Technology Integration Project #1 - My Fake Wall

I decided to spend the last week doing a lot of research into many different new technologies. I did that so that I could get a good grasp on which ones would be good for projects, but more importantly, I did so to discover which ones would be good for my future classroom.  At first I had very little idea where to get started, but Jerrid directed me towards the Social Studies Chat hashtag on Twitter (#sschat) and within five minutes, I had a plethora of ideas!  The first one I came across was a program for creating fake historical facebook accounts called MyFakeWall.com.  I spent the rest of the day setting of a “Fakebook” account for Abraham Lincoln - http://www.myfakewall.com/wall/edit/134843 . The options and detail were astounding.  You could upload pictures, create a list of “friends”, include biographical information, and even post comments and create conversations between the historical figure you are writing about and other people who may (or may not) have had interactions with them during their lifetimes.

There are multiple ways in which this technology can assist student learning.  For starters, by creating essentially as Facebook page for their historical figure, students are able to interact with the material in ways that would not be possible in a traditional style.  While students will still have to do independent research to obtain the necessary information to fill up the page, they will have a lot more freedom as to how they implement and express the things they’ve learned.  In a history or government class, any figure that I would assign research on would likely have such a “full life” that it would be impossible for the students to include all of the data. This makes it so the student has to analyze everything they’ve learned and determine which parts of their lives they want to focus on.  In this way, there is not necessarily a right or wrong answer, which will foster a deeper level of critical thinking.

In considering this project for use in the classroom, two immediate issues and concerns with implementation come to mind.  The first is how to make the project equal or fair for all students.  If they are all creating pages for different historical figures, it is likely that some people will be more difficult to write about than others.  Some may have more available information.  Some may have more pictures or more “friends” which make it easier to make the page look complete.  An easy way to create equality would be to have every student create their own page on the same historical figure.  That way, they are all starting out with the same information set and it is simply their creativity that makes the differences.  The problem I see with that is that you lose the potential to learn a lot about a number of different people.  That is untenable to me, so I think the focus has to be on ensuring that any figure I select has plenty of material to work from. The second problem is that of grading the “Fakebooks.”  Clearly I will have to create a rubric of some kind that includes all of the different aspects of the page creation, but what features or aspects are the most important?  Since each page will involve the different “characters”, how will I set the standards?  These are things I will have to continue to reflect on.

The big trade off that I think we’ll run into with this technology is that there will be the tendency for these pages to lack depth.  Just like with an actual Facebook page, these will provide a “snapshot” of the historical figure, but it will be difficult to address their importance with a lot of depth.  Just as if someone looked at my Facebook page, they wouldn’t really understand who I am, so to will it be difficult for students to truly understand the figure by reading the “Fakebook” pages created by their classmates.  I think a good way to solve that issue is to have each student also write a small biographical paper on the person for whom they are creating the page.  While this wouldn’t allow every student to have the same depth of knowledge for every historical figure, it would create a situation where each student becomes intimately knowledgeable about one figure, while getting a breadth of knowledge about many others.

This project meets INTASC Standard #4 and ISTE Standard #1.  For INTASC #4, this project certainly enhances critical thinking, problem solving, AND performance skills.  Critical thinking comes from researching the figure from multiple sources and then determining what information is most important and should be included on the page.  Problem Solving comes from playing with the website itself and discovering out to make comments, upload pictures, add friends, etc.  Performance skills are encouraged by the simple creativity of the project in general.  While there will be little as far as explicit presentation or performance, students will know that their page creation will be for consumption by their classmates and will create their pages accordingly.  This will encourage them to be funny, or witty, while still being respectful to the material.  For ISTE Standard #1, I would begin by using my knowledge of the subject and the technology to support their learning.  I would have already created a page that would provide a proper example of what I would look for in their “Fakebook.” Then, while they are working, I would be up and walking around assisting them with any problems they may be having with the technology itself, or perhaps with finding proper research for to fill in the necessary information. The fact is that this technology just screams creativity and innovation.  Students are being encouraged to create something completely new involving a person of historical significance who people have known about for a long time.  

Four Elements of Successful Historical Role-Playing in the Classroom                
Kathryn N. McDaniel
The History Teacher
Vol. 33, No. 3 (May, 2000), pp. 357-362                         
Published by: Society for History Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/495033

This article actually addresses some of the concerns I had with the trade-offs regarding the lack of depth.  It discusses that, while knowledge gained through these exercises may be superficial, that does not have an effect on the success of the project.  The focus and importance of the project is based on its memorability and, while it would always be good for students to learn as much as they possible can about a subject, it is more important that they remember the things that they have learned.  I think this is right.  In the current day and age, where as teachers we are being required to cover more in less time, some of the depth may have to be left to student independent learning.  What we need to focus on is ensuring that the things we do teach...the things they do learn, stick with them in the future.