Crafting Digital Stories

Image
Photography, Children on Computers, 26 Sept 2006, Homer Township Public Library
Question

I teach early elementary school, and my students are learning about the differences between past and present. Is there a tool that would allow them to share their learning (mostly using images) online with others?

Answer

With the explosion of Web 2.0 resources there is no shortage of tools for carrying out the types of activities you describe. It is not my place to endorse particular resources but I can comment with confidence from personal experience using a few of these tools and having great fun in the process. I tend to teach older students so you may want to check these resources out before exposing your students to them. On the other hand, when I do work with younger students it is usually in one-day workshop sessions and there is never much doubt by the end of the day who understands the software better! I think it is the lack of fear, which younger students seem to have in experimenting with technology. Anyway, some suggestions:

Wallwisher
I know you suggested that you would mostly be working with images but Wallwisher is great if you want to post up words. It is an electronic pin board and you literally write notes and pin them on. I had some 13-years-olds assess some software for me and they posted their views—good points and bad points—here and here.

VoiceThread
As a resource for sharing thoughts about an image or a movie clip VoiceThread is pretty hard to beat. It was designed specifically for educational purposes and ideas and thoughts can be shared in real time or left as posts. It has been extensively researched and trialled, so there is a good deal of supporting literature available to help you develop the way you use it. Here are some examples of history-themed VoiceThreads.

Historypin
Historypin is great for establishing a local connection to history. It is very similar to Google Earth’s pin features. You upload an image, pin it to a location, and then complete a commentary box.

Xtranormal
This may seem a little crazy but it is such fun! Essentially students script animated films for selections of characters. I have used it with students of all ages. Younger students create short films in which they play different characters and either explain particular events or share their confusion over an issue. I have found Xtranormal a very effective tool to get older students collaborating outside the classroom, principally preparing for tests—essentially they present an answer to a test question and then their peers comment on that answer. Movies can be posted on YouTube.

Stripgenerator
This is a tool similar to Xtranormal, but it uses still images. It is very simple to use and allows students to take a range of characters and tell a story with them.

Prezi
Prezi is already being used by a lot of teachers as an alternative to PowerPoint. I won't try to explain Prezi here. A quick look at the sample projects which have been created will be far more articulate, eloquent, and absorbing!

For more information

Learn more about VoiceThread, Prezi, Wallwisher, and other digital tools in Tech for Teachers.

Watch 1st-grade teacher Jennifer Orr and her students put VoiceThread to work in Beyond the Chalkboard. Orr shares her thoughts on the project in our blog.

Web Poster Wizard

Image
Poster, Example, Web Poster Wizard
What is it?

What is It?

This tool should win prizes for user friendliness.

Web Poster Wizard allows educators to create a lesson, worksheet, or project and immediately to publish it online. With this tool, students can create posters or short reports in a poster format and add images and links to their pages. The teacher can post directions and resources. In effect, with Web Poster Wizard, you are creating websites for individual projects, for classes, or as communication venues.

Getting Started

Web Poster Wizard gives you access to online storage, step-by-step instructions, and basic project templates. Once you register and login (a simple process requiring only your email address and a password), site management tools enable you to set up your classes, to assign projects to students, provide materials and resources, and to manage content. The centralized login combines students and teachers in one account.

Read Web Poster Wizard Guidelines and Requirements first. As the Guidelines explain, all you need to get started is a plan. You then create your project pages, and each page can include a title, subtitle, image, text block (which permits 10,000 characters, or about 4 pages of text), and a navigation bar to related links. Step-by-step directions take you through setting up and editing your pages.

Examples

This 7th Grade Language Arts teacher uses Web Poster Wizard as a management tool.

Document Cameras

Image
Photo, Lumens Desktop Document Camera, June 19, 2007, AV-1, Flickr
What is it?

A document camera makes a great addition to a history classroom with a video projector or TV. A document camera captures anything under its lens and projects it on the screen. While this technology has been around for a few years, it has been a little slow to catch on for a variety of reasons.

Some teachers may be hesitant to embrace the document camera because they believe it to simply be a glorified overhead projector. The document camera beats the old overhead projector in many ways, the first being that the document camera does not require one to make transparencies. A teacher can project artifacts, photos, worksheets, and anything else that can fit under the camera lens. In addition, students are better able to see the image produced by a document camera as it is much brighter and clearer than the image produced by the overhead projector. Best of all, you no longer leave school covered in overhead marker!

Getting Started

The cost of the document camera may also make this teaching tool seem out of the reach of many teachers and districts in these lean budget years.

It is also possible to obtain grant money for document cameras from places like DonorsChoose.

While document cameras range in price from $200 to $2,000, this should not preclude one from having their own document camera. You can find a used document camera on eBay or a surplus property store for under $100. Another option is to make a document camera yourself using a webcam and available USB port. The only drawback to this setup is you have to be able to load software on your computer attached to the video projector in your classroom. A ready-made version of this runs about $69. It is also possible to obtain grant money for document cameras from places like DonorsChoose.

Once you have your document camera installation is straightforward. Some document cameras come with a freeze image button which is a great feature to capture a page in a book or map that might be difficult to hold in place. If the document camera does not have this feature, you can hook up the document camera directly to the video projector, which often has the ability to freeze an image. If your document camera is not one that hooks up to your computer via USB, you can also set up the document camera directly to your projector. This allows you to toggle between the image on your computer screen (assuming it too is attached to your video projector) and the image from your document camera. You can also connect most document cameras to a television using an S-video cable or component video cable. It should be noted, however, that the clarity is not as crisp when using the S-video cable or component video cable compared to using a VGA or DVI connection.

Examples

The document camera has vast instructional possibilities. I have used my document camera every day in my history classroom. One of the benefits of having a document camera in a history classroom is having the ability to analyze primary sources together as a class. I am able to zoom in on important components of a photograph or text and can invite students to the document camera to annotate pictures or text without bulky markers or transparencies. I am also able to share maps in books easily with students, in color. Students are able to share work they have created immediately with the class without having to scan an image or make a transparency of the document.

My favorite use of the document camera is allowing me to spotlight and share exemplar student work.

This means that jigsaw activities work very efficiently, with each group able to share what they have written on nothing larger than a worksheet. Collectively, classes have created essay outlines and timelines together. The document camera allows students to share storybooks they have created, projected large enough for the class to see. From a classroom management perspective, the document camera allows me to easily show students the worksheet we are working on or the question I want them to focus on. I am also able to place my stopwatch under the camera to show students how much longer they have to complete a task. Finally, my favorite use of the document camera is allowing me to spotlight and share exemplar student work. I am able to give specific praise to a well-written essay or project.

For more information

Interested in looking at specific cameras currently available? Read product reviews for document cameras in this article from Scholastic.

Let's Get Folky bhiggs Wed, 11/10/2010 - 12:39
Image
Photography, Coolest Bluegrass Beard, Greg Robbins, 2007, Flickr CC
Question

I need ideas for constructivist lesson plans that teach American history through folk music. Can you help?

Answer

Music can be a great resource for American history teachers. Just like textual primary sources, songs have historical meaning that students have to work to uncover. A song, no less than a presidential address, reflects the time in which it was created, as well as the perspective of its author. Consequently, you’ll want to ask students to consider who wrote the lyrics, what those lyrics mean, who the audience for the song was, and what was going on in the United States at the time. You might want to pair the song with other sources—newspaper clippings, radio addresses, photographs of protests, etc.—that students can piece together to better understand a particular historical era.

PBS’s brief history of American folk music might be a good place to start…

Folk music, of course, is distinct from popular music in one general regard: unlike music created by professional recording artists, folk music is generally made by ordinary people and integrated into everyday life. So, while many well-known artists like Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan certainly played folk music, it can often be used as a way of better understanding the lives of people frequently left out of history textbooks. PBS’s brief history of American folk music might be a good place to start, establishing the unique nature of the genre and helping you focus your search for resources.

As always when looking for classroom resources, teachinghistory.org can help. Our Teaching in Action section, for instance, includes an example of how a song might be used in the classroom, providing links to videos in which 4th grade students learn about John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry by analyzing the song “John Brown’s Body.”

Our Using Primary Sources section also has some appropriate resources for you. One entry on Making Sense of American Popular Song highlights a website that provides questions to ask when using music in the history classroom, a model interpretation of a popular song, and links to resources. Another entry, on Document Analysis Worksheets, includes a link to the National Archives, which has a special “Sound Recording Analysis Worksheet.”

Beyond the Teachinghistory.org website, you might want to look at some of the other usual suspects for high quality materials and lesson plans.

Beyond the Teachinghistory.org website, you might want to look at some of the other usual suspects for high quality materials and lesson plans. EDSITEment—a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities—is always a good place to look. They have a lesson entitled “Music from Across America” that explores the intersection of music and popular song. The Library of Congress is always a good resource, and they have a full page of links, as well as some specific lesson plans like one on California folk music in the 1930s. Finally, PBS’s American Roots Music website has four lesson plans as well as a bibliography that you might find useful.

There are also some specific music-related sites worth exploring. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame also has a page of lesson plans dedicated to teaching with music. You might also want to explore Smithsonian Folkways to see what music they have available.

Integrating Technology into the Classroom

Image
Photo, "ICT's in Education," pmorgan, March 17, 2005, Flickr
Question

How and where do I find technology content for the history classroom?

Answer

Teaching history with technology can be a great way to engage students while also building bridges between the history classroom and the technology department at your school.

Classroom Technologies

One good place to start is by exploring some of the technologies available to you in the classroom. The National History Education Clearinghouse, for instance, has an article on the use of digital whiteboards in the classroom, which you might find useful. "Wiki Wisdom," an article from Education Week, focuses on how teachers can use wikis in the classroom, emphasizing their ease of use, and listing considerations accompanying their integration into the classroom. Reel American History, a project at Lehigh University, is a site that encourages teachers and students to think about the ways movies help us construct understandings of history. The site includes a list of films dealing with history, as well as suggestions for how to use them. (Check back in the coming weeks and the National History Education Clearinghouse will also have new resources about using film to teach history.)

Teaching history with technology can be a great way to engage students while also building bridges between the history classroom and the technology department at your school.

In terms of blogs, the American Historical Association has an article on how blogs connect students outside the classroom that might be useful for your purposes. Social studies teachers, particularly those who focus on current events, may also be interested in digital storytelling. Edutopia has a great article about digital storytelling that will direct you to additional resources.

Technological Resources Specifically for History Classrooms

Another angle you can take in looking for resources is to pursue sites that specifically explore technology-related content for the history classroom. One great resource is National Council for the Social Studies Community Network which has a variety of resources for teaching with technology. You can also join their Teaching with Technology group to be connected with other teachers who are interested in integrating technology into history and social studies classrooms. Many other sites have resources to help you.The Center for History and New Media’s Episodes page, for instance, has multimedia resources for a number of different historical periods. SCORE, the Schools of California Online Resources for Education webpage, also has some great materials that utilize technology in the history and social science classroom. The page has a virtual web museum, virtual interactive projects, and virtual field trips. Science, Technology, and the CIA, a project of the National Security Archive, provides 44 government documents that track the organizational and operational history of various CIA departments designed to coordinate science and technology research with intelligence operations.

Another way to approach your question is to look for models of projects merging technology and history. On the National History Education Clearinghouse site, there’s a blog entry describing a project conducted at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in which students used a host of new technologies to explore the history of Harpers Ferry and John Brown—definitely worth checking out.

Good luck with your lesson planning!

Making Sense of Maps Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/17/2008 - 15:57
Article Body

Making Sense of Maps offers a place for students and teachers to begin working with maps as historical evidence. Written by David Stephens, this guide offers an overview of the history of maps and how historians use them, a breakdown of the elements of a map, tips on what questions to ask when analyzing maps, an annotated bibliography, and a guide to finding and using maps online.

Website
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/maps/
Making Sense of Oral History Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/17/2008 - 15:28
Article Body

Making Sense of Oral History offers a place for students and teachers to begin working with oral history interviews as historical evidence. Written by Linda Shopes, this guide presents an overview of oral history and ways historians use it; tips on what questions to ask when reading or listening to oral-history interviews; a sample interpretation of an interview; an annotated bibliography; and a guide to finding and using oral history online. Linda Shopes is a historian at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Website
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/

Historical Context and Roleplaying

Image
Teaching with Role Playing
Article Body

This website's videos document the practice of a 5th-grade teacher in New York teaching a unit titled Colonial New York: Developing Perspectives through Historical Role Play. This 14-week, standards-based unit covers colonial America up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The site provides a rich cache of materials documenting the teaching of the unit, including the teacher's initial plan; video clips of classroom activities and teacher reflections; classroom handouts and historical sources; and student work.

The site provides examples of two promising practices:

  1. Establishing an understanding of historical time and place before engaging in roleplaying activities or simulations; and
  2. Continuing to build student understanding of historical context as students elaborate roles and take on perspectives.
Understanding Daily Life

The teacher begins the unit with activities designed to establish a "sense of time and place" and help students understand colonial "daily life." Students then create colonial characters. Notably, the teacher structures activities so students are transported back into the colonial world before they are asked to identify and elaborate their imagined roles and lives.

To accomplish this, she plans trips to local historical sites, uses primary sources, and uses questions to frame individual lessons such as: What did colonial New York look like? What jobs did people have in colonial New York? How did people get what they needed?

Analyzing Issues and Events

After students create a colonial character, they learn about important issues and events of the time period, including the impact of the French-Indian War on British colonial policies, the colonists' responses, and the road to revolution. Students learn how taxes work, look at mercantilist laws, hold tavern meetings, and read Patrick Henry's famous speech and the Declaration of Independence. Threaded throughout this instruction is a back-and-forth between what happened and how students in their colonial roles would have experienced and thought about these events.

What's New?

Many history teachers use roleplaying activities. What is less commonly done, however, is what we find here: structuring learning activities so students' roles are closely tied to the time and place within which they are imagined. This website uncovers not only the deep exploration of historical context necessary to make roleplaying more historically accurate, but also some ways for teachers to structure and plan those necessary activities.

On the website, there are additional promising features, including a focus on the way the teacher adjusts her initial curriculum plan in response to what she learns about students' understanding through both formal and informal assessments.

Teaching History in a High-Stakes Testing Culture

Image
Photography, Students Taking a Test, 25 Aug 2009, Shannan Muskopf, Flickr CC
Article Body

End-of-year standardized tests play a significant role in shaping what gets taught in the classroom. Supporters of such tests in history make the case that the best exams support not only the acquisition of content knowledge, but also the development of historical habits of mind. This study by Gabriel Reich of Virginia Commonwealth University, however, reveals that the reality of the situation may be more complicated.

Looking at the New York Regents exam in Global History and Geography, Reich sought to understand the kinds of skills necessary for answering multiple choice items correctly. He worked with 13 urban 10th graders at a racially mixed high school, and engaged them in “think alouds” in which students talked through the process of answering 15 questions.

What he found was that these multiple-choice questions did not call for knowledge or skill in the historical thinking that was prescribed by the standards. They did, on the other hand, elicit knowledge in three domains:

  1. history content
  2. literacy
  3. test-wiseness

Knowledge of the content material was, obviously, quite important in determining a student’s ability to answer multiple-choice questions correctly. Less obvious was the importance of literacy, which Reich defined as “command of relevant vocabulary and the ability to read, and manipulate the ideas presented in printed text.” If students were hazy on content—and in some cases, if they did not remember the content at all—they often fell back on their literacy skills for help in deciphering answers. Similarly, test-wiseness also factored into student success. Defined by Reich as “sensitivity to the explanatory, or narrative frameworks underlying each question,” test-wiseness allowed students to make good guesses when faced with several answer choices.

In the Classroom

Working with—and in some cases, around—standardized tests, teachers can help students improve their scores without sacrificing key knowledge and skills.

  1. Recognize the importance of test-wiseness. By doing explicit instruction during the year on how to take tests can help ensure that students have the best shot at displaying the knowledge they have. Eliminating obviously wrong answers before guessing, saving the most confusing questions for last, and watching out for tricks inserted by the test-writers are good beginning moves to familiarize students with.
  2. Emphasize literacy throughout the school year. Literacy skills will help students in end-of-course exams not only because it is key to understanding historical content, but also because it will help them decipher questions.
  3. Finally, if discipline-specific thinking is not required for success as measured by state tests, find a way to move beyond the standards. Standards documents often represent a solid baseline for content, but teaching to the standards frequently is not enough. Using core content to engage students with historical problems or piecing together historical understandings, is a way of achieving both aims simultaneously.
Sample Application

Question: The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to—

a. restore Japanese economic development
b. provide military aid to Middle Eastem allies
c. assure nationalist success in the Chinese civil war
d. provide for economic recovery in Western Europe

Student think-aloud:

"I have no clue. I should go to the next one."

Student returns to item after completing the test:

"Number five, ‘the purpose of the Marshall Plan was to…’ the Marshall Plan, oh yeah ‘restore Japan,’ so ‘Japanese economic development.’ Or…‘Provide for economic recovery in Western Europe.’

"It’s between those two, because the Marshall Plan was something related to like what Stalin I think did, the Five Year Plan? So ‘restore Japanese economic development,’ ‘provide for economic recovery in Western Europe.’ I would say one of those is what the Marshall Plan was for."

For more information

The Roundtable on "The Role of Multiple Choice Assessments in History Courses" offers multiple perspectives on this issue.

For another research brief regarding testing, see "The History Classroom: Connections Between Instruction and Assessment".

Bibliography

Reich, Gabriel. “Testing Historical Knowledge: Standards, Multiple-choice Questions and Student Reasoning.” Theory and Research in Social Education 37(3) (2009): 325–360.

Teachers' Use of Primary Sources

Image
Copies of the Constitution on a classroom table. NHEC
Article Body

To what extent do history/social studies teachers use primary sources in their classrooms? What impact has the availability of Web-based primary sources had on their practice?

To find out, David Hicks and Peter Doolittle of Virginia Tech University and John K. Lee of Georgia State University surveyed 158 high school history teachers. Their study revealed that even though most teachers used primary sources, there was no consensus about how to use such documents. Is the purpose of using primary sources to reinforce what is taught in the textbook, or is it to teach historical thinking? Are Web-based primary sources the same as text-based ones? And finally, how can teachers be well prepared to use primary sources?

Historical Information vs. Historical Interpretation

It is well known that primary sources are important for teaching historical thinking skills. Many teachers find them useful for engaging students in such tasks as historical interpretation. More frequently, however, documents are used to enrich a textbook account or to help students focus on essential facts and concepts. This study sought ways that teachers could work together to devise new approaches to using primary sources, including teaching historical thinking.

. . . documents are used to enrich a textbook account or to help students focus on essential facts and concepts.
Text vs. the Web

Many of the teachers surveyed were unfamiliar with several well-developed and notable digital resource centers. Most teachers, for instance, were unaware of sites like the Library of Congress’s American Memory site, the digital National Security Archive, History Net, and the Census Bureau’s American FactFinder. In addition, most had never used videos or photographs available from internet resources, primarily because they were unsure how to find them. This highlights the need for better dissemination of information to help teachers locate useful (and usable) primary sources.

. . . most had never used videos or photographs available from internet resources, primarily because they were unsure how to find them.
Obstacles and Dilemmas

Most teachers said they needed no additional training on how to use or locate primary sources, or in understanding the unique aspects of Web-based sources. Still, many indicated a desire for assistance in helping students develop historical thinking skills, and some teachers didn't consider the Web to be an organized repository of primary sources. Based on these responses, the study authors wanted to know how administrators could support history/social studies teachers in terms of ongoing training and professional development. When it comes to using primary sources to teach historical thinking and locating primary sources on the web, what specific things might help teachers enhance their skills?

image
Screenshot, American Experience Homepage, Wyatt Earp
In the Classroom
  • Explore a few excellent collections of primary sources like the Library of Congress's American Memory, Our Documents, the National Archives, Digital History, and PBS's American Experience.
  • As you browse through available sources (don't forget these include photographs!), try to think of a historical question which the documents can help students answer. Would the documents, for example, allow students to answer a question about why the American Revolution was fought, or what caused the Great Depression? Look for primary sources that demand close reading or analysis for understanding, illuminate facets of a historical context, or lead to more questions.
  • Use Teachinghistory.org resources to help you find and use primary sources effectively. Search Website Reviews by topic or time to find primary source collections. See Using Primary Sources, Teaching Guides and Lesson Plan Reviews for methods and ideas about how to use primary sources with your students.
Sample Application

In responding to a question on why teachers didn't use Web-based historical primary sources, the three most frequent answers were:

  • "No time to search the web for primary sources."
  • "Too many web sites to locate suitable primary sources."
  • "Inappropriate preparation to use primary sources."

While the first two call for more resources that can help teachers navigate web-based primary sources, the third answer indicates a need for more professional development using primary sources. Consequently, school leaders and administrators should seek professional growth activities which not only help history/social studies teachers use primary sources effectively, but focus particularly on using Web-based resources.

Bibliography

David Hicks, Peter Doolittle, and John K. Lee, "Social Studies Teachers' Use of Classroom-Based and Web-Based Historical Primary Sources," Theory and Research in Social Education 32, no. 2 (2004), 213-247.

Subscribe to 3