Wiggle and Weave

The past few days have been very busy with weeding through information and trying to organize it all. I have found answers to all of the questions that I wondered about during my webbing posting. I judged each site that I gathered information from, from the skills I learned in S401. I looked at the end of each URL to make sure that it was a reliable source. I knew that if the URL ended with org., html., or edu that it was a pretty reliable source. I judged the books that I read by looking at the date they were last copyrighted. I wanted to make sure that I used the books that were most up to date.

I first went to the website http://www.ushmm.org to look for information. This site led me to http://isurvived.org/cronolgy.html to find the information I needed about when the Holocaust started. This site gave me information in a timeline manner that started in January of 1933 all the way through the end of May 1945. I found out that in January of 1933 the Nazi party took power in Germany and Hitler became the Chancellor. By March the Concentration Camp at Dachau was established and in May books declared contrary to Nazi beliefs were publicly burned. This was just the start of a 12 year tragedy.

I also learned from this site that in May of 1945 U.S. and Allied forces defeated the Nazis and liberated the remaining concentration camp survivors.

I moved to the site http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html for information on the death and concentration camps. This site is specifically set up for information on death and concentration camps. I learned the answer to my question, What were the main concentration camps? Almost immediately following his rise to power, Hitler began the creation of death camps. Of the approximately 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, more then half were systematically exterminated in the highly rationalized gas chamber/crematorium system of the Nazi Death Camps between 1942 and 1945. 7 of the death camps that are best known are Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzek, and Majdanek. Another site that you can go to for information regarding concentration camps is www.auschwitz.dk .

The last thing that I questioned were what are some documentaries and books that may give personal experiences. I found quite a few books from my public library, Bartholomew County Public Library. Night by Elie Wiesel, Dawn by Elie Wiesel, and Diary of Anny Frank by Anne Frank. These books are all told by first person experiences and offer a real glimpse into the Holocaust period. Many other informational books can be found under a 940 call number. I found documentaries on the www.ushmm.org site. The most known documentary about this time in history is Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg.

As it says in the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner "Organize knowledge so that it is useful." (2.1.2) With all of the resources that I have been able to find for this topic I have decided to put together a pathfinder. This follows 2.1.4 from AASL, "Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information." I have listed all of the sources that I have found in order of informational books, fiction books, non-fiction books, websites and documentaries. I hope to finish the pathfinder by tomorrow and will post a blog about where you can find it.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the resources I have found and trying to gather the information needed. Also putting together the pathfinder and trying to think of a final product all within the next week....wow maybe I should have done a little more last week! Though this process is a little overwhelming I am enjoying finding the information and learning about this very interesting piece of time.