This humourous look at how historical figures might have used Twitter, got me imagining how an innovative teacher might call upon students to demonstrate their understanding, by considering how the use of modern communication tools might have altered our perception of historical events.
Consider a few possibilities:
1] What might Einstein's Facebook wall have looked like? Who would have left comments, what might have been shared?
2] What would the Twittersphere have been microblogging during the time that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? How would the different sides of the Civil War have responded?3] Would on the spot tweets have changed our memories of Hiroshima?
4] If the Apollo astronauts had been bloggers, what would they have reflected upon? What type of comments might American and Soviet readers have left?
5] How might independent podcasts have influenced World War I? What would flying aces have had on their ipods?
6] What would have been the most popular albums, movies, podcasts on iTunes during the depression?
7] How might the Wikipedia entry for Canada have been updated as provinces joined Confederation after the BNA Act?
My head spins in wonder at how Ghandi, Hitler, or Elvis Presley might have leveraged modern tools? I can only imagine what students might come up with...
Please add your ideas to the comment section below. Your contribution might make school more interesting for students you don't even know!
Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-2442
Title Reference: Historical Tweets
5 comments:
It sparked some ideas in my groggy, first day back to school brain. To bad that my students can't access most social media sites at school. Still, I see possibilities using that ancient paper & pencil technology thing.
Thanks Rodd,
Great food for thought. It would encourage students to use their imagination and/or put themselves in other peoples shoes. Like Karen I am concerned that many of these sites are not available to our students in Victoria, Australia. Such a shame. As a teacher I hate that feeling of being held back and I can understand that students must feel bad too and become disengaged. Beats me why Education Departments are so far behind in their thinking.
I love it!
Hi Rodd,
Thanks for the link. It hasn't been blocked but just found out today that the school board I work for has blocked all blogs (including yours and Doug's).
It's unfortunate because I like reading your blog as well as Doug's.
I'm a computer tech and I have an interest in helping learners with existing and new innovative technology.
Jason
So many comments about accessibility...
Do educators around the world have the means to request access to appropriate teaching and learning resources on the 'open' Web?
Do you have to demontrate the effectiveness of a tool before being granted access?
Are all types of 'interactive' tools simply blocked?
I knew when I first created this blog, that my own board was filtering content from Blogger. What this means is that teachers in my own district school board, cannot gain access my blog, unless they bypass filters, or take time to access the site from home.
When we first began accessing the Internet at school in the 1990's, the expectation was that we would supervise students and to ensure that they understood the protocols for times that they might stumble across inappropriate content. Now we've gone as far from teaching this skill as we can get.
To top it off, in many district school boards, K-12 students and K-12 teachers, are granted the same limited access to the World Wide Web. In this day and age, administrators should prioritize the granting of 'differentiated' access to the Internet!
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