Summary of C4T#2

The first post I commented on was about Washington.During Mr. Langhorst visit to Mount Vernon this summer he was a participant in the 2010 Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminar he spent time studying Washington's actions as a farmer. He stated Washoington did some amazing things on his farms and was on the cutting edge of technology for his time. On a visit to Mount Vernon you can visit a reconstruction of the 16 sided round barn he built and designed to thresh grain. During the seminar Mr. Langhorst created a lesson plan to help students analyze why Washington made this decision. The lesson is created primarily for a middle school or junior high history class and can be conducted in one 45 minute period. The students will also use a couple of primary resources from George Washington. The podcast describes the lesson plan and the blog post includes a full description and materials in PDF format.The blog entry also included a short video shoot at Mount Vernon with Daniel Purkey, Lead Interpreter for Historic Trades at Mount Vernon, describing the reasons for Washington's decision.I commented I loved your lesson plan, it made the students see Washington in another perspective than being the most famous president. The handouts were organized well and would be very useful in the classroom. I know I learned something new. I hope to see more interesting lesson plans in the near future.

The second post was about a video conference his class did with a famous author.Mr. Langhorst 8th grade American history classes in Liberty, Missouri participated in a live video chat with Pat Hughes, author of Guerrilla Season. Guerrilla Season is a book with a focus on Clay County (the county in which they live) in the years just before the Civil War. He used G-mail video chat,which is free to visit with Pat from her home in Philadelphia. He also used a Flip cam to record the conversation for students who missed it and wanted to watch it. Pat spoke with them from her sun room and then took them upstairs to show them her office and shared some of the resources she used to write books about Civil War era Missouri.I commented that I love how he incorporated technology into the classroom. I did not know that having a conversation with someone miles away can be so easy.And recording the video for the other students was also a good idea.









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