Spring Break Learning April 13

Over Spring Break, I had the priveledge to attend a two and a half day workshop at the Library of Congress where we use Abraham Lincoln's artifacts and things from his lifetime to learn how to utilize using primary sources. We began with a tour of the exhibit about Lincoln. As I walked, I saw some ways that I could use some of the source documents, maps, and photographs for my podcast/voicethread thing about Lincoln. We partnered up and had to do a "box activity." You answered questions about the exhibit using a box with questions on all sides and two inside. You wrote and drew on the box. This idea was hatched because the clipboards and notepads LOC workers were seeing were cumbersome. The box we used fit easily in our hands as we did our work.

We did found poetry using documents by and about Lincoln. Here we looked at http://www.wordle.net/. A document, the Gettysburg Address was copied into Wordle. The words used over and over were larger than the other. You could also make it color or arrange it in other ways. Very cool for teaching main idea.

We also looked at maps in a different way and sheet music from the day also. Very interesting and I wish I had time to share it with the staff. Our last task was to go to the comuter lab and work on a power point slide that linked primary sources found in LOC. Then we were to post it on http://www.drop.io/ . This site can hold up to 100MB of stuff. It is free and lasts a year from its last viewing. This is excellent information for us at STEP in my opinion. Last year, I could not post all of my stuff for my final evaluation for STEP because of not enough room. Drop.io seems like a good solution for that.