Key Ideas

1. Blogs and Blogging – A website that allows users to create journal like entries that may be viewed online. Students used edublogs.org to create theirs. It allowed them to share their project instantly with their teacher, classmates, and, eventually, others in the school system.

2. Collaboration – is simply “working together” (Information Power, 50) In this case, Mr. McKinney and I worked together to get students excited about the journal/letters unit.

3. Creative Thinking – Thinking creatively is the cognitive we use to develop ideas that are unique, useful, and worthy of further elaboration. (Chaffee 1997,/Callison, 349) Students had to use creative thinking to create their own journal/diary/letters in order to create a story. 

4.  Motivation- helps to increase the chanced that student will learn what is needed even when they may initially classify the activity as boring. (Callison, 437). Mr. McKinney and I encouraged students to get excited about something that can be dull by allowing them to choice a topic of interest and by using new technologies like blogging or vlogging.

5.  Nonfiction – Works based on true events. Students picked journals/diaries/letters that were non-fiction sources.

6.  Primary Sources –Original objects or record that survived the past (Callison, 483). Students’ sources were considered primary resources since they were journals, diaries, or letters.

7.  Questioning – The start of information inquiry and done to “find an answer” (Callison, 502). Mr. McKinney and I evoked students to ask questions after reading their book about the lifestyle in their time period and about the person in general. They then used those questions to inspire journal entries.

8.  Rubrics- Set of scaled criteria, usually ranging from performance that is considered unacceptable to minimal through progressive stages which eventually defines that which is observable superior performance (Callison, 516). Student were provided with rubrics so they knew what was to be expected and how their project would be graded.

9.  Story – The art of telling of an event or incident that stimulates the imagination. Students were expected to create a story through their journaling/letters.

10.  Technology – Any tool or medium that helps people accomplish task or produce products more efficiently (Healy 1998/Callison, 556). I introduced new technologies to student that would be used such as flip-cameras, video blogs, and blogging.