Technology Integration in our World History Classroom: A Sample Lesson

Hello again parents!

Remember how I said that I was going to keep you informed on what your child was doing in his/her world history class?  And remember how I said that we were going to integrate technology into our curriculum?  Here is a sample of the technology that we used in a recent lesson on the French Revolution.

We started off our unit on the Age of Revolutions 1689-1815 with lessons on the Glorious Revolution in England, and the American Revolution.  For the French Revolution, students viewed a Power Point presentation and took notes on study guides, which they were provided with.  After students had been given the proper "fuel" (knowledge of the French Revolution needed to create a product), I took them to the media center to work on the following assignment.  The assignment can be found on my own personal classroom web page.

French Revolution Essays


After students were given time in class to work on their essays, we returned to the classroom and I attempted to tie the concepts we learned on the revolutions of 1689-1815 to our modern world.  This demonstrates the flexibility that teachers do have, even when teaching in a standards-based classroom (see discussion in previous blog post).  Although the standards do not yet mention the democratic revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa of 2011, I personally feel it is important to dissect this critical regional phenomenon.  I will share with you two of the resources I found particularly helpful in teaching this lesson.

Resource #1 - Music of Arab rapper El General
In getting to know my students, I have learned how important music is to their lives.  Students memorize the lyrics to hundreds of songs that sometimes include dozens of lines of verse.  I realized that music and poetry would be a fruitful way to engage their attention and analyze an event in history.  The rapper El General is an Arab musician who has been tagged as the voice of the Arab Youth hungry for a democratic revolution.  We viewed his videos and YouTube and discussed the impact of his music, and social media sites, on the revolutions in the Arab world.




I also directed students to this Time Magazine article on the lessons the world is learning from the Arab revolutions.

Learn to Love the Revolution


As always parents, your feedback, critiques, suggestions, comments, concerns (and praise) are welcome and encouraged.