My Reflection re: How Will My Webquest Empower My Students?

I am actually getting more and more excited about my webquest as time goes on. I've decided the overarching, guiding question for the webquest is going to be: If you could go back in time, to a decade in the 20th century (between 1920 and 1990), to which decade would you go and why?

Through this webquest, I'd like not only for my students to meet the objectives of the social studies curriculum at school and to meet the IL Learning Standards in social studies and perhaps other subject areas such as science and language arts, but also to really think about the way society has changed over the not-too-distant past. I really feel like today's youth are growing up in an extremely rough, potentially dangerous environment - especially the students that I teach. More than half of our student population is at the poverty level. Many of our students come from single-parent homes, yet there are those families that are still nuclear, fortunately. Most children at my school come from "blue-collar" families and not all families within my school have Internet access, let alone a single computer at their home. What I want for my students to realize, as a result of doing this webquest, is that life in the U.S. was not always like the way it is now. Our children are dealing with terrorism, war, poverty, and are growing up in a time when it is not easy for their parents to make a decent living because of the poor economy in which many people are unemployed. At the same time, our children are living in a society that technologically, seems to be moving at the speed of light. There is so much technology and with it comes so many capabilities that it is hard even for an adult like myself to keep up. I often times wish life could be the way it was in the 1950's. Life seemed so simple back then. Families were together and stayed together; children went to school, learned, and knew what it meant to have respect for their teachers, parents, siblings, and classmates; music was actually wholesome and didn't blatantly allude to sex, violence, and drugs; families ate home-cooked meals together; and all of this technology didn't exist. People took pleasure in the simplicities of life.

What I want from this webquest is to understand how the students feel about society now, in the time they have been growing-up, compared to the way life used to be like for their parents, grandparents, and other ancestors. I do not want for the students to despise society now, rather I would like for them to develop an understanding and appreciation of America and the world the way it was in years' past and to foster thinking that will enable them to become citizens who can promote positive change in society today and in the future.

The TechTonic article really captured my interest because I do agree with some of the arguments that were stated. I do think it's important for children to take a step back and just look at and reflect upon all that this world has to offer. Where can they find happiness? It doesn't have to come from IM'ing their friends on the computer, or text messaging friends on the cell phone, or playing video games 24/7. It can come from partaking in their own special interests, just as the article said, and it can also come from learning about their elders and what life was like for them. What did they do for fun? What was the cost of living like? What was technology like? Were there health problems or epidemics they were faced with? What was going on in the world at the time they were growing up? Was there a war going on? Who was the president? Did they grow up in the time of the Civil Rights Movement? What was family-life like? How did they find joy in life amidst society's conflicts, such as times of war or economic struggle, etc.? I know I learned a lot about life in the 20's and 30's from my grandfather who grew up during that time. He also served in WWII, and because he served, I learned at a young age, from a primary source, what the war was like and what life was like for him during that time. I also learned a lot from my parents who grew up in the 40's, 50's and 60's. I wonder if my students have done the same? Have they talked to their parents, grandparents, other family members, or even teachers, who grew up during these decades? Or, are they just learning about history from textbooks and what their teachers have taught them? I want my students to be actively involved in learning about history and I want them to formulate their own ideas. I believe they can do this through my webquest. I will use the textbook as a guide for meeting the curriculum objectives, but at the same time, I would like for my students to actually investigate for themselves what life in the U.S. (and around the world in some cases, dealing with war and politics) was like from the 1920's on.

And now I'll leave you with a quote from the TechTonic article by the Alliance for Childhood, "For real technology literacy, we should focus on educating our children, at home and school, in ways that help them cultivate a profound sense of the goodness of life and of their own capacity to respond from the goodness of their own humanity" (pg.11). I believe my webquest will empower my students in this way and will be a reflection of this quote. I plan on incorporating interviews into the webquest so the students will need to talk to adults who have grown up during those time periods in order to better understand the realities of life back then. Hopefully my webquest will be able to do what I envision.