I’m departing from my typical post to provide some reflective thoughts to kick off July. I’ve enjoyed my summer so far, but I haven’t found the time or inspiration to invest in any of my professional projects yet. I have dabbled in a few things like the “ThingLink Challenge” activities. Our family traveled to Washington, D.C. I’ve worked a little on a project for an upcoming MnCHE workshop. Exercising and leisure reading have also been priorities. Rather than a wordy post, I thought I’d piece together some lesson-specific information that showcases the way technology can support student learning in an American History class. These activities can certainly be adapted depending on student age-level and subject area.

The first set of activities are “tested” and the second set are “untested” – or shall we say in “egg” form? – at this point.

“Tested” Activities

• Use a video creation tool like Animoto or Stupeflix to offer support or criticism for a government program, presidential action, political candidate, philosophy, practice, or product.  My American History 10 students used Animoto to create a public service announcement to either support or criticize one of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.

 

• Find primary documents that provide insight to core questions for a course unit. Students need to be able to distinguish primary sources from secondary sources in order to complete this.  When we did this in American History 10 in 2013-14, we examined the Cold War with this activity. This “Smore” flyer provides an overview.

 

• Students prepare identities and interact with each other via “Speed Dating” to gain understanding of how a particular era was rife with conflicting values. We did this with the 1920s in American History 10 – 1920s Speed Dating.

“Untested” Activities

• Tell the story of an event in history using the combination of a Historypin collection or tour AND an article from the Chronicling America database.
• Students share a main idea of a primary source AND a reaction to it using Tellagami (which is app-based) or Movenote (which integrates with Google Docs well and would be better if you want students to show “print” of content and then give a vocal reaction).
• Students are given an identity to represent (or “role”) and collaborate about  a primary source on a Padlet wall.
• Students create a Thinglink or Prezi that uses images to convert a primary document into a series of images that summarize its core ideas.