It’s time for the semester technology project:  ethical issues wiki project.  I just finished creating the usernames for my students.  Those have now been uploaded and are ready for them to play around with tomorrow.

I love the ethical issues wiki project.  Some students really struggle with delving deeper into the material, but for the high achievers and the gifted students…this is really their time to shine.  I have quite a few students who are brilliant thinkers and it sometimes just takes my breath away when I read their responses.  So, yes, I’m very much looking forward to reading their take on the ethical issues on killing and death.  Like I’ve done in the past, the students have to relate their responses to our current unit of study:  Japan.  But I plan to expand the subsequent tasks to incorporate the idea of holy war (Europe Unit) and human sacrifice (Early American Civilizations Unit).  All 195 7th graders will be collaborating with students who sit at the same table throughout the day.  This gives them the opportunity to discuss issues with students who have World History in a different period.

To accommodate for the fact that some students do not have Internet access, I have reserved the mobile laptop cart for two days a week for the next three weeks.  Luckily for me this year, about 85% of my students have Internet access at home.  So I’m assuming that quite a few of them will be working outside of the school day.  I love it.  Taking learning outside of the confines of a traditional school day.  What a novel idea.  =)