BBC-History of the World

What it is:  The BBC is full of fantastic resources for learning.  Recently, I came across the British Museum’s History of the World.  It is WAY cool!  This is like a fantastic virtual museum collection that makes it possible for students to see primary sources up close.  Each piece in the collection adds a little bit to the story of the history of the world.  The objects in the collection each have a quick overview about the piece, and the option of delving in deeper and learning more.  Objects can be filtered by location, theme, culture, size, color, material, contributor and BBC area.  This is a really neat way to view and explore world history.  SO much better than the dry textbook fact collection that I had.

How to integrate BBC History of the World into the classroom: The BBC History of the World collection is a great way for students to explore and engage history.  Being able to go through the objects and primary sources connects them to story and people from another time in a way a textbook just can’t touch.  This is a fantastic place for students to begin an exploration of history; to find an object that “speaks” to them and learn more about the object and the people who created the object.  This site gives students the opportunity to engage history.
Instead of starting a history course chronologically, let students select an object or piece from the collection that interests them.  Let them learn more about the object, the people and the time period that the object was created in.  Let them teach others about the object and its importance.  How was it that this object was so well preserved? What does it tell us about that period?  What stories does it tell?  Give students creative license to do this.  Do they want to make it a creative writing piece where the object is personified? Do they want to write a letter as if they were from that period of time explaining the object?  Do they want to create a mockumentary about the object?  Whatever they do, place the object, along with the others chosen by the class, on a timeline so that students can get a sense for where their object falls in history.  Let the kids teach each other and explain why they chose the object they did.  Not only will kids be exploring world history, they will be learning something about each other.
Write a class story with a common thread.  Create a time traveling team as a class, these are the characters that visit the time period where they find the objects that they have chosen from the BBC History of the world site.  Write the beginning and ending of the story as a whole class.  Each student can be responsible for writing their own “chapter” where the time traveling team visits their time period.
I didn’t enjoy history when I was in school.  It wasn’t ever presented as a story (which I love).  Instead I got a collection of facts, dates and names to memorize for the next test.  I had a really hard time understanding why anyone would be passionate about history.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that history is really just a set of rich stories that we try to piece together to help us understand who we are in place and time.  That I enjoy. That I can get behind.  Help your students discover the story in history!

Tips: At the bottom of the window, you will see a back and forward arrow.  This lets students time travel.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using BBC History of the World in  your classroom!

History Buff: Primary source newspapers, historic panoramas, audio


What it is: I’ll admit it, when it comes to websites, I’m a judge-a-book-by-it’s-cover kind of gal.  If the website isn’t user-friendly and visually appealing it is an almost guaranteed skip for me.  History Buff is one of those forgettable websites. It isn’t overly visually appealing, it isn’t even really obvious how to get started.  I nearly skipped it.  History Buff has something going for it though: thousands of primary source newspaper made available digitally.  Students can search through newspapers from the 1700 all the way until 2004 and see the scanned version of it digitally.  I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be able to “hold” history in your hands that way.  To interact with the “actual” newspaper is pretty neat…worth the lack luster of the site even.  To search for articles, students just need to  choose a time period folder, choose a subfolder and go to exploring these primary source documents.  History Buff also boasts historic panoramas.  Students can view a virtual tour of Colonial America, the Henry Clay Ashland Estate, the William Henry Harrison Homestead, Daniel Boons gravesite, Davy Crockett’s childhood home, Anna Jarvis Home, the site that marked the end of the Civil War, historic sites for Abraham Lincoln, the national historic site for James Garfield, the William McKinley monument, the birthplace of Thomas Edison, Warren G. Harding’s Tomb, and the homestead of William Howard Taft.  A reference library on History Buff contains articles and audio on a variety of events and even hoaxes in the news. Students can also find facts about any state and interactive quizzes.

How to integrate History Buff into the classroom: History Buff is a website that can help history come to life through story, virtual tours, audio and primary source news papers.  I suspect that most students fall into the judge-a-site-by-it’s-cover category like me.  For this reason, if I was using it in my classroom, I wouldn’t send students directly to the website to do a lot of digging on their own.  Instead, I might direct them to the portion of the site I knew we would be using through a classroom website, wiki, blog or use a Weblist or Symbaloo to link to them.  It is amazing how changing something as small as the entry point into a site can change a students attitude about the site (heck, I’m like that too!).

Once I got into History Buff, I really appreciated the connection to primary sources and the way that the “actual” newspapers bring history to life.  I REALLY liked the hoaxes in news section and suspect that students will get a kick out of it to.  Your kids will be asking, how can people be SO gullible?  These kinds of stories are wonderful discussion starters and will make students think critically about their own news media.  As a fun extension, have your students write their own hoax news stories.

Okay, now for demystifying the navigation of this site. See the itty bitty brown words in the left sidebar that are all squished together? That is the navigation. For real.  I didn’t notice it at first either!  Go ahead and click on one to test it out…not so bad when you know what you are looking for, right? Right.  For your convenience, I’m linking to each page of the site below so you can easily find what you are looking for.  🙂

Tips: History Buff has a newsletter you can subscribe to if you are, you know, a history buff.  Just enter your email in that box under the header and click “subscribe” and you are on your  way to becoming even history buffier…or something like that.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using History Buff in your classroom!

28 Tech Tools to Bring out the Story in History

Below is an article I wrote for theapple.com.  For the full article complete with links, please visit the original article.

Kelly Tenkely | TheApple

When I was in school, I dreaded history.  I found it completely uninteresting, dry, irrelevant, and quite frankly…boring.  This was unusual for me.  Normally, I really enjoyed school.  Creative writing, language arts, science, and even math were fun.  History was unbearable.

I can count on one hand the things I remember learning in history.   I learned that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,  that there was once a thing called slavery and it was abolished (I saw Roots in school at least 5 times), that there have been several wars and battles, and I remember my freshman history teacher breaking out in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” (though I can’t say why).   For me history was a lot of dates, strange names, places, and events presented as points on a line.  The goal of history was to memorize all of these facts and dates, recite them on a test, and repeat the process the following week. Sadly, that was about it.  It wasn’t until adulthood, and my introduction to the History Channel, that I realized that history is interesting.  History became engaging when it was presented as a story.  It really isn’t about all of the dates, places, and facts.  History is about people.  History is about story.  Students need more than the loosely connected events, people, and dates that fill history textbooks.  They need narrative. Textbook writers are boring, history is not.  In high school I vividly remember reading a first person account of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the horrors of nuclear war.  Why does this account stay with me? Because it wasn’t about the dates. It was about the emotions, the aftermath, the effects on human life.

How can we engage our students with history?  How can we help them make personal connections to the events of the past?

Access to history has expanded, students today have learning opportunities that have never been possible before.  Today students have the ability to view and read historical documents first hand, ‘interact’ with historical characters, and observe the events of the past through the eyes of the children who lived it.    Thanks to technology, students can be truly engaged in the stories of history.

Primary resources are the actual documents, artifacts, and writings from history.  These resources give students an up-close view of life in the past.

Primary Resources:

1.  The World Digital Library is a collection of primary materials from around the world.  Students can explore artifacts that will help them to better understand other cultures.  This incredible collection of resources brings museums from around the world into your classroom for your students to explore.

2. Awesome Stories is a collection of primary source materials separated by category.  Primary sources include images, videos, narration, slideshows, artifacts, manuscripts, and documents.  Awesome Stories is essentially an interactive textbook.  With the interactive textbook model, students are able to delve deeper into topics that interest them.

3. Picturing America takes hold of the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words and applies it to teaching American history.  The National Endowment for the Humanities is providing classrooms and libraries with American art masterpieces. Bringing our Nation’s artistic heritage into the classroom provides students with unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.  The program is free for schools and libraries, providing them with 40 high quality, poster-sized masterpieces, a teacher resource book, and the program website.  Picturing America  brings history into the classroom, helping students create authentic connections to the past.

4.  Primary Access is a web-based tool that offers students and teachers simple access to digital images and materials that provides them the opportunity to create personal narratives.  The idea behind the site is that if students are offered primary source documents, they develop better historical thinking skills.  Students use Primary Access to create digital historical narrative movies that help add to meaningful learning experiences.  The digital movie is 1-3 minutes in length and can contain images, text, movies, and student recorded narration.  Students have a place to write, research, narrate, view, and search within Primary Access.

5. Library of Congress on Flickr is a photostream of historical images on Flickr.  These incredible photographs will bring history to life for your students.  Many of the photographs have no copyright restrictions which makes it a great place for students to find images for projects that they are working on.  These are also great images to use in your classroom presentations, and as printouts for bulletin boards.

Videos have the unique ability to make students feel as if they are witnesses to history.

Historical Videos:

6. The History Channel has a wealth of resources to teach history in the classroom.  From online historical videos, to a daily dose of history with “This Day in History”, the History Channel brings history to life.

7. American History in Video has more than 5,000 free, digital, on-demand videos in its collection.  The videos allow students to analyze historical events, look at events over time through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.  These videos will make students feel as if they were a part of history.

8.  Watch Know is another educational video site.  All videos are offered digitally for free.  Watch Know brings together the best education videos online into one convenient-to-search, safe site.  Students can interact and think critically about the videos by rating them and leaving comments.  There are more than 2,500 history related videos on Watch Know.

There are many websites that let students interact with history.  Whether they are playing a game or exploring a virtual world, these websites help students understand history in new ways.

Interacting with History:

9. Secret Builders Students ages 6-14 can live and play among fictional and historical characters in this virtual world.  Students interact with characters such as Shakespeare, Galileo, Motzart, Oliver Twist, Plato, Van Gough, and Amelia Earhart.  Students take quests, publish artwork and writings, play games, enter contests, and participate in a virtual economy and social life.  Students are given all the tools needed to build out the virtual world with their own ideas, activities and actions.  This virtual world has the added benefit of allowing students to interact with historical figures in ways that are meaningful to them.

10. Scholastic has an email sign up where teachers and students can receive fictional emails from historical figures.  These emails are written as letters from children who live in the past.  Get email letters from a young girl traveling on the Mayflower and a young Native American boy.  This is a fantastic way to give your class a glimpse of history through the eyes of two school-age children.

11. Scholastic’s “Our America” takes students on a journey through American history from the Colonial period to World War II.  Students learn about major events in the American story by reading journal entries from the people who lived them.  Students can complete their own journal entries about what they have learned.  Activities accompany each time period such as arts and crafts from that time period or designing a period home interior.

12. The Oregon Trail game is one of the memories I should have listed above.  I remember playing Oregon Trail in small groups on our classroom computer in fifth grade.  Through the game we learned about the hardships of being a wagon leader, how to build a team, and purchase supplies that would help us make the journey from Independence, Missouri to Oregon by way of the covered wagon circa 1848. This role playing game helps students connect to events of the past through play.

13. BBC Primary History has an extensive collection of activities, short readings, and a kids point of view on the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, World War II, and Victorian Britain.  Students can explore interactive timelines, stories, primary source images, and much more.  Students gain a sense of what life was like during each time period.

14. Picturing the Thirties is a virtual web activity from the Smithsonian.  This virtual museum exhibit teaches students about the 1930’s through eight exhibitions.  Students will get an up close look at the Great Depression, the New Deal, the country, industry, labor, city, leisure, and the American people in the 1930’s.  The virtual museum is full of primary sources such as photographs, newsreels, and artist memorabilia.  Virtual video museum guides explain each exhibit to students.

15. The Secret in the Cellar is an interactive web comic that is based on an actual forensic case of a 17th century person that was recently discovered.  Through graphics, photos, and activities, students begin to unravel a mystery of historical and scientific importance.  Students learn how to analyze artifacts, and examine the skeleton to determine a cause of death.  As students act as historians, they will gain a wealth of information about Colonial life in America.

16.  Kids Past is a history website created for kids that covers topics including: prehistoric humans, the rise of civilization, Middle Eastern civilization, the Ancient Greeks, Romans, African civilizations, civilizations of India, civilizations of China, Byzantine empire, the Slavs, Islam, medieval Europe, Asia in the middle ages, ancient Americans, the Renaissance, the Reformation, exploration and expansion, Asia following the middle ages, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution.  All reading on Kids Past is kid friendly and age appropriate.  There are several history games based on the reading.  Students can also find historical quotes and songs about history that they can listen to online.

17. Historical Tweets- Students can follow history on Twitter.  With Historical Tweets, history’s most amazing men and women can be more fully understood 140 characters at a time.  These historical tweets can act as motivation for students to learn more about historical events.  140 characters is just enough to leave your students wanting to learn more.

Static timelines are a thing of the past, today’s timelines are interactive, informative, and fun to explore.

Interactive Timelines:

18. Franklin’s Interactive Timeline is an engaging look into the life of Benjamin Franklin.  Students can play, listen, watch, observe, and have fun learning about Benjamin Franklin’s legacy.  Students can explore Franklin’s life through themes such as Franklin’s character, Franklin as printer, at home, doing good, and on the world stage. This site breaks Franklin’s life down into manageable pieces for students and provides a well rounded view of Franklin.

19. Capzles is an interactive timeline creator.  Students can add photos, video, audio and text to their timeline.  Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized.  Capzles brings the timeline to life and allows students to add story to the dates.

20. Dipity makes it simple for your students to create and share interactive timelines.  Students can embed YouTube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, Last FM, and more right into their timelines.  Dipity makes timelines relevant and fun for students.  Best of all, students are creating and viewing timelines in “their language” of Digital Native.

21. Time Tube is the perfect website for your YouTube addicted students.  Students can type in a historical event and Time Tube will create a timeline of related videos.  Students will be able to explore historical events through related videos.

Research papers leave much to be desired in the history classroom.  There are ways for students to show what they know in history without the dreaded research report.

Creating with History:

22. Domonation is an animation website where students can create cartoon animations with characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects.  Instead of presenting knowledge about history through the traditional report, diorama, or poster, students can create a cartoon of an interview with a historical figure or an eye-witness account of a historical event.

23. Xtranormal is a site where students can create and direct their own animated movies.  Students can recreate historical events, or create cartoons about a historical figure.  Hold a historical movie day to showcase all of the animations that students have created.

24. The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults is a site put together by the National Archives.  Students can create their own digital content mashups using primary resources.  Students are able to search photographs, documents, and other records collecting them to create a digital poster or movie.  Students can also create a Pathway Challenge.  In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents, and other records.  Other students can attempt to solve these challenges.  This is an incredible way for students to interact with history.

25. Creaza is a suite of web-based creativity tools.  There are four tools in the Creaza toolbox that will help your students organize knowledge and tell stories in new creative ways.  Students can arrange events in history with Mindomo the mind mapping tool.  Using Cartoonist, students can create comic strips and digital narratives about historical events or characters.  Movie Editor makes it possible for students to create movies with thematic universes, video, images, and sound clips.  Movie Editor can import historical film clips, sound clips, and images to tell a story.  Audio editor is the final tool in Creaza’s creative suite.  Students can splice together their own newscasts or radio commercials that display their knowledge of any historical event.

26. Animoto for Education is a site where students can create compelling and impressive digital content quickly and easily.  Teachers can use Animoto to teach complex concepts in history.  Students can showcase their understanding of history through pictures, music, and text.

27. Blogging- Assign each of your students a historical character to play.  They can research and learn about the time period, events, and people.  Students can then blog as if they were the historical character.  Other students can read and comment on the historical posts.

28. Museum Box is a website based on the work of Thomas Clarkson who collected items in a box to help him in his argument for the abolition of slavery.  Students can use the Museum Box website to collect information and arguments in a virtual  box of their own.  They can collect items to provide a description or add to an argument of a historical event, place, or time period.  Students can add images, text, sounds, videos, and external links to help them form their own virtual museum.  The finished box can be shared with other students, saved, or printed.  Students can view and comment on boxes created by other students.  This is a fun medium for students to learn and collect information about a historical event, person, or time period.

History shouldn’t be dry, boring, or irrelevant to students.  Technology makes it possible for students to interact with history in new and interesting ways.  Use these resources to take your students beyond facts and help them to realize the stories that make up their past.

Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery for Kids

What it is: This is the last of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery sites, it is just as great as the others!  BM&AG for Kids is a fun site where students can learn more about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Victorians, World War 2, and the Art Gallery and Museum.  The site aims to give students a chronological understanding of these historical events, knowledge of the events, people, and changes in the past, organization and communication, and historical inquiry.  Each section has a collection of online related activities and printable activities.

Ancient Egypt- students can learn about ancient Egypt, explore a virtual Egyptian tomb, and explore real mummies.

Ancient Greece- students can learn about ancient Greece and design their own Greek pottery.

Roman Empire- students can learn about the Romans in Britain and dress a Roman soldier for battle.

Victorians- students can learn about the Victorians and explore a Victorian painting.

World War 2- students can learn about the war, assess a bomb damage report, and view pictures of Birmingham from World War 2.

Art Gallery- students can view paintings and learn about landscapes.

Museums- students can explore 6 museum activity zones where students can explore each museum.

How to integrate BM&AG for Kids into your curriculum: The BM&AG for Kids is a good site to incorporate into history lessons.  The site does an excellent job of helping students relate the different time periods above chronologically through an interactive timeline.  The online activities help students understand each time period, giving them activities that will help them make connections in their learning.  The BM&AG for Kids site is a good place to begin a study on a time period.  The site provides students with just enough information to whet their appetite for more.  Many of the activities offer basic information that could then be connected to primary sources.  For example, in the tomb exploration, students are asked to find items in a tomb.  In the activity, there is a basic explanation of each item.  A great extension would be to find primary sources and photographs of the actual items to share with students (or better yet, let them find the primary source!).  Students could then create their own “tomb” either online using online pictures and a creation platform like VoiceThread or Glogster, or an offline tomb with printed primary sources.

Tips: BM&AG for Kids was created for the Birmingham Museum and Art Collection.  They have several excellent websites that I will have reviewed.  To view all the Birmingham Museum sites, search “Museum” or “Birmingham Museum” in my search box above.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using BM&AG for Kids in your classroom!



Today’s Document: History through cartoons

What it is: Today’s Document is an awesome daily history site that I learned about from the Instructify blog written by Bill Ferris.  Today’s Document is based on the RSS feed from the National Archives. Jon White takes these daily documents from history and turns them into cartoons that illustrate the history.  Cartoons and drawings offer such an incredible and striking visual to accompany history.  They help flesh out what was happening and give students a way to connect to and characterize history.

How to integrate Today’s Document into your curriculum: This is, simply stated, an AWESOME site.  I have mentioned before that history was not my strength in school.  I struggled with finding the story in history.  For me it was a lot of facts, dates, names, and places that I couldn’t seem to get a handle on.  A site like Today’s Document would have done wonders for my understanding of history.  The visuals clearly connect the facts with a larger story.  Even better, White publishes the story behind each cartoon along side it.  Today’s Document makes an incredible e-textbook complete with daily updates, links to videos, articles, primary sources, and additional opportunities to learn more about each topic.  Today’s Document would make a fantastic discussion starter in any classroom.  It’s natural fit would be in the history or civics class but could really be used in many disciplines including literature, writing, and even science.  Because Today’s Document uses cartoons to tell history, the site can be used with a wide range of age groups.  Even young students can look at the cartoons and follow the story each day.  Each drawing is linked to the original primary source document on National Archives with an invitation to dig deeper.  Within the preamble describing the cartoon, White often includes links to outside videos and articles that reinforce the daily document.

Tips: I encourage you to take a look at White’s previous cartoons, you can do so by using the “previous” button or searching the archives by date.  He started this project in January 2010.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Today’s Document in your classroom!

Critical Past

What it is: Critical Past is a website I learned about today from Tom Boito’s great blog EDge 21 in his Catch of the Day.  The resource is too good not to share again here!  Critical Past is a collection of more than 57,000 historical videos and more than 7 million historical photos.  All of the photos and videos are royalty free, archival stock footage.  Most of the footage comes from U.S. Government Agency sources.  All of the videos and photos can be viewed for free online and shared with others via url, Twitter, or Facebook.  The videos and photos are also available to purchase for download.

How to integrate Critical Past into your curriculum: Critical Past is an incredible collection of historical videos and pictures.  The site is easy to search either by decade and topic or keyword.  The clips and photos on Critical Past will bring historical events alive for your students.  Use photos or videos on Critical Past to help illustrate what students are learning in history.  Ask students to be “eyewitnesses” of history and watch a video before they have context for it.  Students can write or blog about what they think they are witnessing, afterward they can research the event more in-depth and write a follow-up reflection on what was actually happening in the clip.

** Check out this awesome lesson that @pharesr created based on this post. So cool!

Tips: Along the right side bar of Critical Past, you will find “related videos.”  Students can watch a clip and the related videos and reflect on how the clips are related.  Sometimes it is a similar time period, sometimes a related event, other times it is a related location.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Critical Past in your classroom!

Investigating the First Thanksgiving

Picture 1

What it is: Investigating the First Thanksgiving is a fun interactive where kids are the historians.  Students explore all the clues to learn about the first thanksgiving (really a harvest festival).  This site provides great primary source material for kids to sort through.  First they explore a section called Fact vs. Myth where they match pictures and descriptions.  Each section includes an expert video that talks students through the section and explains a little about the first Thanksgiving.  In the next section, students explore the Wampanoag people and learn about their different celebrations and traditions throughout the year.  Then, students visit an English Colonist village and learn more about life for the pilgrims.  Students can then learn about the events that happened prior to 1621 and what led up to the harvest celebration.  The timeline in this section clearly shows what events were happening from the colonists point of view and what events were happening from the Wampanoag point of view. Finally, students can share what they have learned on a virtual informational poster where they can type the text of the poster.  Students can print their completed poster at the end.


How to integrate Investigating the First Thanksgiving into the classroom: Investigating the first Thanksgiving is an outstanding activity that involves students and makes them the historian.  Use this site to teach students the history of Thanksgiving but also how history changes.  This site does a great job of teaching students the difference between “the past” and “history”.  It makes the distinction that the past is always true but history (the way we interpret the past) can change based on additional information and resources.  You can go through the Investigating the First Thanksgiving interactive as a class on the interactive whiteboard, inviting student “historians” to come up and help guide the class through the activities.  Or as a center or individually on classroom or lab computers.  Finish the posters together as a class, filling in information, or each students can complete the final project.  If you do complete as a class, give a copy of the final to each student.


Tips: There is a great teacher guide that accompanies this site and offers great ideas for using the interactive in the classroom.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Investigating the First Thanksgiving  in your classroom.

World Digital Library

 

 

What it is:   The World Digital Library is a collection of free primary materials from around the world.  Students can search the World Digital Library for materials that will help them understand other cultures.  Students can search for materials by place, topic, time period, or institution.

How to integrate World Digital Library into the classroom:   This is an amazing collection of primary materials from around the world.  This is truly like bringing museums from around the world into your classroom.  Use the World Digital Library to illustrate lessons using an interactive whiteboard or projector.  Students can use World Digital Library for research and to support projects they are working on.  I love the look of World Digital Library, primary sources embeded in a map of the world.  It helps students visualize where in the world the materials they are looking at came from.

 

Tips:  Bookmark World Digital Library on the classroom computers for quick access.  World Digital Library is multilingual, just choose your language before you begin searching!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using World Digital Library  in your classroom.

The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults

What it is:   Digital Vaults reminds me of Museum Box that I wrote about a few weeks ago.  The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources.  Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them.  Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie.  Students can also create a Pathway Challenge.  In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records.  Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges.  There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge.  Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue.  Very cool!

How to integrate Digital Vaults into the classroom:  This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history.    While the site may be too hard for primary elementary students to use on their own, the Lincoln Pathway Challenge could be used with an interactive whiteboard with the teacher guiding the challenge.  Teachers could also create a unique challenge that directly matches your curriculum for students to complete.  The poster, movie, and create your own Pathway Challenge are an engaging way for students to learn about history in a hands on approach.  Give students a direction to go and then give them time to collect resources, and create their digital history vault.  This is not history as I remember it…in fact, I’m sure I would know much, much more about history if I were involved in my learning this way!  This is so much better than learning history from an outdated text book, the Pathway Challenges are like virtual field trips through history.

 

Tips:  I learned about this awesome website from Free Technology for Teachers, a great blog!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Digital Vaults in your classroom.

Primary Access

What it is:   Primary Access is a tool I learned about today while attending one of the K12 Online conference sessions.  This incredible site has a web-based tool that offers students and teachers simple access to digital images and materials that provides them the opportunity to create personal narratives.  The idea behind the site is that if students are offered primary source documents, they develop better historical thinking skills.  I highly recommend you watch the presentation on k12 Online, to see just how accurate this belief was in a case study of the site.  Students use Primary Access to create digital movies (historical narratives) that help add to meaningful learning experiences.  The site is very simple to use, intuitive enough that even a student (or teacher) who has never created a digital movie would be successful.  

 

How to integrate Primary Access into the classroom:   Use Primary Access as a tool to bring history to life for your students.  Using the site, students can create a short digital movie that explores some event in history.  The digital movie will only be 1-3 minutes in length and can contain images, text, movies, and narration recorded in the students own voice.  Students have a place to write, research, narrate, view, and search a time line and idea map right in Primary Access.  The finished product is educational and entertaining for the creator and viewers.  The results with this site are truly amazing!  It really does bring history to life.

 

Tips: It isn’t obvious how to create a teacher account on Primary Access, to create an account go to http://primaryaccess.org/teacher.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Primary Access  in your classroom.