Flip Your History Classroom

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If you are reading current articles and journals on education, you've probably heard of the flipped classroom. Jon Bergmann, one of the pioneers of the flipped classroom, lead a session at International Society for Technology in Education, ISTE,  last summer. In his session he discussed flipping one's classroom is NOT about the use of videos but it IS about creating a STUDNET-CENTERED classroom. Without knowing it was called flipping, I was in one of the latter stages as his presentation continued. With the Common Core, it is even more important to create a student-centered classroom and give students the opportunity to engage with the content.
Many people have a misconception of it being about students watching the videos and doing homework in the classroom. I was delighted to catch

At this year's CCSS Conference, I presented Flipping the History Classroom. In my presentation I provided the why and how, including ways to structure student activities with and without the use of technology. You can flip your classroom and not be a 1:1 school- I did. Here you will find the resources for Flipping the History Classroom. In the link you will find the Prezi, sample student activities, session handouts, activity resources which include links to primary source and activity repositories, and some tech tools that I have used to engage my students in historical inquiry- particularly with visual literacy. The sample Lino board and Voicethread that we did not get to are also still live in case you would like to try the resource. You will need to sign up for a free Voicethread account before you post.

World History Readings Resources

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_history

Sometimes it can be an arduous task collating primary sources for the World History classroom. At my Flipped History Classroom presentation and the CCSS Publications Committee session I mentioned a few repositories for World History primary sources that I have stumbled upon and have been very helpful. Participants asked for a blog entry on World History primary resources for activities and here we are. The repositories below will help you to select World History artifacts to engage your students in inquiry and meet the Common Core. I have also included Merlot II which is a database of not only primary source materials but also topic specific sites with activities and primary sources in many cases. Enjoy!

World HistoryDigital Library The World Digital Library makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world. The principal objectives of the WDL are to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet, provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences, and build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries. You can search the repository by regions and eras, as well as by a few languages including Spanish.

Universityof San Diego Library Guides I was ecstatic to come across this one on my Twitter feed from Chris Long (@clonghb). The University of San Diego has compiled subject listings of primary sources available online: free web collections as well as UCSD subscription-based resources. It includes a custom Google search engine to key word search across many of the listed sites. As a teacher, if you take a public school letter head note from your administrator verifying that you are a teacher at a public institution you can recieve a UC library card and gain access to their resources- a tip I learned two summers ago at UC Berkeley. 

Internet History SourceBooks Project Fordham University has created a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use. They have divided the collections into three eras: Ancient History, Medieval History, and Modern History. Each collection has been further broken down. Fordham has also enabled search of their collections by topic and region. 

Merlot II Merlot is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials contributed and used by an international education community. Select an are from the left scroll bar and let the browsing begin.

Class Cards to Spark Student Conversations

Too often our students go through the school day without speaking in class. Communication and Speaking are elements of the classroom addressed in CCSS. Often as teachers we find it difficult to keep track of student participation and randomizing our student selection for participation. Class Cards is an android and iPhone app that makes tracking student participation easier. Utilize Class Cards to randomly generate a list to call on students, select a student of your choosing to respond, rate the quality of the student response instantly in your hand, view student response scores individually or as an entire class, email yourself student scores, and archive scores to view, print grade sheets, or download the data into an Excel spreadsheet. I love the idea of being able to quickly note the quality of student responses', especially for Socratic Seminars. Also, many students sit passively in a class because it has no "worth" to speak. Class Cards makes it easier for teachers to give purpose to Communicating in the classroom.

Create a Mini-movie by Just Typing!

Google keeps turning out tools for students to practice the Creativity in the CCSS 4Cs. Their newest tool is Google Story Builder. It is as simple as typing in the characters, type in the script, and select music....REALLY! Making a "movie" couldn't be easier. You can add up to 10 characters. Next you type in the script for each character and select music, and then play the film. It is a great tool to also work on literacy because the students will need to read it. You, the teacher, can make brief films to intro a topic or pose a dilemma in history for students to consider. Another possible use would be for students to create a brief historical dialogue.

Reflect your iPad with your Projector

If you have a projector hooked up to you computer or laptop, you can easily use it to mirror your iPad! Have you ever found an app that you want to use in your classroom? Use Reflector to wirelessly mirror your iPad through your MAC or PC. Relector is a cheap $12.99 download that opens your classroom to the app world. If you are like me, you find great apps for content and classroom management that are only on an iOS device. Problem is now solved. If your school is like mine, you may need to have a school administrator or computer tech download the program onto your work computer. Another work around is to download Reflector onto your laptop and connect that to your classroom projector and enjoy!

Comics & History to Set the Hook

Setting the hook is an important part of a unit and lesson. One of the ways teachers may think of doing this is through comics. Comics are a great way to peak students curiosity. Pixton allows teachers to create comics to introduce topics and convey information in an engaging manner. Teachers can sign up for a free trial and pay to extend beyond that. Students can also create their own comics to demonstrate their understanding of concepts, meeting the multimedia component of the Common Core. Pixton is easy to use. Users can select settings, characters, move and position characters, select from a variety of text boxes, and create their own dialogue. Multiple comics can be created together to form a book as well- great for the sections of a unit or chapter. In a few hours one can create multiple comics to use in the classroom!

Commenting on Primary Sources

Getting students to engage with primary sources can be like getting kids to complete their chores. I have found students are more engaged with them using Voicethread. Voicethread is a multimedia tool that I have mentioned here before. In taking with teachers and presenting at various conferences and workshops, I have found a need for the steps and a sample. Below you can find a step by step on how to create a Voicethread. Here are samples on using Voicethread with images and a NARA speech file that was inserted via a converted PPT- these are real products with student responses.