Hello parents - Your child along with all of the other student class are about to embark on an adventure about the Arkansas Delta. We will not be working through a traditional assignment. They will be following a web quest that will take them on a historical journey through the Arkansas Delta. Standard from Language Arts as well as History will be covered during this quest. So what is a WebQuest? A WebQuest is an Inquiry activity in which most of the information the students interact with come from internet resources. The students will be introduced to doable task that will interest them. High quality and mostly primary resources will be used to complete activities. I will provide clear instructions to guide the students. There is a rubric that will be used for grading. Students will receive this at the beginning of the WebQuest. This WebQuest should give students an understanding of the people and the cultures of the Arkansas Delta once this activity is completed. Thanks for your continued support! Harry Dickens

Educational Uses of Animoto

Animoto is intuitive and easy to use. It is easier and faster than creating a PowerPoint and yields much more visually satisfying products. After you choose your images, text and music the site then adds effects to create a very interesting dynamic presentation. It really looks professionally done. Animoto is a great tool that students can use for show and tell, present persuasive arguments and more. You can add text (title slides) to the presentation. Limited text capabilities (text cannot be added to pictures. This web 2.0 tool could be used to introduce what's next for teachers in any subject. Animoto can be use by teachers to create a simulated field trip or end of the year videos. To use animoto users will have to create an account so this may not be the best option for students under the age of 13. If you decide to use the free version and not the education version students could possibly view inappropriate material.

Educational Value of Wordle

Creating a wordle is a great way to start a discussion on many topics/standards in a social studies classroom.  When discussing the Declaration of independence, teachers could have it displayed through a projector to begin the conversation about the document.  Having the most used words stand out in the wordle students can at a quick glance see the most used and sometimes the most important words in the document.  A comparison and contrast of two bodies of work.  For example, reports from two different news sources on a topic or written assignments from two students.  Finally, an end of the unit review can be created for students to summarize the key learning points and vocabulary for a given topic.