What if we taught like an iPhone?

What if

instead of trying to adapt our lessons to meet each student’s need, we . . . create lessons that students can customize themselves?

Robyn Jackson over at Mind Steps takes an interesting angle on the use of iPods and iPhones in the classroom. One that I’ve been thinking and talking about for a while now. But I really like how Robyn walked me through her thoughts.

The angle?

Games (and apps on the iTouch) can actually differentiate instruction as kids use them and provide a great model for us of how we can better plan our own instruction.

The thing that makes Robyn’s post so interesting is that she argues that we spend too much time attempting to find ways to personalize instruction for our students. She suggests the opposite.

For years we have tried to differentiate our instruction, creating several different lesson plans to meet the needs of more of our students. Often we miss several students’ needs and wear ourselves out in the process. I wondered, what if instead of differentiating our lessons for students, we created lessons that were customizable? What if we taught like an iphone?

I like this. I like this a lot.

She uses her purchase of an iPhone to illustrate her point. Rather than trying to figure out a way to make the iPhone specific to each personal, Apple went in the opposite direction. They made the iPhone generic.

. . . Apple didn’t focus on trying to build a phone designed just for me. In fact, it did just the opposite. Rather than offering an array of colors, the phone comes in only 2 – white and black. Instead of offering an array of built-in applications, it offers just a few basic programs loaded into the phone. Instead of trying to offer an array of phones to meet my needs, Apple offers just one.

I’ve got an iTouch but the point’s the same – I can personalize the thing myself  . . . picking apps, cover, operating system, photos, video, music to fit my own needs.

Maybe instead of differentiation, we should focus on building lessons that are flexible enough that each student can find a way to access the curriculum. Maybe instead of trying to guess what our students may need, we should teach students how to show us what they need in ways that can be quickly addressed by the supports available in the classroom. Maybe instead of trying to adapt our lessons to meet each student’s need, we should create lessons that students can customize themselves.

Differentiation focuses too much on individualization rather than customization. We are trying to meet the individual needs of students rather than showing them how to meet their own needs. We are building individual lessons for each student instead of building lessons that are flexible enough so that all students can access them.

I like this. A lot.

It gives me a way to re-think the whole differentiated instruction idea. You really need to read the full version. Check it out and let me know what you’re thinking.

I ran across a nice, basic graphic organizer the other day that looks useful. I’ll be honest, haven’t used it yet with kids. But it looks like one of those graphic organizers that works across grade levels and content areas. It reminds a bit of the Frayer Model graphic organizer but perhaps easier to use.

The KIM model uses a simple three-column organizer. In the first column (K), kids will write the term or key idea, information (I) about that term or idea goes along in the center column and a memory clue, (M) – a graphic or image of the idea – goes in the last column.

The key idea may be a new vocabulary work, or a new concept.  The information may be a definition or it may be a more technical explanation of the concept.  The memory clue is a way for students to fully integrate the meaning of the key idea into their memories.  By making a simple sketch that explains the key idea, students synthesize and interpret the new information, making it their own.  Then, students can reference their drawings to easily remember new key ideas.

Have fun!

Along the lines of John Quincy Adams Twitter feed, Historical Tweets and Lincoln’s Facebook page, comes a much less serious version of historical figures interacting with modern online tools.

Fun to read. But could it be adapted as a hook activity, a discussion starter or some sort of review process? I think yes.

Give it a try and let us know how it works out.

Thomas Jefferson

Sam Avery

Last week I wrote a quick post concerning Veteran’s Day resources and received a comment from Rich Landers who has created a very unique site titled Soldier’s Mail. The site is based on the letters, photographs and artifacts of his great uncle, Sam Avery of the US Army.

Readers may also be interested in the writings home from the front of US Sgt. Sam Avery during the Great War (World War I). Fascinating eyewitness history from the hot sands along the Rio Grande to the cold mud along the Meuse.

This blog is an adventure long in the making for me in honor of my own family hero. Letters are posted on the same day they were written from the trenches 91 years ago. Today I found myself staring at my watch counting down the minutes to 1100 hrs.

Long before the Greatest Generation there was the Most Gallant Generation. Stop by and come march along . . .

Camp Cotton, Texas 1916

The site is amazing in that it provides a social history of World War One through eyes of one who was there. You are able to read letters home, view photo albums, listen to contemporary music and learn more about the soldier’s slang of the time. You can also find an extensive bibliography.

Start your journey at the beginning of Sam’s story by going to the July 12, 1916 entry.

I especially like the way that I can read the letters in order on the actual day they were written. Soldier’s Mail is a bit like the John Quincy Adams Twitter feed or the Two Years Before the Mast blog. All three provide contextual clues for a bigger historical picture by focusing on individuals. (As I’ve dug into Soldier’s Mail, I’ve ran across similar sites of a British and German soldier. Nice overlap of similar topics and events.)

At the basic level, you could use this with students to provide a sense of the period. Go a step further and have students anaylze the primary documents using worksheets from the Library of Congress or the National Archives. You might have kids break down Sam’s letters and align them to events / documents in the grander scheme so they see a pattern of larger events affecting individuals.

It’s just hard to beat a great collection of primary sources like this!

——–

Rich, a former HS history teacher, has kindly volunteered to act as a resource for anyone wanting more information on Sam’s letters and other resources.

I am very happy to be a resource for anyone regarding details on Sam and his times. I have worked with a number of secondary-level educators who have utilized Soldier’s Mail as a dynamic primary resource when studying the early 20th Century and the First World War in American History.

I respond to all comments posted on the site and I can also be reached by email at soldiersmail@comcast.net.

(Stay tuned for the book!)

I’ve been playing with iPod Touches for the last few months and am becoming convinced that they are tools that we can integrate into our instruction. There are over 100,000 free and paid applications available, with many designed specifically for the Social Studies.

The resources below provide ideas and strategies for classroom integration. Travel to Social Studies Central for specific application examples.

iLearn with the iPod
Thumbtack mics for the iPod Touch
iTunes
iTunes App Store
Mobile Learning: A Brief Reading List
iPod Touch for Mobile Learning
iPod Education
Lit2Go
100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better
Apple Learning Interchange – iPods
Apps list for educators

Have fun!

My dad was an Oldsmobile man. He never bought any other brand. And if he ever had to ride in (or heaven forbid, actually drive) any thing other than an Olds, he’d grumble and complain. As he got older, we’d ask him to drive our Honda just to hear the rants.

But I’m beginning to understand his pain.

I’m a Google guy. I love the search results. I love the ease. I love the little gadgets I can add on.

And now I’m finding that perhaps there are other tools I should be using and so now there’s a bit of grumbling.

But I am grumbling less and less because I’m starting to really like a newer search tool called Wolfram|Alpha. The goal of Wolfram|Alpha is simple:

Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

It provides a different way to search and organize information that I’m still getting comfortable using. But the results are very cool. If you or your kids are looking for basic information and for ways to compare that information, you need to to try Wolfram|Alpha.

The creators have thrown together some examples. By using some of their sample searches, you’ll start to see the power of the tool.

My example is pretty simple. Say I want to learn more about the Battle of Hastings. So I type in “Battle of Hastings.”

Clicking in the graph gives me additional data.

I can now click on William the Conqueror to get data on him.

I love this kind of stuff!

Wolfram|Alpha can do all kinds of things.

Type in “Norway, Sweden, Finland” to get side by side country comparisons. Type in “Founding of Carthage, Trojan War” to get a timeline of events. Type in “GDP per capita, United States/Norway” and get that data. The tool is great for finding and displaying basic kinds of information but it’s used best to organize that data. Each search result starts with basic stuff and embeds links to more info such as satellite images, more detailed graphs and unit conversions.

It does take some getting used to. You’ll need to experiment a bit with what you type in the search box. You’ll need to shift a bit in your thinking if you’re used to using Google. Let your kids play with it and experiment.

So . . . nothing wrong with Google or Dad’s Oldsmobile. But there are other things out there. Don’t be afraid to get in the Honda and take a test drive!

Armistice participants and train car, November 11 1918 (wikipedia)

November 11, 1918.

5:00 am, Compiegne Forest, 50 miles north of Paris, France.

Germany and various Allied countries sign the armistice that would end fighting on the western front six hours later at 11:00 am Paris time.

Twenty years later, the US Congress officially designated November 11 as Armistice Day. Following World War Two and the Korean War, legislation replaced the word Armistice with Veterans, creating Veterans Day.

While you may not have tons of time today to focus on Veterans Day, don’t be afraid to use some of the resources listed below later in your instruction. Some good stuff here!

Start with Veterans’ Stories from the Library of Congress Teachers page. You’ll find audio clips, video clips and stories to from their Veterans History Project that can be viewed or downloaded as well as a Teacher’s Guide.

• Veterans History Project
• Veterans, Oral History and the Library of Congress
• Veterans History
• Department of Veterans Affairs
• History of Veterans Day
• The History of Veterans Day
• Veterans Day Teacher Resources
• How Teachers Can Incorporate Veterans Day in Class

Newsweek has put together a quick seven minute video recapping the last ten years. Interesting not just for what it includes but what it leaves out.

What would you add or subtract? What about your students?

I have read and used a few good textbooks, Joy Hakim’s History of US comes to mind. The key word in that sentence, of course, is few. Most textbooks do a pretty poor job of providing context for their content and giving kids concrete examples of history.

But there is hope. Cheri Lucas of Edutopia provides a variety of ways that you can breathe life into your history instruction.

Many students, particularly young ones, have an abstract view of history. Putting artifacts in their hands and giving them characters, chores, language, and events to reenact adds a three-dimensional aspect to the textbook page, injecting knowledge with empathy and understanding.

Cheri discusses six different ideas for moving beyond the textbook to give kids a more concrete understanding of events, people and places:

Make the local historical society your home away from home.

Organizations that preserve and interpret local lore can be a rich source of historical data and news on upcoming museum exhibits and educational programs. For Kansas, the Kansas State Historical Society is a great place to start. Your own state will have their own society and most counties and even some cities have their own local historical society. And every society has an archivist or educational liaison that is dying to work with you and your kids.

Ask for a private tour

Don’t be afraid to ask the archivist or educational liaison for a tour specific to your needs. Most societies will bend over backwards to get kids excited about their collections. All ya gotta do is ask.

For example, Cheri shares that the Virginia Historical Society, in Richmond, holds private tours that can accommodate thirty to seventy-five students, depending on your lesson, whether it is Virginia’s African-American history or the Civil War. Students in grades K-5 can get their hands on reproductions of artifacts from Pocahontas’s tribe, the Powhatan, while Civil War exhibits give kids an idea of what soldiers wore, ate, and wrote.

The KSHS has a whole series of tours aligned to specific state history curriculum indicators that can be customized even more to meet your needs.

Ditch the stereotypical bio

Though it’s vital for students to understand why historical events are important and which figures were instrumental, try tossing the common biography assignment for something new that may also be more relevant.

Ask kids to interview family members or residents of your local retirement community. Have kids write resumes of “famous” people for different periods of their lives.

Provide Facebook templates and Twitter profiles and have your students complete them as the person they are researching.

Use the tube as your tool

Most of your kids are visual learners. Period movies and video clips provide an invaluable resource for teachers. The recent HBO John Adams mini-series is a great example of how kids can learn not just the historical content but also get a feel for the period. (I especially liked the scene where the Continental Congress was literally sweating through the Declaration of Independence argument. You could almost smell the tension in the air!)

Have your students combine book and online research of clothing and accessories with critical screen watching. When did women wear corsets? What weapons were used during the American Revolution? Watching period films gives kids an idea of a historical setting: Think ancient Rome in Gladiator or China during the Qing Dynasty in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. After they take notes, allow them to design their own variations on the settings they are studying, from a layout of their period bedroom with furniture and artwork to a colorful sketch of an outfit they’d wear on a typical day.

Historical video games such as Rome: Total War or American Conquest also give kids a visual contextual reference.

Look for vintage props and outfits.

Your class will need its own closet of costumes to get into character.

Provide extra credit for your kids to go out and sift through local vintage and thrift shops for props, costumes and artifacts. You can also find cheap stuff doing a basic web search. Talk with local colleges or your own high school drama departments to borrow their goodies.

Your local or state society may also have resources you can check out. The KSHS has a great Traveling Trunk program.

Watch for local re-enactments and rendezvous

Every state has reenactors that breathe life into the Civil War or the Old West or as Mountain Men. You can find black powder guys who can’t wait to show off their collections. When kids can touch these collections and view what a battle actually looks like, textbook content suddenly makes more sense.

Whatever you choose to do, giving kids hands-on and concrete examples of history helps provide a way for them to stick basic, low-level content to – it’s like”mental velcro.” Activties like the ones listed above make content sticky and makes learning long-lasting.

I’m a big believer in the power of photographs and images.

And if you can find really big photos, so much the better!

New camera and web technologies now allow the publishing of incredibly detailed, full screen 360 degree panoramic photographs online. And the people at Panoramas have gathered together over 600 of these amazing photographs in one place.

Just about any unit or lesson in world history, geography or US history will get a boost by using one or more of the images at Panoramas. You search by yearly lists that go back to 2002 with thumbnails available for easy selection. Once your 360 degree photo has loaded, you are able to pan left, right, up or down. And most allow you to zoom in and out of image with absolute clarity.

Be aware that some files are large and will require updated browsers and plug-ins. But the results are worth the extra time and effort.

Tomb of Ramses IV in Valley of the Kings

Have fun!