First Rita, thank you for both your time and patience. Technology both fascinates me and frustrates me. I learn slowly but once I learn something, it stays with me. So thank you, thank you, thank you!
Two ideas came out of my working on the project. The first is I can really give my students a platform to express their ideas, feelings, and even possible solutions to issues relating to genocide and its effects on our world today. They need to talk out and share their thoughts and feelings in this class. It is often hard to find the time to complete course content and give them time to sort out all the thoughts going through their minds during this intense course. Now they will be able to do their assignments, share their concerns with me and share their thoughts with their classmates. While most students find me very approachable, somtimes they believe that all this is "old hat" for me and that I don't understand what they are going through with this course. In actuality, I understand very well what many of them are feeling or thinking. The content of this course is much for them to process. However, if expressing this to other students helps them in any way, great! This give and take is a wonderful learning/sharing platform and probably a good emotional release as well.
Secondly, I have been looking at the wiki sites and I see a grat opportunity, if I can figure it all out, to create a wiki which will allow me and my students to create a learning/sharing space of resources including but not limited to newspaper articles, films, books, web sites. local speakers, exhibits, survivor networks, TV programming, etc. to help them find whatever it is that they wish to learn. This course often attracts students who wish to go beyond the classroom requirements and I sometimes have problems keeping up with their requests. It isn't unusual for other students to step in and help each other find resources. The interactiveness of the wiki could certainly broaden the depth of resources avalable at any give time in a semester. It would also give me some leverage to monitor some of the resources they are sharing to warn them of some of the "junk" that is also so readily available, particularly off the web.
One interesing note for my researching: Rita suggested checking out some of the "twibes" for Twitter which might help me in creating a PLN. Just out of curiosity I was browsing some areas of interestand and looked up holocaust from twibes. I found two. The first was an American Indian Holocaust twibe with some very interesting tweets. The second, however, was a Russian based Neo Nazi twibe. Just some food for thought.
I think your ideas for blogging and creating a wiki will enrich your teaching and your students' learning in so many ways. I hope that we'll have time to talk during the semester so that you can let me know how the technology is working for you and whether the students are benefiting from it as you hoped they would. I also hope that one day, when my life slows down, that I will be able to take your holocaust course. It sounds amazing.
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