This reflection comes from a blog called, “Two Guys and Some iPads”. Their blog includes various different ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. The blog post I will be referring to includes links to various 3D modeling platforms.

My content area is social studies and a branch of social studies that could harness the potential of 3D modeling is geography. Three dimensional imagery could be an excellent tool when looking at certain geographical features. This blog post list multiple different platforms that can be utilized to make 3D models.

A new and exciting use of 3D modeling is becoming more prevalent and that is 3D printing. Taking what once, you could only create on a computer, and making it a physical object with the click of a button. The blog post refers to different 3D printing sites like Pinshape.

The ability to take what is learned in class and create 3D study guides that can aid in the understanding of geography is a great tool to give students an idea of the physical dimensions of our planet without leaving the classroom.

This blog post is about not only using primary sources to help teach world history, but also provides ten different resources and links to help a teacher find quality primary sources. I have taken a lot of history classes in college, but the ones that I felt I got the most out of, were the ones that included some primary documents.

Within this blog there are other lists, like this one, that provides several other links to sites with primary sources on topics like medieval history all the way the way to The World Wonders Project on YouTube.

This blog also provides a link to the National History Day website that provides information on a primary source contest that is held each year.

Finally, at the end of the blog, a slide show was embedded that includes the photograph below:

I have seen images like this one that are part of lesson plans in which students use their understanding of the people, situations, and the time that this image depicts and use it to fill in the comic bubbles to display what the students think these people may be saying. It is a creative and fun lesson idea that can incorporate the use of these primary documents.

We talked at length in class about how to integrate technology into the classroom. We have also been exposed to new forms of technology that will allow us to connect with our students inside and outside of the classroom. I found a blog post where a social studies teacher had her class use Adobe Voice to complete their presentations. Those presentations were then uploaded onto her Edublogs site, as seen HERE, using Google Classroom App.

I like this idea because it allows parents, classmates, teachers, and friends that are outside of the classroom to see these presentations. Usually presentations are given within the classroom during class time to the kids in that particular class and the supervising teachers. The connection that this type of technology can bring with those outside the classroom could create a wider audience making the class community bigger. Parents can feel like they understand what their kids are doing in school, while other teachers can be a larger part of their students lives by seeing what their students are doing in different classes.

My favorite app that I used with OSMO was the word game. That particular game was challenging because the words could be anything shown within the picture. Although it took a while to figure out how it was being scored, eventually I got the hang of it and moved at a fairly high pace. OSMO is an impressive use of technology that integrates real world hands on activities with the iPad. It is easy to use and you can access it quickly making it very applicable for just about any subject or age group with the exception of the game with the shaped blocks. It was very simple and probably isn’t meant for older kids, but all the other games could be used at higher levels

Making the Osmo Word game was a lot of fun. In a way it is a lot like the Thinklink app we did earlier in the class, but with a different goal in mind. It is really simple to set up and easy to use. I chose to do a word game of famous American history photographs. It was fun to think of potential images that would get students to think and also to discover new images.

Vocabulary List:

Eisnstein, Washington, Iwo Jima, Rosie, Hiroshima, Ali, Nine Eleven, Civil War, Gettysburg Address, Dust Bowl, Great Depression, Earhart, King, Robinson, Armstrong, Vietnam Protest, Manifest Destiny, Delaware, Miracle On Ice, Douglas