My Grade 10 Pre-AP students recently completed a unit on the Chinese Revolution. This was a good opportunity for them to combine their own interests in Chinese history with the photographic archives and VoiceThread to create a short research project. There were several questions that students proposed and answered. These are some of the approaches that the students took.

VoiceThread projects are a unique approach to self-directed research. They can be published and shared with a wider audience, unlike a research paper. They require less time and fewer tools than a video project, and skills like public speaking and writing for an authentic audience are required.

Garry Leroy Baker

Collapse of the Soviet Union from ISSH on Vimeo.

Manchurian Invasion from ISSH on Vimeo.

Japan Joins the UN from ISSH on Vimeo.

The Grade 10 History classes have completed the this Digital Family History Project that I described in an earlier post. Based on student feedback and my own notes during the creation of the projects, I have learned several things and have clear ideas on how to improve. The resources are available on my website and the rubric is in this earlier blog.

Student projects seemed to go better this year as I moved more toward being a coach for their projects. I made suggestions in various areas, including pacing and editing, music and sound, storytelling with video and images, critically analyzing sources, and keeping the story focused on a main character. I used On Gold Mountain as a model.

I really prefer iMovie, but students found Windows Moviemaker and Stupeflix to be very useful. Moviemaker gained attention because it is easier to move working files from one computer to another, though it does not have as many features as iMovie. Stupeflix is online, so it is accessible from anywhere. iMovie is best if you are working on the same machine from the beginning to end of the project. iMovie projects can be moved, but it can be a great deal more trouble. In the future, I will be better able to advise students on what software to begin with until our school completes the transition to one-to-one.

I will offer more tutorials for students who prefer them. I relied too much on peer-to-peer and hands-on learning of the software. While this worked, some students suggested that I offer small-group tutorials for those who may be beginners or who have not often worked on this type of project.

I need to seek advice on more publishing opportunities for students. On the rubric, I asked for two. One option was uploading to Vimeo and generating traffic and feedback on Vimeo comments. The second option was more difficult. Students were often stumped for ideas for other organizations which might accept or review their work. Others were hesitant to share their work outside of the classroom so intentionally. Students can prefer the safe harbor of an audience of one or just their classmates. I encouraged students to consider sharing their work with a Holocaust museum, a War Relocation Administration internment camp museum, or a prefectural museum related to their research.

A second option that I suggested, with the support of a teacher-organizer, was submitting to the Kanto Film Festival. The Festival is in May but my students were allowed to submit in October in order to earn credit for this assignment in the first semester. Not many have taken this option, though several deserve to be seen by a wider audience of their peers.

Commenting and responding are skills that I would like to practice more next time. If you open the sample projects, you can read what has been written. Students received and gave comments that ranged from long and constructive to short and casual. I had wnated students to publish their work and then engage in some explanation and defense of their conclusions with their peers, as Dr. Karen King described when she published her findings on a Christian text. The historical  or academic conversations did not develop as I had hoped. I will need to consider how to model and coach this in the future.

I had thought that commenting on Vimeo would be convenient. All of the student videos would be in the same place and the comments could be reviewed together. However, you must have a Vimeo account in order to comment, which discouraged some viewers. I should look for other options or else consider FaceBook as a choice. Though I would rather not visit FaceBook accounts in order to follow comment threads.

Wartime and Postwar Japan from ISSH on Vimeo.

With the added layer, the projects are closer to what I had imagined. By incorporating suggestions that are coming from students, peers, and my own reflective writing, I am looking forward to more growth in the future.

Student Reflections from ISSH on Vimeo.

Garry Leroy Baker

 I have been thinking of inviting Robespierre to my AP European History class this year.It started when I was hooked into reading an article by AHA Vice President Patty Limerick in which she defended live classroom teaching against the invasion of MOOCs into higher education. The real value of the article emerged when Dr. Limerick described how she had practiced channeling President Richard Nixon for an American History class. She reported that she read several biographies on Nixon and then, with the students voluntarily suspending disbelief, went on to answer questions that the students had for Nixon. She then answered in character.

I can see how this would be an opportunity to combine the higher-order thinking and analysis that is required of an AP History course with the social media tools now available. The project I am planning would begin with three students who each immersed themselves in figures central to the French Revolution:  Robespierre, Napoleon, and Louis XVI. The overarching theme could be, ”whose vision has the best interests of France in mind?” The remainder of the students could prepare themselves as students of the revolution and French Empire.

The extra dimension would be added by incorporating Cliff Atkinson’s The Bachchannel as a guide. One teacher has suggested using Google Moderator as a back channel, though Twitter (#FrRevo) would be sufficient. In this way, students could be simultaneously commenting on, and responding to, the speakers while live questions are being addressed. The teacher would act as moderator. The three figures probably would not require access to the backchannel during the session.

I should model correct “channeling” first. The American Revolution is taught early in the same unit. By channeling George Washington, for example, it would help to teach the goals of the revolution in the US and offer an example of how this could be done well. It would also help me as I design the rubric which should address goals of the activity.

Garry Leroy Baker

Social media offered many promises over the years. Surprisingly we were thrilled to see how FaceBook, Twitter, and Flikr could be used by students for serious political change during in Egypt and Tunisia during Arab Spring. Outsiders could follow events and organize raw data using crowd sourcing and GIS. Even North Korea, entrenched and isolated, could not keep secret its expanding prison camp system from Amnesty International in 2005. Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy was a self-published guide. It appeared as if dictatorships were on the run and the tech generation would be the drivers of change.

However, new research by William J. Dobson in his book, The Dictator’s Learning Curve, describes how dictatorships today are adapting, and taking the high ground, when the struggle could go viral. He explains the new methods dictatorships in China, Russia, and Venezuela are using to keep the pressure on activists while maintaining an admirable public relations campaign. Not all ventures into social media go smoothly, as was noted when North Korea joined Facebook. However, like Russia, nations might also create their own web entertainment sites to generate light entertainment for young people to follow. In The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov explains how social media can be used by dictatorships to counterattack and neutralize groups of political activists. The case of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei makes a good example. Artistic consultant for the Bird’s Nest in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he has been hounded by tax officials who, reportedly, will not return his passport so that he can travel to the West for his New York opening. This kind of treatment by officials does not generate viral videos.

Based on this information, it may be much too soon to congratulate ourselves on our mix of tech savvy and political progressiveness. We can expect that the empire will strike back. Advocates of liberal democracy need to be ready.

Poster by Freestylee  Some rights reserved

I was reminded this week about the importance of having all stakeholders aboard when increasing the level of technology integration in the school and, especially, the classroom. It is in the classroom that students are most affected by new applications, websites, and hardware, like iPads. Parents will probably think first of the classroom teacher when students explain how on-to-one, for instance, is being implemented at school.

Should we do more to discuss the drawbacks as well as the benefits?

In my case, I have become better at introducing new skills and application in the classroom. I try it myself first to create a model of the assignment for students to preview.

I write my assignments sheets and rubrics as clearly as possible and try to dedicated enough time to coaching and mentoring. I have worked to create a supportive network with students, other faculty, administration, and teachers at other schools. I had thought that I had all of the bases covered. However, I did not consider the parents enough.

While working on a video project this term, I learned the troubles that can occur when trying to move an iMovie file from one computer to another for more editing. In short, a student thought that she was saving her iMovie project to her clip drive, but she did not transfer the event, or supporting, video files so she did not have anything when she got home. The school Mac on which she was working has Deep Freeze, so her work was erased overnight.

With patience and good spirits, the student restarted her video project and reached about 50% completed before the weekend. With help from our Media Department, she and I were able to save her project to my folder on the school server so that it would be safe when she returned to school on Monday.

Over the weekend I received a concerned mail from a parent asking about what had happened and what could be done in the future to better support the student and her work. We exchanged messages and I found the family to be very supportive and understanding. The issues have been resolved but it has made me more aware of how I need to involve and prepare parents to expect occasional setbacks as teachers introduce more integrated classrooms and the teaching that will make the most of this kind of learning, like mentoring instead of lecturing and projects instead of tests.

Most research into laptops in the classroom appear to include parents later in integration cycle. This Maine paper, for example, surveyed parents on how laptops were changing study habits and grades, but did not discuss how parents could have been prepared in advance for these changes. An Australian resource for parents emphasizes the positive aspects of laptops in schools but appears to have left out the potential pitfalls. The laptop guide to parents published by Mater Dei of Australia paints a rosy picture of MacBook integration. The only negative aspect to be addressed, breaks and repairs, refers to the technology department and the insurance policy.

Should educators be doing more to inform parents about possible issues related to one-to-one in the transitionary period? Would such an approach help to keep all stakeholders aboard if difficulties do arise?

Garry Leroy Baker

Teacher as coach

I have been including the Flipped Classroom model in my teaching and I have learned several things. Flipped instruction can be  infinitely tailored to my students and their shared knowledge, it allows me to focus on what is most important compared to a general textbook, and it creates resources that can be reviewed anytime and anywhere. What I wanted to work on next was how to be sure that Flipped instruction was helping me to make the most of classroom time, especially in AP history classes. I found several ideas that have been working for me.

The philosophy that goes with Flipped instruction is that the teacher moves toward being a

All parts fitting together

coach, guide, and mentor in class. How can I restructure classes this way?

One way has been to be simultaneously have lectures and be lecture-free, as Jeff Utech described in his post. As a university professor once stated, a teacher’s goal is to teach students how to teach themselves. In the long run, we should be empowering students in order to lessen their reliance on us, as teachers, and increase their ability to read, write, reason, judge, and research. If I lecture, I have not worked toward that goal.

One modified version of the Flipped Classroom is Peer Instruction which was developed by Eric Mazur. Students prepare before class and, based on a post-reading survey, systematically work out the answers to multiple choice questions. This is an example from a physics class. I think this would be one more way of connecting a flipped classroom model to formative assessments. I will be introducing this in an AP history class where I think it will have several benefits. One is that students can practice working through the content and multiple choice question formats simultaneously. Often the multiple choice part of AP exams are the most difficult, especially for students working in a second or third language.

To see if this approach is really better, I would take advice from Professor James Schell, whose blog on pre and post testing explains everything you would need to know to start.

I tried another way this week to assess the flipped classroom. In my AP United States History class the students were introduced to the Constitution. This is probably the most important document in understanding the controversies that will be studied for the rest of the year. This week I adapted Don M. Carlson’s Constitution Power Grab Game.  Mr. Carlson explained the activity clearly on the website. I altered the questions to make them more applicable to the first three articles and all teams played instead of sitting some out as the rules suggest. After 10 minutes I had a very clear idea of who had a working understanding of the Articles and students needed to work together to scan their copies of the Constitution.

Alice Christudason offered several other approaches in her post. I will be trying each of these in the next few weeks. Her suggestions for Teach-Write-Discuss and addressing the possibility of freeloading are worth considering.

Garry Leroy Baker

My Grade 10 history students study Japan from the 1840s to 1945.

The Project UbD Plan

The Japan unit is not bad but I wanted to find ways to make it more relevant to students who study this unit while living in Japan. Many take Japanese as their world language or speak Japanese as a heritage language. I wanted to develop the unit so that students could learn more about the host country’s culture and history while moving between languages.

I have modified the unit to include four digital elements. I would like encourage students to look at data in new ways and carefully generate their own research questions which address questions they might have about visual data.

A Children's Game from Lafayette University East Asia Image Collection

I will begin the unit using the flipped, or reverse instruction, approach. I will create and post short videos from which students will learn an overview of Japanese history in the Twentieth Century. Quizzes will be used to check for comprehension and they will be formative in nature.

Secondly, students will be invited to explore online resource collections to learn about Japan during this time period. Two that I have found helpful are a collection of old photographs in Nagasaki. This set can be searched by topic. Another resource is the archive of Kidomo no Kuni, a popular children’s publication in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. While the primary audience was children, the songs and picture books had parents in mind as well. The images can be good for better understanding the Westernization of Japan at that time. Another good source is the Lafayette University East Asian Image Collection. This is another large collection that includes postcards, photographs, and other sources. It also has a search engine that is easy to use.

This would be an opportunity for students to work across English, Japanese, and visual literacy. Students could create a research question, such as how did Westernization affect children’s birthdays or play toys? Students should look for images that help answer the research question or lead them to ask clarifying questions. This should support document analysis using APPARTS and CORNPEG.

Thirdly, students should become familiar with VoiceThread and use it to collect images that they find intriguing. This can also be one of  their presentation tools.

Once they have a question and refined it by working with the teacher, they are then ready to find answers. I encourage students to contact experts, look for resources in print and online which could be useful. This would be connectivism in action. As possible answers come in, the original research question will be refined and possible solutions weighed for viability. Students then summarize and publish their results online in the form of a video or research paper. Students then need to generate traffic to their findings and encourage and moderate comments and suggestions. As time permits, students may modify their research product to reflect the comments of their learning communities.

I have always believed that the real value of history is using the content to teach skills and habits of mind. This approach should help students to practice the skills of good questioning and finding answers in a variety of places.

Garry Leroy Baker