IT 5600 Instructional Website FEA

March 17, 2010

Overview:
The “In a War” website will be designed to give students the experience of reflecting on
events and soldier experiences during the Vietnam War and comparing those events and
experiences to the more current war experience of the Second Iraq War. This site will be
interactive, story centered, and research based. The site will guide students into creating
an editorial newscast that highlights the contrasts and comparisons of the Vietnam War
and the Second Iraq War, and anyways they can come up with for preventing this type of
conflict in American History again. This website will include audio, video, interactive
outside sites, stories and transcripts from actual veterans in both wars. Each student will
prepare a videotaped newscast based on research and interactivity from the website. Their
newscast should have a DBQ basis as a key skill learned through the unit. Presenting
ways to prevent this type of conflict in the future will be part of the newscast and the final
assessment of this project.

Objective: Where are we going? Through the use of multimedia, images and historical
documents (situation), the learner will identify, research, and report (learned capability)
events, politics, and lives effected in both the Vietnam War and the Iraq War (object)
through daily blogging and a multi media newscast (action/tool).
1. Through the use of role play as a pundit, the student will explore and describe the
similarities and differences between the events and experiences of the Vietnam
war and the Iraq War and through a newscast they will offer their opinion on how
to prevent this kind of conflict in the future.
2. Through the use of social networking, the learners will identify individual
experiences from many roles through the Vietnam War and the Iraq War,
Government decisions that were made whether that be Legislative, Executive or
Judicial, and specific events that led up to and followed both conflicts. They will
discuss the similarities and differences of their findings through posting
comments on a blog.
3. The student will create a op-ed newscast or newspaper article that includes media
that they have found and researched that explains both comparisons and contrasts
of the two conflicts and how they think this conflict can be avoided in the future.
4. Through the use of social networking tool, the learner will find groups associated
with pro and anti-war groups and dialog with others about issues related to
Vietnam War and Iraq War through comments and posts.
5. In response to a set of summative questions, the learners will formulate a position
on current issues of foreign military affairs and the actions they think our
government should take. The answer will be sent via on online form.
Audience: Where are we now?
Eleventh grade students in Regular American Studies at Regis Jesuit High School. The
school is 95% White, 3% Hispanic or Latino, 2% African American. Most students have
parents with strong political views leaning to the right. Most have heard of and have
background knowledge in the Vietnam War, although many have not explored both sides
of the argument of justification, and few have explored actual experiences of the war. All
are aware of the War in Iraq although few have much background knowledge on the
history of the conflict or any experience with individual accounts of the war.

Rationale: How will we close the gap?

I want the Information Architecture to provide access to 85% of the site content within
two mouse clicks. I want the Instruction to utilize digital media to provide students with
the opportunity to “experience”, through others experiences, the two conflicts and to
begin to exercise leadership in their own local context through Engaging, Participating,
Integrating and Collaborating with the content subject matter. The instructional design
and technology tools are meant to support the implementation of E.P.I.C. design.

A website based on web 2.0 technologies that encourage participation, social interaction,
and rich-media will address the need for the students to experience the content. The
Information Architecture should provide access to 85% of the site content within two
mouse clicks. Wordpress provides the CMS structure for supporting this interactive site
design.

The instructional design will focus on context, motivation, interaction, experience, and
utilize student observations, emotional impacts, and beliefs.

Learning Activities:
1. Students will research using multimedia, images, audio, transcripts and
background reading.
2. Students will work through a role-play.
3. Students will journal on daily activities
4. Students will work interactively with others in the class through a form of social
networking
5. Students will utilize internet resources.

Learning Strategies:
1. Role-Play
2. Story-Based Curriculum

Evaluation of Learning: (Formative Assessment)

The students will be evaluated with a Formative Assessment of daily blogging and
threaded discussion. The students will react to documents and media that they experience
everyday through the blog aspect of the In a War website. All of this blogging will
culminate into an op-ed report on the impact of War and the recent history of War in the
United States
Evaluation of Impact:

Students will be able to do a peer evaluation of each others work and opinions and then
they will fill out a Google doc that will be available through the In a War website about
what they would change and what they really liked, or got out of the project.