I enjoyed the work that I put into my webquest. Creating a webquest challenged me to think about how to use technology in order to prepare my students for the future, with the current trends in mind. First it will give students practice with using communication technology to work alongside students miles away. As communication technology improves, this will be as vital of a skill as working alongside someone in the same building. It was not just the gap in area that the students were forced to overcome, but also the cultural divide. By creating groups composed of northern and southern students engaged in creating a project on the Civil War, students were able practice working with different cultures. This I considered a practice run, as all students lived in America and were from the east coast. This meant that generally they would all speak the same language (I say generally as northern Virginia is a very diverse place that will only get more diverse, same with New York depending on what part of the state you are involved with), have similar customs, and have the same time zones. The difference comes in with how both states traditionally view the Civil War. Last year I had an assignment where I had to look for bias in history text books. So the first thing I did was grab a U.S. history book from a Virginia middle school and looked up the Civil War. I had noticed then that the language was far different from the language used in the northern text books I grew up with. The subtleties of that day, reminded me how the divide between north and south still exists today, and felt it would be a great practice run for the students to deal with. By having different views and having to come together, students to analyze information and agree on how to present the Civil War, and all the information relating to it. Increasingly businesses will be hiring employees from all over the world, bringing people together to create finished products, as mentioned in The Nine Shift, with its knowledge workers. In the future there will be a demand for individuals who can work from a computer screen with teammates that they may not be able to interact with in person to create finished products. My webquest I believe will be perfect practice for students in such an economy. This project also helps students develop two of their “minds” as per Howard Gardner. The synthesizing mind will be exorcised since like most school projects in social studies, students will be taking information from multiple sources and sorting through what they feel to be the most important and accurate information to bring together for the webquest. Information on the Civil War will vary wildly depending on the political leanings of the source. Individuals such as Lincoln can be hailed as a hero according to some people, while reviled as a villain in others. Students will have to decide what is the most accurate information as a group for their project. Gardner’s Respectful Mind will also be developed through the use of working together as a group. The members of the group may have wildly different interpretations and thoughts concerning the Civil War, and to create this project they will have to negotiate how to deal with these opposing viewpoints. If students spend the bulk of their time arguing with one another, they will end up wasting valuable time they could spend on their project. Also how the group works is a part of their grade. Teachers will be able to monitor communications, and students will be assessing one another on how well their partners worked on the project. For a student to get full credit in this area, they will have to be productive equitable members of their groups. This again goes into the idea that in the future employers will be teaming up a wide range of individuals, with differing strengths, views and ideas.
This webquest is also very useful for teaching about social justice. When one hears a debate over the Civil War, at least in my experience the most common arguments always boil down to the issue of State’s rights versus slavery. Those that are pro-confederate tend to argue that the war was over the South believing in a State’s rights and fearing the encroachment of a growing federal government. Many of the pro-Union individuals argue on the basis of slavery, and that it was in the best interests of this nation to end such a barbaric institution. Students will have to look at both sides or the argument, as both were factors in causing the war. At the end of their webquest, students are then asked to sum up the Civil War in discussing how it applies to America today. Students will be able to write about issues concerning “big government” and analyze what is the role of government in their opinion. They also could write about how the issues with slavery and the laws passed were the beginnings of today’s racial relations, and how we have gone from a society treating African Americans like property, to electing one to the highest office in the land. Perhaps students will see in this case, it was in the best interest of this nation that the federal government got involved in slavery, allowing for the growth of equal rights; or they could hold a strong opinion that no matter what the south was right to break away from the Union.
The Civil War was also selected because it is one of the best moments in American history that highlights the importance of technology. Technology affected the cultures of the opposing sides in the Civil War. The North with its industrial economy, and inventions such as the steam engine, abandoned what little slavery was already occurring in its territories. Slavery was simply not an economic viable option. Slavery was even dying down in the South, until that is the invention of the cotton gin, that made agricultural slavery espeacially in cotton a viable option. Technology also played a part here with the invention of the steam engine also played a part. With the advent of the train and the steam powered ship, the market for the sale of cotton grew for the South, making Slavery the only way many of the plantation owners could make a great deal of money. Soon the issue of how a state made its money began to define its political culture, and the race for states to be either slave states or free states began. Each hoping to create more like minded states so as to not be over powered in Congress. Students will see how technology affected how Americans viewed the very institution of slavery. Some such as abolitionists viewed it as an evil to be stomped out, others as an economic weapon used to gain control of the nation.
This is not the only way students will learn about the impact of technology. Students are asked to analyze the strengths of both sides in the war. The Union’s industrialization is perhaps the biggest reason as to why it won the war. Students will see how industrialization helped the Union arm its men, how rail roads helped them relocate their soldiers to where needed, and how the telegraph information was able to travel from the officers to the Lincoln and back. Also during the Civil War, General Sherman specifically targeted rail lines and telegraphs as a part of his tactics to bring the South to its knees. This is why I mandated that the students discuss the strengths the North had, and how it helped them win the war. In this way students will see how changes in communication and transportation, even back in the 1800’s changed the way people did everything.
Creating this webquest I feel was very beneficial to me, as I am now looking at topics and figuring out how different forms of technology that students love today can be used to capture their interests and prepare them for a technology heavy future. As we have said in class, information and communication technology is growing at leaps and bounds. This needs to be seen as an alley to capture student’s attention and interest, instead of a rival.
