The+Middle+Ages

My starter topic, the Middle Ages, is for a formal learning situation in which high school teens work on the desktop space as an exercise for a World or European history course. The two starter activities teach students about the Black Death and the Hundred Years War. By focusing on "events," one can easily change the activities using the same template, as there are slides created for "causes" and "effects" of the events.

The introductory slide includes pictures to spark interest, and both starters even include linked pictures that once clicked will show the interactive versions. Beyond the first slide, I exclude pictures in favor of a more direct question and answer format perhaps more appropriate for high school learners. Providing links to online resources on the second slide, I wanted students to explore various credible online sources and synthesize the information to learn the main points. These students will then answer questions on the next four slides that will focus in on the information significant to understanding the historical events. Some slides are set up for answers in paragraph form and others in bulleted points, including both forms gives students the chance to vary the way they organize their thoughts (into simple concise statements and in expository writing). It also prevents the student from tiring of the exercise, as the bulleted points end the starter.

The slides in this starter give students an organized and visual-appealing format for the exercise. The students can feel as though they are being guided by the starter, even though minimal assistance is needed except for the brief instructions in the speaker notes. The credible online resources that students are directed to offer students more than just the their one course textbook or frequently-used Wikipedia. These activities are meant for initial learning about the topic so that possible further discussion can occur as a class. The last slide asking what interested the students most about the topic can also be a starting off point for further discussions and will perhaps encourage students to do their own online exploring.

I created my starters in the 2007 version of PowerPoint, but I also converted the documents to the ppt format to be viewed with the older program.