One Best Thing Review
Isaac Pineda wrote the "One Best Thing: Student Authored Textbooks: A Student's Perspective on History". Pineda is a Technology Integration Specialist who lives in Monterrey, Mexico.
As a future History teacher, I would love to use this type of project in the classroom because it is a nice break from the stereotypical, boring history classroom. The freedom that it gives students allows any type of student a solid structure for a great learning environment in the classroom. Giving students a choice on what they have to do for their grade encourages students to do their best work, which results in impactful learning. From all of the comments from the teachers that did this project in their classroom, most, if not all of the teachers loved it just as much as their students did. For a teacher to see the eyes of their students light up when they see the final product of their efforts is a great feeling. This, on top of the many other educational reasons, is why I want to apply this to my future classroom.
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In the iBook, Pineda and other educators who were involved in the project talk about how well this went over. It was a great success that students loved to participate in. These students could apply for the position in the project that they wanted to do, which gave them the opportunity to apply themselves at a position that they actually wanted to do. Positions such as editor, reporter, executive director, graphic arts specialists and so on. In the process of the students making a Multi-Touch Textbook about a History lesson, the students were able to learn how to operate in a real-world simulation. This allowed the students to have the power to research, question, and investigate the problems independently, as well as cooperatively with their peers. Over the eight-week project, the students excelled together, which resulted in the finished product that anyone in the world could read and use as a lesson. From this, the books that the students made have been downloaded over one thousand times from fourteen different countries. What is amazing about this approach is that it lets the students take ownership in their role and apply themselves just like they would in a real-world situation. Each of the one hundred and twenty students had a specific job that they completed before the deadline to compile into one finished masterpiece that these students could observe and be satisfied with the results and what they had learned.
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