History Pin

What it is:  History Pin is a really neat website that lets students (and anyone) electronically “pin” historical pictures, videos, audio clips, and stories to a digital globe.  There are three main ways to use History Pin: exploring it, adding to it, or curating things on it.  History Pin has some great collections and tours that have already been created that can be used in the classroom.  Collections bring together content around a theme.  Students can explore collections or create one of their own.  With a Tour, students can go step-by-step through content, a story, explore a place or walk through time.

How to integrate History Pin into the classroom: History Pin is a neat place for students to learn about history.  They can see history through pictures, video and stories submitted by people around the world.  History Pin is also a fantastic place for students to demonstrate learning.  They can add pins, create collections or tours around their learning.  In many states in the US, students have standards that are related to learning about the state history.  In Colorado, this is true of our 4th grade students.  History pin is a great place for them to demonstrate their learning of their own state.  The best part?  This learning can be viewed and used by others all over the world.  Our students get really excited about sharing their learning when they become the “experts”.  History Pin lets them be the experts.  Way cool!

Depending on which Collections and Tours your students engage in, there are great opportunities for incorporating other subjects.  Our students enjoy comparing statistics from history with statistics of today.  They are really enjoying knowing how to use ratios these days!

I love the way that Geography is so ingrained in History Pin.  Students can easily see (and track) where history occurred in the world.  This helps students understand how movements, revolutions, immigration happen as a result of geography.

Tips: Be sure to check out the school channel on History Pin.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using History Pin in your classroom.

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31 of My Favorite Digital Storytelling Sites

I am working on starting a virtual classroom…actually when it is all said and done, it will look more like a virtual club.  I have opened up my virtual classroom to students in 3rd-8th grade.  My first offering is going to be digital storytelling.  In honor of that, I thought I would share the sites I am going to use with the students, as well as some other favorites for digital storytelling.

1. Google Search Stories Video Creator– This is a YouTube site that lets you create a digital story out of a series of Google Searches, you really have to check it out to get the full effect!

2. PicLits– This is an all time favorite of mine, PicLits lets students choose a picture and then draw from a word bank to create a sentence or story to accompany the picture.

3. Domo Animate- This is my favorite story animation tool.  It gives students so much flexibility and freedom in telling their story, the results are amazing!

4. StoryBird- This site lets students create stories based on beautiful illustrations by real artists; better yet, it lets students create stories collaboratively!

5. Animoto– The free version of Animoto lets students create 30 second videos that combine images, songs, and text. It combines them all for an impressive presentation without a lot of fuss.

6. ZooBurst- ZooBurst is one that I haven’t used with students yet but I am excited to.  ZooBurst is a new site that lets students create virtual 3D popup books.  Even better, it lets students print out a special marker and view their popup book augmented reality style as it comes to life using a webcam!

I couldn’t fit in all of my favorite digital storytelling tools into a 5 week class, here are some more favorites:

7. Myths and Legends

8. Shidonni– One of my students very favorite websites of all time, this one gets requested a lot!

9. Smile Box

10. Kerpoof– another student favorite!

11. Glogster

12. Creaza

13. Voice Thread

14. Graphic Novel Creator- Comic Master

15. Stage’d

16. ePub Bud– publish ebooks for ebook readers like the iPad

17. Virsona– a different kind of digital storytelling but neat none the less!

18. Zimmer Twins– one of my students very favorite ways to tell a story!

19. Fotobabble

20. Picture Book Maker

21. Nota– collaborative workspace

22. My Story Maker

23. Xtranormal

24. Do Ink

25. Piki Kids Comic Creator

26. Bubblr!

Sites to get students writing:

27. Lightening Bug

28. What-if questions for stories

29. The Story Starter Jr. -Created by my friend Joel Heffner!

30. The Story Starter- Also created by Joel!

31. PinBall-bounce ideas around