Why I like Paris

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Activities Group 1-WiKi

http://historymythsandhiddentruths.wikispaces.com/space/content  Using  a Wiki has made it possible for me to create simple lesson plans that will allow my students to research and explore facts from fiction. What I enjoyed the most about using a WiKi is one can distinguish what is true, what is false. To clarify lets look at the image to the right. There is strong emotion in this picture. My field is social studies,government and I have a minor in history. Young people seem to be fascinated by the 1960's Music such as The Beatles, Doors, Turtles, Rascals and so forth. They are also fascinated by the dress of the times. The love beads, mini-skirts, the hippies. What they fail to comprehend is it was a time of civil unrest. One needs to only read the book Nixonland to get a glimpse of how terrible the 60's were. The important contributions of Dr. King, Mr. Chavez, Bobby Kennedy (who I remember vividly when he was killed) but more important the Vietnam experience. I lost many family members to this conflict including kids that grew up in my neighborhood. Louie Borrego had just arrived in Vietnam, he had been sent to a "hot zone". As he walked towards the rest of the soldiers, he stepped on a hidden mine. These were called bouncing betties because they would explode and leap upwards about three feet and explode again cutting in half any one in its path. I was fortunate to have avoided what these brave men went through because I was too young but old enough to remember the conclussion of the war with the fall of Saigon. Terrible movies like "Rambo" portray the war in a false sense. If my students wanted to research this conflict, they could create images and search out facts. They would then apply them to the WiKi and be able to share information with each other. They could edit, save, delete, the possibilities are endless. The above image moves me to tears because of what it represents to me. If teaching a history class, I might insert such an image and have my students reflect and form an educated guess as to its meaning.

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