|
VIDEO CASE STUDY |
|
|
MALIIKA HERD CHAMBERS History and Social Sciences, Oakland High School |
|
|
History and Social Science Disciplines – Left Out of the Technology Shuffle Being in the history/social science discipline, we were getting left out of the technology shuffle. It was all going towards math or science and towards new programs in computer or business or vocational education, but history and English was being left out of the digital highway. We were considered - like I think about it in college - like the Romantic languages and those kind of archaic things. You're not technologically savvy - you're not supposed to be. It's history. You're pre-technology!
|
"I would get a personal computer. We would get a monitor and VCR in the classroom – because prior to Urban Dreams, there’s about 6 VCRs and television monitors in the whole school that everybody needs to use."
|
Tool or Toy?
|
Computers in the Classroom Part of bringing computers in the classroom, I feel - as a teacher - what needs to go along with that is training or maybe exposure as to how it can be a resource tool as opposed to just a toy or a gadget – or even how it’s beneficial – because you can make the same argument for a set of encyclopedias or make the same argument for any resource document. So you want to say – how do you use it and how do you make kids value it? – because on the other hand – you just get all that information – so now that I have it – what do I do with it?
|
Collaboration with Partner - Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
|
Images of the Civil Rights Movement and Powerpoint We wanted to bring the images of the civil rights movement to the classroom, but at that time, there was no monitor. There was no projector. There was no way that we could bring all of these wonderful images that we had found – pictures from Gordon Parks, Life Magazine, and Kodak, and all these photographers that were really prominent during that time and took these really great pictures – how could we get those pictures to the classroom. So we created a Powerpoint presentation and put it on the district website. |
"There was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out." Word and Images from the Civil Rights Movement 1955 - 1968 Powerpoint Presentation and History Study Unit Lesson Plan on the Web: http://www210.pair.com/udticg/lessonplans/mlk/index.htm
|
|
Introduction to the Unit Urban Dreams Teachers - Stan Pesick and Maliika Herd Chambers The purpose of this unit is to help students draw connections between the people and events that helped shape the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the social issues that influence their lives and choices today. Through the process of research, analytical and reflective writing, students will study why and how individuals struggled to change their lives and the world around them through their involvement with a social movement. They will investigate the degree of personal sacrifice that individuals had to make for the collective benefit of all.
|
|
Images, Music, Sound We did the Powerpoint presentation with the Jazz CDs so there are these songs of the civil rights movement. And we’re seeing the Montgomery busboy cut. We’re seeing the slides on the march on Washington. We’re seeing the freedom rider bus. We’re seeing civil rights now. We’re seeing Martin Luther King in jail. And so while we had the students looking at the images, we also gave them packets with the slides and parts for them to respond as to what they felt from each slide. What went through their mind? |
Powerpoint Screen
|
|
Powerpoint Screen
|
Primary Source Documents on the Internet I found – on the internet – copies of primary source documents – letters that Bull Connnor had written during the time in 1963 – that the marches were going on – or the unrest was happening in Birmingham. And letters – interdepartmental memos. Some letters from Orville Faubus when people were writing to his state and he was saying, “Don’t come. We don’t want your element here.”
|
"I really want my students to have that same access, that same opportunity..."
We live in a society that is technologically advanced and so, in order for public education to be that great equalizer, it had to represent fully the experiences that kids are getting in other districts, the experiences that kids are having in other communities in other parts of the country. So that was part of my struggle, but that was also part of my motivation because I really want my students to have that same access, that same opportunity – if nothing else – but to have it!
Maliika Herd Chambers
Urban Dreams Teacher
Oakland High School
History and Social Sciences
© Copyright 2001 Center for Evaluation and Research, LL
