Who is the most evil dictator?

Introduction

The subject of this task is dictatorship and war in world history. Students have already been shown and learnt about some of the biggest dictators in world history (Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin). They need to read through the information that has already been given to them and complete a Prezi or PowerPoint, explaining to the class why they think that their chosen dictator is the worst in world history. This assignment combines skills of reading, writing, comprehension, evaluation, using technology and ICT tools and research and information fluency.

Introduction

You have been approached by the government, they need YOUR answer NOW! Who is the evillest dictator? The government is going to use your information to help shape future anti-war and defence plans for the country. Are you going to help? You need to answer the call to help the country!

Task

Have you decided to help the government? Good! To help this is all you need to do:

You have already been taught about some of the evillest dictators, pick one!

Once you have decided who is the evillest out of who we have already discussed, you need to further analyse them to get some extra information (at least three points that were not taught in class). You are then to compile this information into an easy to read and understand PowerPoint or Prezi. This PowerPoint or Prezi needs to go for at least one minute, and include at least four slides.

You will be answering these questions:

Which dictator have you chosen? What time did they live in? What conflict where they involved in? What kind of government did they rule? Was it communism, or a dictatorship? What was their goal and ideals? Where in the country did they rule? What country (It is handy to include a map here of where they ruled)? How many lives were destroyed under their rule? Then include a slide of the extra information you have found. This could include random bits of information helpful to the government, bits of information from their early life that could have shaped them into becoming a dictator. Lastly you need to include a small paragraph on why they are the evillest to you, was there something interesting that pointed them out in your mind?

Putting this information into a PowerPoint to show your findings, you need to include maps, pictures, and if you have time a short (under one minute) video on who they are.

Process

This process and following the steps will make this easier for you to complete in the one lesson provided:

Look through your notes from the last two lessons and pick your dictator
Open Microsoft Word and write down the questions you need to answer
Begin answering the questions on your dictator, (most of the information you need to answer the questions should be in your notes)
Begin research for new points of information. If you use the websites provided below it should take no longer than five minutes
Open Microsoft PowerPoint and begin to make your slides
1. You need to include -an intro slide
2. At least 2 or 3 slides of information
3. Lastly, a bibliography slide
Put your hand up once completed for teacher approval of your PPT
We will look over several PPT presentations at the end of the class and mainly look at the extra information you have included in your PPT

The first website you can use is BIO.com

The second is encyclopedia.com

Evaluation

	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Qualified 3	Exemplary 4	Score
PowerPoint and slides	PowerPoint has one-two slides. Little to no information on slides.	PowerPoint has one-two slides with some information included.	PowerPoint has three-four slides with basic information provided on each.	PowerPoint has four-five slides with heavy amounts of information provided on each slide.
Spelling & Grammar	No use of grammar in slides. One to two spelling mistakes per slide.	Approximately two spelling errors on each page, some proper nouns may be capitalized incorrectly.	Only one or two incorrectly capitalized proper nouns, and a few spelling errors in the PPT.	Only one or two grammar and/or spelling errors on the whole PPT.
Planning, set up, on Word document and PowerPoint presentation.	No clear set up on Word document questions. No set up on PowerPoint slides, making it hard to read.	Word document is set up for questions with title. PPT has some organization and each slide has a heading.	Word Document has clear headings, basic structure and information. PowerPoint has title page, headings on each slide.	Word document has clear set up and structure and flow for questioning. Purpose of PPT is clear and has a logical flow to the slides.
Use of complete sentences	Sentences are not proofread for grammar and flow. No vocabulary words are used.	Little evidence of proofreading and editing for errors.	Mostly complete sentences.	All sentences are complete sentences with vocabulary words included in the details.
Inclusion of pictures and graphics.	No pictures or graphics included.	Some graphics (Background, heading) included in PowerPoint.	Backgrounds included in PowerPoint, and inclusion of pictures.	PowerPoint includes pictures, backgrounds on slides, and one video under one minute long.

Conclusion

By completing this task, it gives you a further chance to look into the research we have been completing a class over the last week. We have come a long way in talking about dictators and how they shaped the conflicts they are involved in. In the past the general population has allowed dictators like this to come into power, and where did it get them? We today need to know the effects of dictators and be able to recognise the traditional habits and ideals of a dictator to not follow suit. What is happening in America currently is a clear example of this. The world is still dealing with the consequences of evil people in power. They are going hungry, dirty, being placed into stereotypes of race and religion and receiving harassment from their peers on a daily basis. By doing this task I want you to be able to recognise and learn these traits or habits and use the information you have learnt to grow your voice.
‘Those who cannot remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.’
This is a very good quote by George Santayana, and I want you to think of this when looking for your additional information on your chosen dictator. It is important to be educated and aware to live on planet Earth, use this as an opportunity for that.

Credits

Author Biography

I am a student at University of the Sunshine Coast creating a task as an assessment piece. With a

Major in modern history I am hoping that this WebQuest will be useful to others to use or modify how they seem fit. The main resource for this WebQuest was constantly adhering to the ACA ICT Capability Learning Continuum.

Permissions

We all benefit by being generous with out work. Permission is granted for others to use and modify this WebQuest for education, non-commercial purposes as long as the original authorship is credited. The modified WebQuest may be shared only under the same conditions. See the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial- Share-Alike license for details.

Teacher Page

This WebQuest has been created with the intended audience of a year ten group of modern history students. It falls into the ‘How did the nature of global conflict change during the twentieth century.’ By also using the ACARA ICT Capability Learning Continuum when researching and compiling the task, the task also has ties to safe, ethical use of ICT technologies in the classroom to complete the task.

The task involves the students first looking through notes taken in previous classes on work of modern histories dictators and using this information to decide who they think is the ‘evillest’ (most interesting). The students then need to compile a questionnaire on a Microsoft Word document answering questions such as: who the dictator is, their ideals, time period and affect on humanity. After this the students needs to research on two provided websites and find three new additional pieces of information that they feel is relevant to making this dictator evil. Some suggestions are given to guide the research, such as: what the dictator did in early life that could have shaped him/her or something during their time of power that made them stand out from the rest of the dictators for the student.

The purpose of the task is simply to show the teacher what information is resonating most with the students during this field of study. There are however, more underlying skills being honed throughout this task. The task involves the students remembering and analysing previously learnt information, analysing further to see what is relevant to the task and research methods to find new information that is relevant. The ICT purpose of the task is to help students easier navigate research websites, understand the use of PowerPoint and linking graphics into the system. The task, by taking the next lesson to look through the PowerPoints will be used to show students how they can create different PowerPoints and new ways of finding information. Whilst looking through the PowerPoints ICT tools such as gosoapbox can be implemented for students. The students can then create an anonymous forum asking questions or stating they do not understand certain things, without having to raise their hand in the middle of class.

There are many pedagogical advantages to this task. The first of this is that it encourages metacognition for the students, and will further develop learner skills and build learning power for the students. The task also encourages independence in students as this is an individual task. Each student can make the task creative in their own way, depending on how many graphics are included, the use of swipe effects or backgrounds on slides, it helps them be creative in an otherwise textbook task. This task will help the students with deeper learning in an un ideal way. This is not a straight lecture for the students, they will have had information provided through the use of ICT and then they are collating the information in their own way, through ICT. This task will help the teacher become more present for students needing help, as the work is basic for year ten students and the teacher can walk around the classroom helping students individually. This task is flexible for students, so they feel as though they are in control of the task. By using WebQuest and giving students the rubric, and steps to completing, the student can task this as they wish to create their own presentation. The last advantage to list is for the teacher and not the students. Asking the students to find relevant but useful information on the individual dictators helps the teacher with future lesson planning to include information that the students find captivating.

There are some possible problems that could arise from this task. The main of this is time, it is very possible for students to not stay on task and continue to talk to one another. The students could also purposefully prolong the PowerPoint creation process to take time away from the teacher. The main solution to this is to tell students ahead of time how much time will be spent on each aspect of the task. Another useful tool is setting up a timer for the class to see on the smart board, and asking everybody to move on at the same time. The teacher will need to constantly reiterate to the students that this is not an assessment piece, and will not be marked against them in any way.

This task uses teaching research and theories to help students understand a topic that may cause some students to switch off in the classroom. By harnessing the pedagogical advances, it used it an be a very useful task for teacher and student. By creating the task on WebQuest, the task is being brought into the 21st century and enabling more use of ICT tools and learning in the classroom. The task is beneficial in any ways to teacher and students as long as time does not become an issue throughout the lesson.