This is a reflection for the LEC course I’m taking online. The prompt for this week:

Reflect upon what an activity in your classroom might look like using one or more of these Web 2.0 tools. Think about: what the experience looks like for students, types of outcomes students might have, how the outcome is tied to curriculum objectives, what Web 2.0 tools are aligned to the outcomes and lead to higher order thinking skills, and kinds of directions or guidelines you will provide in order to ensure success.

Write a post that briefly describes the activity you would create and how you might minimize possible challenges students and the teacher might have to address. Make sure that your activity is aligned to a learning objective and uses verbs from the top three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. In a later module, this activity may be one component of a larger unit you create.

Considering the unfortunate lack of emphasis on social studies and science, I’ve decided to focus this activity on California Social Studies Standard 2.3.1 “Explain how the United States and other countries make laws, carry out laws, determine whether laws have been violated, and punish wrongdoers.”

My idea is that my students would invent a law in a pair or team, along with planning what would happen to those who chose not to follow the law. They would have to pitch this law to their classmates through a VoiceThread. That means their original project could be images they draw on DabbleBoard or Google Drawings, videos from an iPod or webcam, or just images they find through Flickr Creative Commons searches.

Then, students could evaluate each law, give their criticism, and then everyone has one more chance to pitch their law before a whole voting goes into place. Perhaps only one law can be enacted, or perhaps a select number, but I think it could definitely be an interesting and engaging experience, giving them an insider’s understanding of developing and selecting laws.