Speaking of History Teacher's Who Blog.....

Speaking of History is a blog/podcast out of Liberty, Missouri, run by 8th grade American History Teacher Eric Langhorst. Not only does Eric have the sharpest looking header of any blog that I've seen, it's a great set up and looks like a terrific blog. I just listened to his post on a video called Please Vote for Me, a video about democracy in China that looks amazing.

I realized with this post and on Dan McDowell's that I need to start keeping track of these great history blogs so I'm adding a new sidebar with specifically history teachers who blog. In this case they happen to also blog about using technology in the classroom, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

After speaking with Vincent Massey Collegiate I'm realizing more and more how these tools are so important to professional development and keeping in touch with amazing teachers like Eric and Dan. Welcome to Canada guys!

A History Teacher - Dan McDowell

One of the best things I have had the opportunity to do since I arrived at the History Society was to sit down and interview the six recipients of the 2008 Governor General's Awards for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History. The interview is on YouTube.



I'm just working with some of the winners again right now to get their great work out to a larger audience and I read this post from Dan McDowell who blogs at www.ahistoryteacher.com out of San Diego. Dan has been nominated for teacher of the year and with good reason. I've just started reading his blog on a more regular basis and he has a faithful following. Great teachers cut to core values that I think Dan has also tapped into here.

The post just reminded me of sitting down with our GG winners last October. Great teachers and incredible people all around, can't wait to see this year's list of nominees.

Check out Sprout!

So you may have noticed a plethora of podcasts all over the blog of late. I noticed a new program called Sprout Builder care of the Sam Roberts album (Sam Roberts Rocks!). Sprout Builder is a flash device builder built using flash. It is essentially a flash what you see is what you get and it is amazingly easy to use and creates really nice finished products.

For those of you that have missed some of my past posts, I really dislike power point for being a linear thought line with little room for creativity for students. Not to mention Power Point is already on the way out - so teaching students to use it is not providing a valuable skill.

I'm still playing around with Sprout - but it would be really easy to combine video, audio, and images into a really engaging presentation. Students could also use the program to share their projects afterwards on Facebook, blogs, etc. Thus why I have been posting all my recent podcasts to my own blog.

Check out Sprout! This is easily one of the most useful and powerful programs that I've encountered.

Beaver Magazine Interview with Ken McGoogan

Northwest Passage 2.0

I'm currently working on our upcoming edition of BITE: Beaver Information for Teachers and Educators, just give me a shout if you would like to subscribe. The feature article is a great piece by Ken McGoogan on the opening of the Northwest Passage, so I've been searching around for some additional information to provide background for the story.

I found a great video on YouTube from a European voyage through the passage in 2004. What is so terrific about YouTube, Flickr, and other resources is that they allow students to get a first hand perspective of far away places and histories. While these videos don't have the trumpets and drums of National Geographic, but they are a great way to add life to the classroom.

This particular YouTube video gives a good account of the conditions early explorers must have also faced: chipping ice away from the deck, snow covered ships, and mammoth icebergs. I found a lot of these videos for Expo 67 as well.

Flickr provides the same documents when exploring the beaches of Normandy, providing countless images and stories from European battlefields. These programs provide a great way to add life and cool interfaces to your classroom.

I understand why school boards often ban access to programs like YouTube, but at the end of the day they are doing a disservice to their students. Educators need new and original ideas to create engaging classroom content. These free programs will never replace teachers and chalk, but they provide unique opportunities not only for teaching, but for learning about the past.

Many Eyes

While attending a workshop at the UofM I was introduced to Many Eyes. I haven't had a chance to play around with it much yet, but for statistics online it presents some really interesting ways of making it pop out.

Lots of fun for educators looking to make their own statistics jump out at students and also a way to let students have a bit more fun while learning stats.

The founder of Many Eyes is a guy named Hans Rosling and he can be found De-bunking third world myths online here. It's actually a really interesting exercise - one in that it challenges students to think, but also because I disagree with some of the way his stats are presented. Challenge your students to asses the stats and see what they think - whatever you think it is an engaging talk.

RubiStar

One more neat program from the friendly Social Science staff at Vicent Massey Collegiate. For teachers who are only too painfully aware of the time required to make rubrics, a new free website can provide you with a quicker and more effective answer

RubiStar allows you to quickly create and edit Rubric templates for use in your class. The rubric templates are broken down into various subjects and you can adjust all of the categories.

I was going to include this in the last post but felt it needed it's own reference. Great program for the behind the scenes of teaching.

Vincent Massey Collegiate

On Monday I had the chance to visit with the Social Studies department at Vincent Massey Collegiate here in Winnipeg. They generously shared a morning discussing some of the digital history projects they were using in their classroom.

They are doing some great projects with their students that are really fun. Currently they have their own Wiki that provides students with work and project space. By using Wikispaces they are able to upload their students emails with easy passwords to get them started and track changes made to the Wiki.

Some of the other programs they are using that might be helpful in your classroom are:

1. Quizlet
• Create your own interactive quiz sheets and flashcards for test prep
  
2. Xtimeline
• Create scrollable time lines with information and dates
  
3. Bubble.us
• Awesome program to create essay and project outlines - no more doodling

They are also doing some great podcasts with visitors to the school. You can find their podcast feed at Podomatic. The most recent entry includes a speech by Stephane Dion, leader of the liberal party of Canada.

I also suggested they start blogging about these great projects so hopefully we will see them online very soon!

Selkie Rescue

This isn't really an education piece, but a helpful bit of information that might come in handy.

My old computer crashed about a year and a half ago and took with it my entire university career. Those years of work meant a lot and I wanted to keep my essays and research, so I had kept my computer with a hope that I might be able to one day recover the documents. A few computer stores suggested nothing could probably be done and the few experiments I had tried failed miserably.

Then just a few weeks ago I read about a program called Selkie Rescue in the Globe and Mail. Using the program and my internet cable I was able to hook my new computer up to the old, set up a local network, and transfer over all of my files. The whole process took about 3 hours, but that included a test run with the demo, buying and downloading the real program (about $100), and transferring the files.

I found it really effective and would definitely suggest trying the same if your computer has crashed and will not boot. If your computer died because of a virus you may want to be more careful, but in my case the problem was software.

Now to backup my files.....

Voice Thread

While attending the podcasting workshop with the Learning Technologies Centre George Siemens mentioned Voice Thread as an interesting new program.

Voice Thread allows you to post individual images, movies, or presentations. You can then add your own note or audio to go with the picture. The best part is that others can then come along and post their own audio comments as well - essentially creating an audio forum.

One example I noticed had an art teacher asking a question about a piece, and then letting students post their own comments. I think this would be a really great program to help walk students through complex sections. Also a chance for an inspired teacher to explain difficult topics to students across Canada.

I put together my own quick example describing my history trip to Hecla Provincial Park in Manitoba. Feel free to post your own comment as a test just to try it out! If you set up your own Voice Thread for you class be sure to let us know.

Learning Technologies Centre - University of Manitoba

In Manitoba we enter a winter hibernation that allows for thoughtful blogging and time to share the wealth of information. I've been attending some lunch time workshops of late generously provided by the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba.

The workshops are intended to help faculty and students get started with online basics, but I've found them to be a helpful refresher. It's nice to have the opportunity to hear about how programs can be integrated into the classroom. Fortunately for those of you not in Winnipeg, or available at lunch as the case may be, you find all of the helpful information on their Learning Wiki.

I've had the chance to sit in on the blogging, social bookmarking, and podcasting sessions so far. I found them all really helpful. I would definitely suggest you check it out.

More than anything thus far it's emphasized the me the importance of building an online community - which means even if no one is reading this - we're going to keep on trucking. As more teachers become involved, we have the opportunity not only to create our own shared personal spaces to discuss our profession, but shared spaces to support each other and our students.