A pocket camcorder shrinks the technology of a video camera to the size of your pocket. While not the highest-quality recording device, pocket camcorders offer an easy way to point and shoot video. Although camcorders have been used in classrooms since the 1980s, greater availability of pocket camcorders has revolutionized the way we think about using video in the classroom. Before, a teacher was lucky to check out one camera for use in his classroom. Today, with pocket cameras costing around $150, schools can afford to have multiple camcorders in teachers’ hands. In addition, the pocket camera affords increased flexibility in storage and editing over its predecessors.

Pocket camcorders are relatively inexpensive with continually falling prices. Most pocket camcorder models cost between $150-$250. The difference in price is largely dependant upon the quality of video it produces and its memory capacity. When searching for a pocket camcorder, you should consider what it will be used for in the classroom. For most projects high definition video and zoom capabilities are valuable, but not a requirement. However, battery life and ease of uploading should be considered. Controls for recording and playing back video should be easily found on the unit. Many media centers have invested in these devices, but if yours has not and you would like to have a few cameras in your own classroom, funding need not hold you back. Currently, there is a 2-for-1 deal on Flip brand video cameras at the nonprofit DigitalWish.com. Also, you can look into buying refurbished pocket camcorders online for around $75.

Increasingly we see smartphones with video capabilities in students’ hands. This will likely make the pocket camcorder technology short-lived. But for now the pocket camcorder offers all students a chance to learn by creating video. I feel there is no need to worry as the same teaching techniques can be applied with the new smartphones as these devices become widespread.

To use a pocket camcorder, you will either need a computer on which to upload the stored video (most often via USB) for editing and sharing, or a way to project video from the pocket camcorder to a television or LCD projector (usually via HDMI cable). Once you figure out the logistics of students presenting or sharing their videos, you’ll need a reason to have students use the cameras! I believe the pocket camera’s true benefit is providing students authentic learning and assessment opportunities. The new National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies put out by the National Council for the Social Studies includes a number of products that could be created with a pocket camera. Students could take pocket cameras home to conduct interviews of those that have witnessed historical events. Or, they could create a public service announcement publicizing healthy habits. Students could also use their cameras to capture visual evidence of culture in their community or create a documentary on a community issue. I have also seen teachers assign students the task of recording and narrating trips to historical sites to share with classmates. I had students create CommonCraft-like videos in which they explained a constitutional amendment “in plain English.” In this project students created a script and a storyboard, and used black-and-white cutouts to help explain their assigned amendment. If rehearsed properly students could shoot their two-minute video in one take and did not need to spend time editing. Aside from a pocket cam, the only other additional piece of equipment necessary is a tripod that will allow the camera to face downward to record action beneath.

The social studies classroom offers many avenues to incorporate the pocket camera into instruction and assessment. I hope that you experiment with other uses for the pocket camera and share them with us here.

I have written about technology and primary students previously. I want to wrap up my thinking with a focus on a specific tool I believe offers a lot of opportunities in an early elementary classroom.

As an upper-grade teacher my students used blogs and wikis frequently. This allowed them to reflect on their learning and connect their thinking during our school day and at other times. In first grade my students are still learning to read and write, and doing so at the levels required for blogs or wikis would be extremely difficult.

Enter VoiceThread. It allows so many options for learning. It allows you to upload one or more pictures, videos, or documents. Students can then comment on what you have uploaded for them. These comments can be typed, uploaded from an audio recording, or recorded via microphone or webcam.

I use VoiceThread in every subject area, but it is wonderful for history. One way we have used it this year is during our study of past and present. First graders in Virginia are expected to be able to determine the difference between the two. I uploaded pictures of schools, transportation, families, and homes from the past and current images. Students then recorded comments about the images. The process of recording comments serves as writing would for older children. The students are pushed to make their thinking and understanding clear and share it. They also have the opportunity to listen to comments left by their classmates and, if they wish, respond to them. It is also a way for me to learn about their thinking and see their understanding.

Another way we used VoiceThread was to share our learning about four famous Americans—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington Carver. Again, I uploaded images of these men and the students recorded their comments. Seeing the images and listening to others’ comments helped them remember details about these men and their contributions to our country.

If you follow the links to these VoiceThreads you will find that the students occasionally express misconceptions and misunderstandings. At various points throughout the process we take time as a class to review our thinking through the VoiceThread and clarify our understanding. If necessary, I will conference individually with children to review and check for accuracy. I will also, if needed, delete comments that are too far off topic or misleading. However, on the whole I work to honor their thinking and leave their comments.

An additional idea would be to upload video of your students discussing their learning or during a lesson so that they could watch it again and comment on it.

VoiceThread offers young students ways to reflect on their learning, share their understanding, and return again and again to review. It also makes it possible for students and/or adults around the world to be involved in your students’ learning.

The New York Public Library offers a digital gallery of many photographs and artifacts from its collections. The NYPL–Digital Gallery features a searchable index of thousands of pictures and artifacts related to a wide variety of subjects in American history. Best of all it is free and easy to use.

Next time you are looking for a photograph of an important historical figure, try using the NYPL-Digital Gallery to search for images of him/her. A simple search in the NYPL search engine box on the home page can unearth thought-provoking photographs, like this candid shot of President Grover Cleveland. This image says a lot more than the images one would obtain from a basic Internet image search.

Also from the home page, try browsing by subject and look for documents related to your state. There are many great images that capture towns and cities in the past. This is a fantastic way to tie in local history. On a digital map, instruct students to locate where an old building once stood using a site like WhatWasThere.com. Students could also compare this detailed 1911 collection of photos of 5th Avenue to a Google Maps street view of 5th Avenue today to show students the impact of urbanization.

The NYPL-Digital Gallery can also help locate sources that might display social change over time. For instance, you might find pictures showing how bridal fashion has changed over time. If you click ‘Browse Sources’ and type “brides” into the ‘Explore Subjects’ search box, you will see a link to pictures tagged by this subject from 1400 through 1939.

One of the skills we want to teach history students is how to ask the right questions. A way to practice this might be with the use of interesting images, like this one, of a “courting stick” in action. This photo begs students to ask many questions. A courting stick is a long, hollow tube around six feet long with a mouthpiece at each end. It allows courting couples to discreetly speak with one another while maintaining the appropriate physical boundaries. If you simply browse the depths of the NYPL-Digital Gallery for 10 minutes, you are bound to stumble across a treasure like this that will capture your students’ historical curiosity.

Another idea is to have students create a digital timeline incorporating images found in the Digital Gallery to demonstrate the concept of change over time. This assignment asks students to analyze changing American culture. Students could use the subject search feature of the Digital Gallery to find images related to sports, weddings, leisure, and other cultural phenomena in America over the last 250 years.

Allow yourself an opportunity to explore this vast collection of primary sources for use in your classroom. Give your students time to investigate the Digital Gallery as well. After all, this is one way historians craft questions about the past. In my browsing, I stumbled across this revealing group of photos related to African Americans serving in World War II. The photos capture the many ways African American men and women served during the war.

The NYPL-Digital Gallery is a one-stop-shop for primary sources on every topic in American history, and it is organized in a logical way, making it easy to collect documents and images. As you search for images you may want to create a collection of images for a class. You will note, above each image is a button to “select” the image. By selecting a picture it is stored in “My Collection,” accessible from the home page and from the menu bar at the top of each page. This function is handy when building a lesson around a group of documents. As you find new ways to use the NYPL-Digital Gallery I hope you will share them with us here.

Unfortunately, the arts are being squeezed out of school budgets and students’ schedules. Most would agree, though, that the arts play a vital role in fostering students’ creativity and helping students ask the “big questions” about the world around them. Fortunately, integrating the visual arts into any classroom just became a bit more fun with the launch of Google Art Project.

Google Art Project allows viewers to explore selected museums and zoom in on works of art. For those familiar with Google Map’s “street view” feature, the site functions in much the same way. Users feel like they are walking through the museum and can look up and down at museum features. When a work of art catches your eye, simply click on the image and you can zoom in on incredible detail of the painting or sculpture (see Google’s video about using Art Project). The Art Project lends itself particularly well to classrooms with interactive whiteboards with which students can feel like they are standing in the museum. I personally like the ability to take my time with a painting and have another browser tab open to find out more about a painting as questions arise in my head.

My students get excited anytime I mention the words “field trip,” and with good reason. Field trips not only offer students a get-out-of-school-free card, but also offer them a chance to learn through interacting and experiencing. When money and time are tight, field trips are cut. That is why I am thrilled that technology is allowing students to take virtual field trips. These virtual field trips are growing more interactive and more content rich every day. Google Art Project is the latest development in expanding student access to these rich sites.

A benefit of viewing works of art in a museum is being able to see and appreciate their relative size. As a simple image, one cannot appreciate how small the Mona Lisa is or how large Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is. With Google Art Project, students can get a sense of this by seeing paintings hanging in the museum without leaving their classroom.

Google Art Project provides information and related material when you click on a work of art. You and your students can also create collections of selected pieces to share. This makes it very easy to set up a gallery of artwork from a particular time period or region from different museums.

The Art Project offers several interesting possibilities to link history with the visual arts. A nice way to begin a lesson might be to have students “walk into the painting,” where students pretend to actually enter the painting and describe the scene using all their senses. Understanding works of art often requires students ask the same inquiry questions they ask in history class. Therefore, one instructional technique may be to require students to play art detective as they solve when and where an artist lived and produced their work. It may also be useful for you and your students to brush up on some of the terminology with which to discuss visual art. This way, students are seeing another adult (aside from their art teacher) model an appreciation of art.

Another instructional idea that blends history with understanding art is to select a group of romantic paintings, a group of realist paintings, and a group of impressionist paintings and discuss the different styles of paintings and the emotions each elicits. For example, many romantic paintings glorify subjects and can stir feelings of nationalism, while realist paintings can capture the daily hardship and struggles individuals must endure. Teachers can discuss with students how different styles of paintings capture prevalent ideas and emotions of the artists’ societies.

Art is also a great way to teach students about culture. Students could use Google Art Project to put together a collection of art related to a specific culture. Paintings can also teach students about trade networks. Often, paintings feature items or styles not native to the artist’s home country. Thus explaining, for instance, how the porcelain cups, featured in a painting, found their way from China to Spain could be a good lesson for students.

Some of the museums in the Art Project have interesting lesson plans that can accompany works of art in the museum. Check out these lesson plans from the Smithsonian and lesson plans from the Museum of Modern Art.

While the current offerings of museums are limited in the Art Project, the possibilities of the site are exciting as art becomes democratized.

Certainly, nothing can compare to physically being in the museum, but Google Art Project is making the world a little smaller, allowing us to visit multiple museums from one site.

On Feb. 2, the Department of Education released the Teaching American History Grant Program Notice Inviting Applications for New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011.

According to the Department, the Teaching American History program is

designed to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge and understanding of and appreciation for traditional U.S. history. Grant awards will assist LEAs [local educational agencies], in partnership with entities that have content expertise, to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate innovative and cohesive models of professional development. By helping teachers to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of U.S. history as a separate subject matter within the core curriculum, these programs will improve instruction and raise student achievement.

The TAH program has reached out to U.S. history teachers across the nation since 2001, when it awarded its first 60 grants. Last year, 124 applicants received grants. Learn more about the program at ED.gov—browse the abstracts of previous award recipients, learn how to apply, and read FAQs on eligibility, project priorities, and other topics. If you're applying (or are already a grantee), you may benefit from the Department of Education's webinars on grant management. Sign up, or read transcripts for past webinars.

Curious to see what others have learned from participating in TAH Grant projects? We have a section dedicated to highlighting TAH! Project Spotlights look at projects that share the resources they've created online, and Lessons Learned lets you in on the experiences of educators, project directors, historians, evaluators, and others who have participated in TAH projects.

Networking, power lunches, panels, name badges, exchanging information on the newest developments in the field and listening to the biggest names describe their paths to success—that's the business of business, isn't it? Not necessarily!

The word "conference" may bring up images of smoothly exchanged business cards and sales professionals competing to make the best impression, but conferences aren't just a boardroom cliché. Every field has organizations that bring members (and interested outsiders) together to socialize, discuss the state of their work, and exchange ideas—from science to business to the arts to, of course, education!

Maybe you've never been to a conference for educators. Attending a conference can take some time, money, research, and planning, but the investment can pay off in new colleagues, new ideas, new knowledge, and new skills. Plus, you can snag some free giveaways in the exhibition room!

Conferences usually take place over a full day or several days, and are arranged around a general theme. One year might be "Diversity in the Classroom" and the next, "Great Debates: Engaging with Controversy." Registration allows you to take part in all of a conference's main activities.

Attend the keynote address (usually presented by a notable historian, author, educator, or other figure with experience and knowledge relevant to the theme). Engage in sessions presented by educators, organizations, and experts sharing content, tools, and strategies. Stroll through the exhibit halls, learning about websites, books, and other resources that might help you in your teaching. Meet educators who share your passion for growing as a professional in informal lunches and mixers. Come home inspired and ready to try out what you've learned!

Remember to register as early as you can. Most conferences offer discounts for early registration, as well as discounts if you're a member of the organization hosting the event. Plan ahead, and you may also be able to book a hotel room for a reduced rate—many conferences take place in hotel conference centers, and set aside a block of reduced-rate rooms just for attendees. These can fill up fast!

Planning ahead may also let you sign up for extra, ticketed events. Maybe the conference offers half-day workshops on the day before the conference officially opens. Maybe you can pay to attend special-interest breakfasts, lunches, or dinners. Maybe you can buy tickets for guided tours of local historic districts or group excursions to museums. Conferences often take place in large cities, and this could be your chance to take in some of the sites while you're in town.

Conferences take place across the country at the local, state, national (and international!) levels. Here are some to consider:

• National social studies and history education organizations host annual conferences, drawing hundreds of attendees. The National Council for the Social Studies's annual conference takes place in Washington, DC, in December of 2011, and the National Council of History Education's annual conference will explore "The Causes and Consequences of Civil Wars" in Charleston, SC, from Mar. 31–Apr. 2, 2011.
• Historical organizations organize conferences annually and on special topics. Check their programs ahead of time, but many of these include sessions and workshops designed for teachers as well as content that can be helpful in the classroom. The American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians both host conferences with teacher-focused sessions.
• Other organizations for K–12 educators organize conferences that can help you keep abreast of new tools and techniques that aren't content-specific. The International Society for Technology in Education's annual conference draws crowds of more than 10,000 and promotes thoughtful, innovative use of the many new technological tools constantly becoming available to schools and teachers.
• State social studies and history education organizations often organize at least an annual conference—some organizations may host two per year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Usually on a smaller scale and less expensive than national conferences, these may be easier to attend if you're tight on time or budget. Multi-state regions may also organize conferences.

And conferences wouldn't go very far without presenters. If you have a strategy or resource to share, look for calls for proposals on conference websites. These deadlines cut off months before the dates of the conferences, so plan ahead. Follow the guidelines and submit a proposal that is clear, succinct, attention-grabbing, and matches the stated theme of the conference.

History and technology are both challenges with primary students. Let's tackle history first. Young children struggle to understand anything that they can't see, so comprehending people and life in the past is difficult. Also, they've only been alive for a few years so time spans of centuries are beyond their understanding. As a result, you often hear children ask, "Is George Washington still alive?" or "Were Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. friends?" Deeper comprehension of conflicts or realities is even more difficult.

The challenges faced with the use of technology stem from young children's pre-literacy. Many of the tools we use with students, such as blogs and wikis, require an ability to read and write, and to do so reasonably well. When I moved from teaching 4th and 5th grades to teaching 1st, this was a significant concern of mine. The ongoing conversations students were having on blogs and the recording of their learning, to which they could return throughout the year, on wikis seemed impossible with children who were still learning to read and write.

But I wanted those benefits. Children, no matter their age, should be able to continue and direct their own learning and exploration. They should not be limited to the time and ideas I set forth for them during class. So many things for young children are limited by the adults in their lives; I wanted to find ways to open up their learning as much as possible.

In spite of the challenges inherent in using technology in the primary grades, I clearly believe it is important.

That is also true for history. All children should have the opportunity to learn how people like them contributed to the world in which they live. They should also be exposed to things about which they could become passionate, even if for only a brief time. Many children love to have an area of expertise, something about which they know more than their peers or even some adults. I've watched little ones become obsessed about Greek myths, the Titanic, presidents of the United States, and Rosa Parks.

Finally, young children feel righteous indignation at the wrongs of the past. They are truly appalled by the idea of slavery, segregation, assassinations, and the need for the suffrage movement. I believe there is value in children coming to understand the past through a lens of righteous indignation. They are less likely to allow such treatment of others in their own lives when they have confronted their feelings about it through history.

Based on a firm belief in the importance of history and technology, I was determined to find a way to integrate the two with primary students. I will write more about ways to do so in an upcoming post, so keep reading. . . .