Explain Everything For New Approach

I am going to try a new approach for students to understand and most importantly to remember events from social studies.  We are studying the events of westward expansion leading up to the Civil War.  I am providing two apps to the students.

U.S. History Timeline
Explain Everything

In addition, we discussed in depth the "Fair Use" policies of using images.  The Open Clip Art website was introduced.  We also discussed that all citations of images will be in blue with a certain font.

Students will be guided by me to find about 10 answers based on questions I pose pertaining to 10 major events.  They will use the U.S. History Timeline to discover the answers.  Once the answers are found and verified, students will create slides in Explain Everything.

The intent is to create the slides as a digital medium for telling the story.  After all the information is gathered, students will return to the beginning of the created digital story and write a script.  They will then record themselves recounting the events leading up to the Civil War.

Animation HD

We have always looked for apps that can help students create.  This one may be one of the best.

We have worked on students understanding the creation of equivalent fractions using the "Giant One" method or the 1 as a fraction method.  Example:  4/4, 1/2, 6/6

To have students understand the process we gave them the Animation HD app.  See what transpired!

We'll try to post some finished videos as they become complete.






Student Productions:

U.S. Historical Documents and QR Codes

QR codes are a great resource for getting students additional digital information. We attempted a QR code mathematical scavenger hunt at the beginning of the year.  We have also used QR codes for morning announcements.  Both procedures using QR codes seemed to engage the students and the scavenger hunt was relatively successful in that students were able to find mathematical concepts throughout our school.

QR codes presented themselves as a great tool for our U.S. Historical Document activity. Students were to "discover America's history through U.S. historical documents". We did incorporate our OLD textbook into the activity, but included three (3) minute or less videos that we found on YouTube. These videos allowed for additional, more informative information than a small paragraph in a textbook.

The document that was given to students is found HERE.

Positives:

➽ The videos were chosen due to their length (tried for less than 3 min)

➽ Some of the videos were formal, some were informal

➽ Allowed for students to see reenactments of famous speeches or historical events

➽ QR codes sent students directly to the YouTube on the iPad2 which looks stunning.

➽ Opened up the content to more than a paragraph or a page from our textbook

Negatives

➽ 4 pages per packet for 50 students = 200 pages of paper that needed to be copied


The process:

Google Sites - Forms - Blogs - Twitter - Personal Econ

Today we concluded our week long personal economics unit and may I say it was exhausting, but outstanding! We created an entire city using Google sites.  All items students needed to complete were completed through Google Forms.  Students discussed their experience by using Twitter and Google Blogs.

We communicated each day's agenda by sending an email to all students.

BOTTOM LINE: We couldn't have done it without iPads, desktops, laptops, Google tools, and Twitter.  It was our largest problem based task to date.

*some material will not be accessible as we made them only available to our domain.  If you truly want the forms and other things, leave a comment with your contact information!

Our Town:  Raiderville, Wisconsin (created in Google Sites)

Some videos:

Parent Teacher Conference & Technology

Two sets of parents were willing to be recorded while using or talking about technology.

Their experiences were outstanding!

And as I explained to over 20 parents last night, we always have an open invitation for parents to attend our school and classroom.  In 20 years of teaching, less than five parents have come to my classroom to visit.  I explained our YouTube channel, I stressed that if "you can't come to our class, we'll bring the class to you!"  Reminds me of the great speech by our Super Bowl Champion GB Packers below...



While discussing our house YouTube channel, a family stated that they were in Chicago (our school is 250 miles from Chi-Town!) this past weekend and the daughter showed her grandma, aunt, and uncle the YouTube channel.  Of course, she is on many of the video clips as many students are.  Hear the student and parents tell the story...




In another tech teaching moment, a Wall Street 2 Wisconsin student explains to his parents what a "stop order" is and how it plays into an exit strategy.  Our students know a great deal...it ROCKS that they can explain what we are doing in our classes to their parents.

Revising Our 1997 Social Studies Textbook

Our resource for our 8th grade United States History class has a copyright date of 1997. Due to this fact and that we have iPads, our students are creating a living document of updated resources before we learn about our nation's history.  We are also blessed to have one laptop for each group.  Each student has one digital device, a whiteboard learning area, Google Docs, and large poster board.

Our plan is located  HERE



We introduced the Side By Side app and the Scratchwork app to the students to help in their organization.

Side By Side App


Scratchwork App