Mr. M's History Blog

In one of yesterday’s The Journal articles http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/02/03/education-groups-extremely-concerned-over-eett-cut-in-obama-budget.aspx, it was mentioned that the one of the funding sources for educational technology, Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) is up for elimination in the new federal budget. Many schools and more importantly students, have benefited greatly from this funding source as whole classrooms are now outfitted with laptops, Smartboards and wide array of other technological tools. The article did mentioned that the funding would be part of the broader funding of education instead of being specifically earmarked for educational technology. My sincere hope is that there will be follow through with this proposal.

However, as a teacher who has directly benefited from this funding source and whose students are clamoring to use the technology on a daily basis, I am deeply concerned. As with anything computers and technology in general has a limited life. What are teachers to do when their student laptops reach the end? “Sorry students but we don’t have a funding source anymore.” Our students as well as teachers need technology to provide for 21st Century learning. Anything less than that is detrimental to all of the advances we have made in the last decade. Funding our technological needs in education is an imperative, not an option. In the meantime we will wait and see what transpires.

As we begin this new semester and unit one of the key questions I would like each of you to consider is how the westward expansion of the 1800’s has affected you as a person living in California in 2010. Perhaps being of Hispanic, Asian, or even Native American descent where you are now was an effect of what a series of events that began with Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian society. As each event is studied consider the following questions:
1. Which group of people is being directly affected by the expansion?
2. How are these people affected?
3. Which group of people stands to gain from the expansion?
4. How was this event caused by previous events?

So that you know that I’m still working with you I have provided a brief podcast which details my past week. I shall return on 2/8.

Westward Movement

It is the end of the semester and you the student can a give a performance grade to you teacher.  Please fill out the form below as honestly as possible. Input is due by February 5th.

Have you ever wondered as teacher how much time students spend using their iPhones, iPods, MySpace, Facebook, and the slew of other media applications that have permeated our culture? Fifty-three hours a recent study shows.  What are they doing all that time.  Revising MySpace pages, endlessing texting, playing World of Warcraft or HALO.  Think about a typical teenager with a texting plan (or unlimited plan).  Just how many times do they text a day.? I am sure that it is over 1oo.  They will text about pretty much about  anything and everything. A phone call is almost an anomaly.

As recent experts have said we as educators need to tap into this movement, but demonstrate how this technology can be used in a positive way; as a educational tool.  Blogging with students around the world might be a start.  Learning how to differentiate from a reliable web site and a unreliable web site while doing research is another skill that should be taught.

One thing I agree with in the article is that adults need to be  models for our youth.  If there are computers. televisions, and or game consoles in three to four rooms in the house, what message is that sending?  Limiting texting and or having a time frame on calls so that students can complete homework is definitely a movement in the right direction. What about a little quiet once in a while?

Below is the link to the article. Definitely a good read for parents and educators.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/ct-met-0120-youth-media-20100119,0,4394294.story

Upon suggestion from my students via one of my colleagues, I preempted our lesson today about the Hamilton and Jefferson rivalry with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance of Alexander Hamilton rap from the White House’s evening of the Spoken Word. The students loved it and were totally tied to the 4 minute performance asking to be replayed. I went with the flow only if they could retell the story of Hamilton’s early life. As expected they were able to quickly recall the facts of the tragic youth of Hamilton. The students then asked why we could not have more presentations like Miranda’s rap found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE

The performance opened up many interesting questions about why Hamilton died, how did he die, how are duels fought, where was he from etc.  Student engagement at its best.

My challenge to them was why don’t you students produce a rap about a person we are studying.  Some students seem up to the challenge.  After all the students have the rapping skills, we have the Garage Band app on our classroom computers and videotaping is a snap with the FlipCam.  We will give it a shot when we study the Westward Movement.

The Assignment

Since the late 1790’s political parties have dominated our election process.  The two most popular parties today are the Democrats and the Republicans.  Each party has a platform, or a way of thought about certain issues. Each member of the class will be assigned a political party and with a small group will develop a party platform.

As you work on building your groups political platform you will make daily journal entries.  Your daily journal for this unit should include  a summary for the political issue, the stand of the political party you represent, a quote about the issue (use the quotes below) a slogan,  and a symbol or an image that represents your political parties opinion on the issue. A sample of a journal entry can be seen below.  Once the instructional part of the unit your group will compose a party poster or create a blog that addresses four of the five issues below.

Sample Journal of Party Platform

Issue #1 The Public Debt

Alexander Hamilton (Federalist)

…To justify and preserve their confidence; to promote the encreasing respectability of the American name; to answer the calls of justice; to restore landed property to its due value; to furnish new resources both to agriculture and commerce; to cement more closely the union of the states; to add to their security against foreign attack; to establish public order on the basis of an upright and liberal policy. These are the great and invaluable ends to be secured, by a proper and adequate provision, at the present period, for the support of public credit.

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, shall be for us a national blessing.”

Thomas Jefferson, Democratic-Republican

yet we are already obliged to strain the impost(taxes) till it produces clamour, and will produce evasion, & war on our own citizens to collect it: and even to resort to an Excise law, of odious character with the people…

But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be despaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of public debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government.” –Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1809.

Issue #2 National Bank

Alexander Hamilton on the National Bank

…It remains to show, that the incorporation of a bank is within… the provision which authorizes Congress to make all needful rules and regulations concerning the property of the United States.

…The support of a government, the support of troops for the common defense, the payment of the public debt, are the true final causes for raising money…

…The constitutional test of a right application must always be, whether it be for a purpose of general or local nature. If the former, there can be no want of constitutional power. … the bank has a natural relation to the power of collecting taxes; to that of regulating trade; to that of providing for the common defense

In times of war, and in so many other instances, a national bank is essential to the country.

Thomas Jefferson  on the National Bank

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

…I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “ all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.”

Issue #3 Manufacturing vs Agriculture

Alexander Hamilton on manufacturing and agriculture

Since the revolution, the States, in which manufactures have most increased, have recovered fastest from the injuries of the late War, and abound most in pecuniary resources….

These circumstances are–the great use which can be made of women and children…–the vast extension given by late improvements to the employment of machines, ………. has prodigiously lessened the necessity for manual labor.

There seems to be a moral certainty, that the trade of a country which is both manufacturing and Agricultural will be more lucrative and prosperous, that of a Country, which is, merely Agricultural…. The importation of manufactured supplies seem invariably to drain the merely Agricultural people of their wealth..

Thomas Jefferson on manufacturing and agriculture

“Too little reliance is to be had on a steady and certain course of commerce with the countries of Europe to permit us to depend more on that than we cannot avoid. Our best interest would be to employ our principal labor in agriculture, because to the profits of labor, which is dear, this adds the profits of our lands, which are cheap.”

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. As long, therefore, as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or anything else.”

Issue #4 Foreign Affairs

Hamilton on the French Revolution

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

John Jay to William North June 25, 1798

Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry’s remaining in France [continuing to negotiate with the French government] is an unfortunate circumstance, it tends to prolong vain hopes–and to cherish old divisions and to create new ones.

James Madison

The conclusion with me, is, that Great Britain, above all other nations, ought to be dreaded and watched, as most likely to gain an undue and pernicious ascendency in our country.

Thomas Jefferson

To these I will add, that I was a sincere well-wisher to the success of the French revolution, and still wish it may end in the establishment of a free & well-ordered republic; but I have not been insensible under the atrocious depredations they have committed on our commerce.

“I hope we may still keep clear of [the broils of Europe],… and that time may be given us to… find some means of shielding ourselves in future from foreign influence, political, commercial, or in whatever other form it may be attempted.

Issue #5 Alien and Sedition Acts

Hamilton

That committee should make a report exhibiting… the reasons which support the constitutionality and expediency of those laws (that is, the Alien and Sedition Acts) (and) the tendency of the doctrines advanced by Virginia and Kentucky to destroy the Constitution of the United States… The government must not merely defend itself but must attack… its enemies.

Alexander Addison

“Liberty without limit…is the worst kind of tyranny”

Thomas Jefferson

They have brought into the lower House a sedition bill, which, among other enormities, undertakes to make printing certain matters criminal, though one of the amendments to the Constitution has so expressly taken religion, printing presses, &c. out of their coercion. Indeed this bill, and the [Col 2] alien bill are both so palpably in the teeth of the Constitution as to show they mean to pay no respect to it.

I consider those laws as merely an experiment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution. If this goes down we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life……….

Over many years of teaching I ponder the question of how do students prepare themselves for any type of assessment.  Exactly how do students study? Some would assume that studying is reviewing important vocabulary words, others reading assigned text or other readings.  The environment itself can be distracting for many students,  who at times study with cell phones chirping, music blaring, or their television on.  So to make it simple this is how myself and my colleague Mr. Montero would study (minus the props of course).

Download

I just finished reading a fascinating article in Wired about the use of iPhones in a university setting,( http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/iphone-university-abilene/), and how students are no longer taking notes but using computers and phones instead to access information.  It got me thinking about how I use technology.  Yes, my students use my teacher-created blog, they create podcasts and videocasts, every student has a group wiki page, but is this effective?

In Will Richardson’s most recent blog post http://weblogg-ed.com/tag/education/ he also addresses a similar topic.  Isn’t time that we demonstrate to students that these very devices that they use are tremendously powerful learning tools?  What if students were given a particular topic as a discussion question, let’s say the Alien and Sedition Acts which were highly controversial in 1798 as they limited the right of freedom of speech and targeted certain immigrant groups.  Either using their computers or iPhones, which ever device is accessible, they looked up the topic.  Once found a discussion could take place whether the information on the particular website is reliable.  By doing so students would be learning on the fly about the reliability of historical sources which in itself is one of my focuses in 8th grade.

I would guess that many of my students have iPhones, which have access to our network once they walk in the classroom.  My students also have direct access to laptops in my classroom.  Perhaps creating a seminar type of situation would further their learning abilities and create a more engaging learning environment. The possibilities seem endless.  However, all of this requires a considerable time investment as evidenced by the New Technology High School Staff in Napa, CA where project based learning is an everyday occurrence (http://iteacher.edublogs.org/).

As we propel into the next decade I see the old school method of direct instruction dying out completely.  The current wave of students is distracted with the latest gadgets, applications, and widgets.  Somehow I need to tap into their world and find a way to make history a subject worthy of distraction.  That is my quest for the new year.

The students did an excellent job of putting their ideas together on a concept map (see below) as they were able to connect the various vocabulary terms with the word constitution. Connections were made with the three branches, federalism, bill of rights, documents and many more. This activity was two-fold. One it demonstrated that the students knew more than what they thought and it enabled them to apply their knowledge of the concepts instead of memorizing the terms.

Students work from a Constitution concept map.

Someone asked the other day about a review test that students took last year prior to the Constitution Test.  Here it is. Challenge yourself by taking the test and keep track of your scores.