Paperclips

In our Monday night seminar we watched a documentary film called Paperclips. It was about a middle school in rural Tennesse that collected paperclips from all over the world as part of a Holocaust class. The film got both teacher and student perspectives about the project. I really liked the film, I thought it was a really cool project idea as well. However, it wasn't the best representation of teaching. It seemed as how the students were mainly counting paperclips. In the beginning there were some clips of teachers using direct instruction, however, other then that different teaching methods weren't shown.
When our group met to talk about the film we discussed alot about how this Holocaust project could have been improved. One of the main things we discussed was that more technological resources could be utilized to make the project alot better. Students could make power points about specific topics pertaining to the Holocaust (which could be used as a form of assessment), or incorporate movies or clips from youtube even to give students a better understanding. Technology is a powerful tool that should be used in the classroom! Check out the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP15cY3f7UA