Week 4 Blog Post- Inspiration and Web Resources

Through-out my middle school and high school career I have only seen one teacher use Inspiration. This was my 7th grade social studies teacher. Yet, I feel that other teachers could have used this program and seen beneficial results. Once I am a teacher I plan on using Inspiration in my classroom. My 7th grade teacher used it to get the class to brainstorm the main ideas for a chapter before we started it. He would have a different student make the organizer and type the information in each time. I like this idea and would continue it in my classroom. I would also use it to organize the causes and events in history, for example the causes and effects that sparked the American Revolution. It is organized and clear rather than the information just in notes on a notebook sheet. Use inspiration as a chart and give it as a hand-out. When papers are assigned, making an outline of it in inspiration can be worth credit toward the paper and have them hand it in when the paper is due. After a chapter is completed the class can review by discussing the main events. Like the pre chapter organizer a different student will be the one behind the computer. When discussing different type of government or even our own government the different branches and duties and responsibilities can be hard to grasp and remember, but Inspiration can organize the information and clearly show the duties and responsibilities of each branch. There are always famous people in history. A chart can be made to highlight important one in the chapter and explain their accomplishments or contribution.Students can use it to break-down the duties of a group project and make sure that everyone will make a contribution. They can make a diagram and hand it in for extra credit during a chapter. I can be used to see how a chapter will be broken down and taught. With the sections and activities that will be done. An students can also use it to take notes and then change it to an outline form to study. These are a few ideas for Inspiration to be used in a classroom.

My favorite web resource was Rubistar. I used it in my Secondary Methods class last semester after a friend showed it to me. In history there will be presentations and papers, as a result there will be a rubric. Therefore I will be using Rubistar to create the rubrics. I love how it is easy to use Rubistar and the templates. All you have to do is tweak them a little but to create your own. With the assignment of oral and group projects and papers I will always need a rubric in order to grade them.It will allow the students to see the important areas and it will make my job to grade easy as well. Instead of looking at a paper and worrying if I graded one student to hard or one to easy.Which is a worry that I had while completing my early field experience.I really like Rubistar.