course that really pushed me into academia. I fell in love with the time period — 1880-1945 –, and the wonderful flux of racial formation, immigration, citizenship, gender definition, and scientific and religious questions that mark this liminal period. As a student, I was silent for the entire semester when I took this class, and that was the last thing that I wanted from my own students.

There is all kinds of smart in the room this semester, and I really want these folks to actively engage with the material and one another. Hence, I’m doing a new kind of blogging assignment this semester. In the last few courses I’ve taught, I’ve asked students to keep reading journals, and last semester my students did this by blogging their reflections. Blogging each week is a lot of work for an undergraduate, and I found that the students spent so much time concentrating on drafting their own reflections that they didn’t actually interact with their peers or comment on one another’s posts.

So, this semester I divided the class up into groups. Each group is responsible for posting the initial reflections for two weeks during the semester. The students in the group each compose a 500-750 word reflection on the materials for that week. Then, the rest of the students in the class must respond to one of those four or five initial postings. This system seems to take some of the pressure off the students–each person is on the spot only twice a semester. And, if yesterday’s discussion is any evidence, it seems to promote a vibrant in-class discussion. Students come primed with an opinion about the readings and they have already interacted with one another in text form.

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