Using Technology to Think Critically About History & Engage Students' Creativity

Teachers are passionate about the subjects they teach. Sometimes however, students are less so--they might not share their instructor’s enthusiasm and/or find the topic inherently exciting or motivating. Middle school social studies teacher Jim Malewig at Minnetonka Middle School West is familiar with this scenario. One of the topics he teaches seventh graders about is the Reconstruction post Civil War, and over the years Jim has come up with some creative ways to make it more engaging and memorable for his students. 

Recently I was in his classroom during this unit of study and was amazed to see the students’ engagement on their “Road to Reconstruction” projects. Students were working to answer the question, “To what extent did Reconstruction bring African Americans closer to full citizenship?” A few years ago Jim began having students make a timeline of the events during this period and used a road map as an analogy. Then after working with Lisa Reed, Tonka Coders and Makers Teacher on Special Assignment, they decided to integrate Ozobots with the project. Ozobots are programmable robots that read special colored markers to gather their instructions. Depending on what colors and patterns are used to create the code, Ozobots can be programmed to turn, change direction, color, speed and more. 

Now as part of their learning, students identify the key events of the time period, create a roadmap/timeline of ten major events during the Reconstruction, decide what actions the Ozobot will take while traveling this path to symbolize the each event, and then film an Ozobot on their timeline. But the project doesn’t stop there. Students import their video into iMovie and add in historical photos to illustrate each of their selected events. Then they write a script and record their narration into their film. 

Throughout the project students are very motivated. This project is a great example of learning at higher levels on the Minnetonka Framework for Teaching and Learning. Students are communicating and collaborating in small groups, critically thinking and analyzing events and their effect on history. They are able to use their creativity and technology to illustrate their learning. Perhaps without realizing it, they are coding their Ozobots and debugging issues to get things to work, too. Rather than just reading about this in a textbook and taking notes, students are deeply learning and understanding the material and historical time period. Perhaps some of them will become future social studies teachers, too, motivating their students in unique and creative ways!

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Grade 11 Students Create Amazing Graphic Novels with iPads, Book Creator & Notability

View full graphic novel on The Russian Revolution

I’m often amazed at the talent of our students. Their artistic ability is no exception. Our students' creativity is evident in the artwork I see in the hallways, showcases and classrooms throughout our schools. Earlier this year, eleventh grade general English students at Minnetonka High School read Persepolis, a graphic novel autobiography by Marjane Satrapi about growing up during the Islamic revolution in the 1980s. After reading it, the students were given two choices to create their own graphic novel with a collaborative group. The results are awesome!

View full graphic novel on the Weimar Republic

For this project, students worked in collaborative groups and each group member was responsible for two pages individually or the group members chose to work on their pages together. You can see the full assignment description for this task here. Students used a storyboard for planning their projects and each individual completed a self-reflection afterwards. The project was designed by English teachers David Adams, Jordan Cushing, Mary Hedstrom and Judy Thomas as part of their PLC (Professional Learning Community). Students were given two options from which to choose for the topic of their graphic novel. Students could either:

Create a graphic novel based on a revolution that took place outside of the United States before 1970. Students had to pick a revolution, research it, and tell the story of an important event during the revolution in their graphic novel. (Three examples are pictured and linked in this post.)

Or

Create a graphic novel that explores the connections between the challenges faced by a girl living in the United States and a girl living in Iran after 2010. Students researched women’s issues in Iran and America after 2010 and had to tell the story of both girls, comparing and contrasting their experiences in their graphic novel.

View full graphic novel on the French Revolution

One of the teachers, David Adams, told me he was very impressed by the work students did. He explained that students really enjoyed being able to be creative with the project. They used a variety of apps for illustrations. Many used Notability to make the pictures and then drop them into Book Creator. David explained that students felt that Book Creator was very useful for setting up the frames, pages, captions, and speech bubbles, but it didn’t have very many drawing tools. So many of them set up all of the frames in Book Creator first and then went to Notability to illustrate their pictures. This app smash project is a great example of many dimensions on the Minnetonka Framework for Teaching and Learning: collaboration, communication, use of technology, authentic and real world learning, creativity and more. It's also a great example of using iPads and the apps on them to showcase learning in meaningful, deeper ways.

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Minnetonka Top 100+ Ideas for 1:1 Integration in 5th grade, English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language

Last week twelve Minnetonka staff shared their best practices, favorite ideas, and tips for 1:1 integration in their curricular areas at the annual TIES Technology Conference in Minneapolis. Presentations were entitled TonkaX Teacher Talks, 1:1 Science- Unleash the Possibilities, and Engaging Learners Through Reflection & Discussion. Each teacher showcased some of their best ideas for integrating technology in their 1:1 classrooms in 5th grade, social studies, science, English, Spanish, and math. There are so many great ideas, most of which are device agnostic. 

TonkaX Teacher Talks: 25+ Best iPad Ideas
This breakout session will feature five Minnetonka 1:1 iPad teachers for 10 minutes each showcasing their five+ best ideas and tips for iPad integration in their curricular area. Meet a 5th grade elementary teacher, a secondary math teacher, a high school English teacher, a middle school social studies teacher, and a secondary elective teacher. Come see the great things happening in their classrooms with iPads and push your level of technology integration to a higher level to deepen students’ learning!

 
1:1 Science: Unleash the Possibilities
Come and hear about the variety of ways iPads have transformed secondary science classrooms in Minnetonka. You will hear examples from areas of physical science, life science, Earth science, physics, as well as accelerated courses and AP. Leave this session with simple and elaborate ways to integrate iPads in meaningful ways. See how technology integration can transform science education by making the student learning experience more personalized, creation driven, and relevant for today’s learners.

Engaging Learners Through Reflection & Discussion
Come and hear about the variety of ways iPads have transformed secondary science classrooms in Minnetonka. You will hear examples from areas of physical science, life science, Earth science, physics, as well as accelerated courses and AP. Leave this session with simple and elaborate ways to integrate iPads in meaningful ways. See how technology integration can transform science education by making the student learning experience more personalized, creation driven, and relevant for today’s learners.

Two other groups of staff from Minnetonka presented at TIES last week on Implementation of a K-12 Computer Science Program and Crowd-Based Innovation: The Future Is Here. 

In addition to these ideas shared at the TIES conference last week, check out the Top 25 ideas shared at the ETT Conference in San Diego in February by another group of Minnetonka 1:1 teachers. More info about our 1:1 iPad Program can be found here.

Tonka Teacher Talks at ETT San Diego iPad Summit

Last week five Minnetonka 1:1 iPad secondary teachers shared their best practices, favorite ideas, and tips for iPad integration in their curricular area at the Ed Tech Teacher iPad Summit in San Diego.  Our presentation was entitled Tonka Teacher Talks.  Each teacher presented for ten minutes on how they used technology in their 1:1 iPad classrooms in science, art, math, and social studies. We are fortunate in Minnetonka to have so many great teachers, and these educators shared great things to attendees at our session.  

The five teachers presenting were Kim Hoehne, AP Physics Instructor, Angie Kallman, Middle School Math Teacher, Jennifer Morcomb, 7th Grade Life Science Teacher, Gina Nelson, Middle School Social Studies Teacher, and Emily Swagel, Middle School Visual Arts Teacher.  As you look through the presentation, I think you will agree that they are doing some amazing things with their students.  These teachers' experiences range from a half year of teaching with 1:1 iPads to three and a half years.  Each of these teachers continuously seeks out new ways to create meaningful learning opportunities for their students with technology.  They are creating lessons and activities that harness the power of the iPad and enhance learning for their students.

You can view the slideshow presentation below.  More info about our 1:1 iPad Program can be found here.

What if Ancient Egyptians Used Google Sketch Up to Build the Pyramids?

The pyramids in Egypt are one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.  It's hard to comprehend how they could have been built without modern construction machinery and technology tools.  Helping students in today's world who haven't been to the pyramids understand just how big they are, the complexity of the  design, how difficult they would have been to build, and why they were built is one of the challenges faced by world history teachers.  

Minnetonka High School World History teacher Grant Hendrickson came up with a creative and meaningful way to help students learn about the Egyptian pyramids and culture.  For his classes of junior students, he decided to integrate Google Sketch Up into his lesson on the ancient pyramids in order to help the students "analyze the form, function and role of the pyramid in Ancient Egypt culture."  Students were tasked to "create a pyramid, to scale, with appropriate internal features using Google Sketch Up" (quoted from his lesson plan).  I was able to see this myself last week when I joined Grant's fourth hour class.  

Grant knows Google Sketchup well, and has taught classes for his colleagues about the program for the past couple of years.  Prior to the day I visited, students had already spent a class period the day before my visit learning about Sketch Up. When I was there, students were researching pyramids on the Internet as well as using some information provided.  They were tasked to sketch out a pyramid as close as possible to the actual measurements they found in their research.  One of the great features of Google Sketch Up is the ability to zoom around the exterior of something being designed as well as go right through walls and surfaces into the interior of a space, so it is a great tool to help in the understanding of the design and layout of a pyramid.  

"Google Sketch Up was the perfect tool to help bring this lesson to life for students."

Emily Rosengren, Minnetonka High School Social Studies teacher and Instructional Coach who observed this lesson last year told me the following: "What made the lesson particularly engaging for students was the chance to apply previously learned content (the students' understanding of the physical structure of the pyramids) AND their understanding of measurement and dimension to construct a virtual pyramid. This experience led students to comment on the enormous size of the Egyptian pyramids and marvel at how such structures could have been constructed without the use of modern machinery. Their observations, especially about the influence of the pharaoh on the lives of ancient Egyptians, demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of the importance of pyramids in Egyptian society. Google Sketch Up was the perfect tool to help bring this lesson to life for students. It gave students access to the true physical scale of the pyramids in a way that a textbook never could."

This lesson is a great example of how teacher can integrate technology to enhance learning.  Further, by knowing the tools and features of a program, the teacher can leverage them to engage the students and make instruction meaningful and memorable.