Vidcast Reflection

World War Two

5th Grade Social Studies
Standard 5: Students will address the causes, consequences and implications of the emergence of the United States as a world power. (Analyze how the United States' involvement in World War II led to its emergence as a superpower.)

World War two is not something I remember learning a tremendous amount about. It never really bothered me in elementary school that I didn’t learn a lot about the wars, or other events in history. However, now being in a social studies class, I really see the impact of learning about the past. For our project, we chose World War two because of the impact it had on the United States and still has on our country. So many people contributed to the war and deserve to be recognized. This is why, in our project, my partner and I chose to make our video about the different people involved in WWII. For example, Anne Frank was is celebrated today for being a brave young girl who went into hiding during the Holocaust for what she believed in. And Hitler is another well known name. Without Hitler, WWII wouldn’t have been as deadly.
Our project connects to the NETS and INTASC Standards in many ways. First, according to the NETS standards, we made sure to, “advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.” We cited all of our sources and gave credit to anyone who’s work/words were in our project. In the INTASC standards it says to, “use appropriate resources to facilitate individual student learning.” I think using pictures of people who impacted the war and having a narration of who the people are is a great way of utilizing resources to capture the students’ attention.
Potential drawbacks may definitely occur in the case of a vidcast. My biggest concern is not having enough time to create a vidcast once I’m a teacher. I have spent so much time on this vidcast, and do not wish to spend this much time again. My future plans for this vidcast is to show them in a classroom, whether it’s mine or somebody else who borrows the vidcast. I would love to share with students what I have learned and find interesting about WWII.