Cold War #8

I'm heading into the final stretch of the course. I spent several hours yesterday working on my power point. As expected I have more material than I need. I also found that I have 'stuff'' everywhere. I worked on power point #1 for about an hour before I remembered I had an outline that I had written and should probably follow. The outline was helpful and I was finally able to focus. I also worked on creating a hyper link in my power points and was marginally successful. My links need to take the viewer to the exact video I want seen and some are just taking viewers to the website and the viewer has to click on the correct video. I also have several primary source text documents that would be ridiculous to read in the power point but I am working on retyping the most important text from the document on the slide while including a picture of the actual document. I know that power points are not for reading. They need to be visually appealing. I also may play with the idea of including a photostory in a power point but have yet to work out that technology. In addition I know that the topic "Cold War" is a high school standard with indicators in Kansas so my audience for my power point needs to be at the high school level. I will continue to work on the technology piece but for now I have 4 slides completed for power point #1 and 2 completed for power point #2. Two weeks to get it done.

Cold War Entry #7

I got a little behind on my final bibliography and finally got it submitted tonight. I knew I needed time to sit and think about where I was going with this project. Dr. Woestman recommended that I find some articles or sources that had some viewpoints similar to those of the nuclear scientists and in support of their claim that nuclear weapons were very dangerous in the wrong hands. I was able to find a great deal of information about the danger of nuclear weapons including a web site that had an extensive time line composed by Japanese scientists about the number of close calls we have had concerning the deployment of nuclear weapons. All of the close calls were somewhat unnerving to read including a malfunctioning 46 cent microchip that launched 100 B-29s loaded with nuclear weapons towards the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. A journal article that I read raised some important questions for all of us. If our nuclear weapons stock pile is intended to be a deterrent then why do countries/organizations that do not have nuclear weapons continue to challenge us-are they calling our bluff? Congress has begun to take some action to determine the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century since our enemy no longer appears to be a nation but rather a radical group of individuals. Once again my research has created more questions for me than answers. I am anxious to get started on the final piece so maybe I can begin to develop answers to my questions.

Cold War Entry #6

Every time I pick up this assignment to work on it I get so drawn into it that the time disappears. I am excited by the topic I chose and every piece that I research leads me to another and another. I'm afraid my biggest problem as I work towards completion is that I may have too much material. I believed I chose a narrow topic to cover but it expands every week. Now my task will be to narrow it back down again. I am really excited about one aspect of the project. I will be completing 4 power points as a final project. I have been trying to import the short video clips of the nuclear test blasts into my power points. I have the video clips from 6 tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs. I finally succeeded yesterday. I am not sure how it will play out on the big screen but I am just excited that I got it to work. Included in this blog is a picture of the blast over Hiroshima from August 6, 1945.

Source Info:

Records of U. S. AirForce Commands, Activities, and Organizations. "ARC Search." National Archives. August 6, 1945. www.archives.org (accessed October 15, 2007). ARC: 542192

Cold War Outline

I had the opportunity to visit Cleveland this weekend and got enough peace and quiet in my hotel room to really work on my outline. I went to the National Archives website and found plenty of documents including a number of visual aids to enhance my power point. I teach 8th grade and while the Cold War is not a part of my curriculum I do touch as much of the 20th century as I can using visual images. I worry because there is so much my students do not know about the 20th century and they are already 14. Anyway, I got very excited about my project but I am worried I may have made the project too big. The power points are supposed to be 10 slides each. I hope that is a minimum and not a limit. My first 2 power points will exceed the ten slide recommendation while my last two should be fine. I enjoy the way we have processed through the development of this project. I can put my work away for a few days then pick it up and it is like I am fresh again. This is what I did with my outline. I did a very rough draft last week then put it away until Saturday night. When I looked at it again on Saturday I got very excited about my ideas and worked until almost one in the morning even though Sunday was an early day for me. Now I can put the project away for a few more days and pick it up fresh later in the week as I develop my final annotated bibliography which has grown by quite a few sources.