I had the chance to work with a small group of middle school teachers the last two days as they developed teaching activities in geography and history. One of the questions that came up as we were creating placemark descriptions in Google Earth was

Where can I find good images that are copyright free?

It’s a common problem.

There are a variety of tools available online but I always try to start at the Creative Commons section of Flickr. Tons of images that can be used as part of instruction! The problem?

It can be hard to search the database. But I was over at Susan Sedro’s Adventures in Educational Blogging site and ran across one of her recent posts. I now have two new tools!

Compfight

A nice tool that lets you select filter levels for safe searching and creative commons levels. Pretty basic but seems to do a good job with results.

Flickr CC

I like this one because the site displays results on the left and an enlarged version of individual pics to the right. The right side also provides attribution and URL info as well as providing the opportunity to edit the pic with their tool or with Picnik. Very sweet!

Check ‘em out and add them to your multimedia toolkit!

A great way to get kids to emotionally connect with your content is by using something called an “I am” poem.

It allows students to think a bit more about how a particular person might be thinking in very specific ways. Last week I was reminded of the power of the strategy when about 20 of us looked at the images in Toni Morrison’s Remember book. There are lots of templates on line which can help you and your kids organize their thoughts. Simply Google the phrase “I am poem.” You can also find some I Am poem resources here.

I’ve pasted my attempt below. The process is pretty simple. Have your students look at a painting, image or photograph. They should select one person that they will write about and then following the template, fill in the blanks. You could also have every kid write about the same person in the painting or photo. Then have kids exchange papers or read them aloud. It usually works best when reading aloud to not identify the author. (Kids like to here their own voices but perhaps not all want others to know!)

I used a photo from Morrison’s book depicting a father and his son entering a desegregated school for the first time.

I am my son’s father.
I hear our footsteps echoing against the walls around us
I see officials and protestors and my son’s face
I wonder if he will be safe when I am not around? Will the officials protect him as well as I?
I am my son’s father

I pretend to be strong and smart
I feel unsure. Is this the right thing to do?
I hold my son’s and feel his hesitation
I worry that we’re doing the wrong thing
I cry that it’s so hard
I am my son’s father

I understand that we need to do this
I say “Everything is going to be alright. Be strong!”
I dream that some day his son does not have to do this
I try to remember how important this is and
I hope that my son remembers this day when my grandson is born
I am my son’s father

It’s the last day of instruction here at Gilder Lehrman’s elementary summer seminar and I think most of us are dragging a bit. Honi, Bunny and Texas are even slowing down!

But we had another great conversation this morning about the Civil Rights movement and another nice activity planned by Fritz Fischer.

We split into four groups to look at four sets of primary sources and were asked to think of five questions:

• Does the document focus more on the ideals of liberty or equality?
• What does this person think is the method to use to change ideas of race in America?
• Did this person want a radical change? Was this person “anti-American?”
• How does this source relate to the others?
• If you were a HS history teacher, which one document would you use?

What did we look at?

• an audio clip of the first half of King’s I Have a Dream speech
• a series of poems and song lyrics (Paul and Silas, Woke Up This Morning, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, Which Shall Overcome)
• the What We Want / What We believe document from Black Panther Party
• a short clip from Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington

An interesting conversation evolved around the question:

Which of these movements was the most radical?

A typical perspective would argue that the Black Panthers and Malcolm X were more radical in their goals and approaches. Fritz suggests that it was actually King’s approach that was the most radical.

Malcolm and the Black Panthers basically wanted the same thing that whites wanted - a separation between whites and blacks.

King’s active non-violent resistance idea was radically different.

Human nature seems to be that a proper response to violence is more violence. His idea of turning the other cheek was very radical, difficult and “not natural” according to Malcom X. White kids going to school with black kids was a radical idea and was very different than the Black Panthers who argued for separate black communities.

This led to far more difficult questions. Who’s ideas were best for America? What America are we trying to create? To preserve? What impact have these movements had on the America of 2008? What sorts of movements are needed today?

Pretty sure that I don’t have the answers to those questions. One of the themes this week has been the concept of complexity in American history. Race and race relations are much more complex than we think and there are no simple answers.

But I love the process Fritz created of using primary sources to encourage high levels of thinking. My brain is now wrapping around the whole idea of how I could adapt this process with other topics.

In an earlier post I suggested that Google Earth was like the Swiss Army knife of 21st century tools. If GE is the Swiss Army knife, Google Docs has to be at least a screwdriver.

It’s always been a handy gadget and Google has always worked to improve the product.

And now the Google Docs people have done it again by adding templates to the tool. Get a sense of the types of the over 300 templates by checking out the gallery.

It’s pretty simple to use the templates. Simply click on New while logged into Google Docs and on the drop-down menu, select From template.

Handy stuff!

Fritz hiked us up into the Flatirons west of Boulder this afternoon to talk about environmental history.

Nice idea. The concept that where you live impacts how you think and act is one that has been around for a while. But getting up a couple of miles into the foothills provided a great venue for talking about how we view nature and how that view can impact current events.

Long story short?

Fritz had us do two activities. The first on the way up the mountain (can the Flatirons / foothills be called mountains?) and the second once we arrived at a shelter along the trail.

During the first activity, he asked us to be quiet and listen to nature. What did we hear? Answers were varied but similar. Wind. Grass brushing against itself. Birds.

But not until we were prompted did we realize that we also heard footsteps of others on the trail and, far off in the distance, ambient noise from Boulder.

Hold that thought.

Later, during the second activity, he asked us to draw nature. It could be anything. After a few minutes, we passed our exceptional artwork around. Fritz asked us to note what we saw. Again, varied responses but similar. Trees. Animals. FIsh. Water. Mountains. Sun. Grass. Rocks.

Then he asked:

How many people did you see in your drawings?

Just one.

The point? When we think of nature, we think of nature devoid of humans. People have always been part of nature but we’ve constructed an artificial view of nature that doesn’t include us.

We went on to discuss a ton of stuff including some nice conversation about the difference between “conservation” and “preservation.” The ton of stuff is important and it does impact policy today. In ANWR, for example.

But as an educator, I just love the way Fritz used the two activities to hook us into the content and provide an entry point to discussion. Nice stuff!

I need to find a way to adapt this to a GPS activity I’m doing with MS teachers next week. How could you adapt it?

No . . . we’re not talking about the Dallas Cowboys. Because their record over the last ten years is, what . . . like 5 and 101?

We’re talking about real cowboys.

Today’s session at the Gilder Lehrman elementary teachers summer seminar focused on Western Expansion and how America has created and accepted the myth of the cowboy.

Dr. Patty Limerick of Legacy of Conquest fame spoke early this morning about how our view of the West has shifted and changed over the years. Early historian Fredrick Jackson Turner and, later Ray Allen Billington, suggests a fairly linear view of the West. One in which white America both shaped and was shaped by the frontier.

The view has changed - in large part because of Limerick, who suggests in Conquest that the complexity (especially the economics ) of the West can not be so simply defined. She also argues that it may not even be the West. It certainly wasn’t to the Spanish in Mexico or those in Canada.

So some interesting discussions. Being downstream from Colorado along the Arkansas, I was hoping for more about the impact of water rights in the West and how that may play out as more of us move into places where there just might not be enough water.

Fritz Fischer continues to amaze!

A very energetic presentation of how and why the cowboy myth developed followed lunch. With appropriate music in the background (Silverado, Bonanza, etc), Fritz argued that the myth of the rough & tumble, kind to women, tough on sissified Easterners, cigarette smoking, cattle punching, horse riding, hard drinking cowboy has affected American society in a number of ways. Perhaps not for the best.

Politics and foreign policy were two that were discussed.

We viewed images by Remington and Russell, discussed the evolution of Teddy Roosevelt and argued about how TV and movies reinforce the myth. McCain and Obama both wear cowboy hats at the appropriate times and George W. Bush takes foreign leaders to a ranch in Texas to drive pickups. It doesn’t matter that all three have little “cowboy” background.

What matters is that the cowboy myth is still around, perhaps in a different pair of chaps and boots but still part of American culture.

The problem with that is it does a disservice to the historical record and creates an atmosphere that suggests that a person can’t be a true American unless he is a rough & tumble, kind to women, tough on sissified Easterners, cigarette smoking, cattle punching, horse riding, hard drinking kind of guy. It limits how we interact with one another and others around the world.

So . . . what to do? Not sure here. I agree with Fritz. The myth is still around. It does impact, affect and shape us. But confused as to next steps. Never watch Blazing Saddles ever again?

Still in Boulder with the Gilder Lehrman elementary school/primary sources seminar and still having some great conversations!

Today? Which comes first?

Specifically . . . in the United States - did the institution of slavery cause racism or did European racism create American slavery?

Fritz Fischer had us look at a few of the earliest laws of Virginia (1660-1669) establishing the concept of slavery with the guiding question:

What can we learn about slavery and Virginia society by looking just at these primary sources?

Much of the discussion centered around the idea that the laws were passed to codify existing behavior. It was a nice way to introduce the topic and provide some context to the period. Fritz then asked us to look at the documents again and develop a new set of observations based on our deeper understanding of the period.

He then dropped the big one.

Do these laws support the idea of racism creating the American institution of slavery or did the creation of slavery help establish racism?

Following some more discussion, Fritz provided a bit of the published literature from Degler, Handlin, Jordan and Morgan.

Most of the group seemed to agree with Degler and Jordan who suggest that racism came first. If we define racism (in very simple terms) as someone who not only notices racial differences but acts in a position of power in response to those differences, I find it hard to accept the alternative.

Laws were written in Virginia that differentated between African servants and English servants, for example. What was the basis for differentiating? Race.

But so what?

For me, the “so what” relates to today. If slavery comes first, an argument can be made that because slavery has been abolished, racism should disappear. It lets us off the hook. If racism came first, getting rid of slavery doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. We still have work to do.

That’s the message we need to be sharing with our students!

Challenging topic. What are you thinking?

(We had further conversations concerning slave owners of the period. Were they bad or good? Was Thomas Jefferson a “bad” person because he owned slaves, for example?

But that’s for another day. My head hurts from thinking too much right now!)

Was the American Revolutionary War really revolutionary? Was it a true revolution? Dr. Fritz Fischer talked about this late on Monday afternoon.

He started by asking the question:

If you had to think of a shape that describes Colonial American, what would that shape look like?

He suggests that the shape would be a triangle or pyramid with king and parliament at the top of the triangle. White male landowners would be next. Then white males. Then women. Then servants, African slaves and indians.

His question makes sense when you think about it. Isn’t a revolution a radical change? What shape described America after the Treaty of Paris in 1783? Did the shape change?

How did the war change the lives of the people who lived in the newly created United States? When you think about the different groups represented in the triangle, not much changed. Compare the American “Revolution” with that of the French and Russia.

An interesting way to think about the period that is often not discussed in K-12 classrooms. A nice way to introduce the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War, etc. Some of the discussion in the group focused on how the new form of government that developed later in 1789 was revolutionary, it was something different from anything else. So perhaps the seeds of a true revolution were planted as a result of the war, seeds that are still sprouting today.

Whadda ya think?

I’m starting a week at the University of Colorado with Fritz Fischer and Maureen Festi. Fritz is a professor of history at the University of Northern Colorado who focuses on the idea of teaching future history educators. His goal is to better prepare teachers to understand content and quality instruction. Maureen is a fifth grade teacher from Connecticut and the Gilder-Lehrman 2007 Teacher of the Year.

The two are leading 21 of us in a Gilder-Lerhman seminar titled Teaching American History with Primary Sources. Most of “us” are elementary teachers and the goal of the week is to discuss educational best practices.

We spent this morning discussing the clash of cultures between Europeans and Indian Nations in North America. We started by listing adjectives and nouns that came to mind when we think of North American Indian Nations. The list led to a great conversation about that clunky phrase. Why was “indian” used by early explorers? How and why did the phrase “Native American” begin? What is appropriate and why?

Fischer argues that “Indian” is a word that most teachers and students assume was used by Columbus because he thought he was in the East Indies. It is most likely that the word was used because it defines “others” or “the other.” So some negative connotation. Native American is a term that begun as part of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 70s and because it was a term that created by the group itself, it was more acceptable.

Fritz suggests that many Indian groups now prefer Indian Nation.

But the list is a great way to start a conversation about how we view Indians today and how Europeans viewed Indians at the time. What is accurate, what isn’t?
_______________________________

We spent part of the afternoon doing what one teacher called Frozen Theater. A quick overview?

Give kids a photo or painting and ask them to fold a piece of paper in half. The kids should be trained to look at parts of an image by looking at specific parts of the image. They should select a person or particular part of the image to think about.

On the left side of their folded paper, kids should describe what is happening, what the person may be feeling and what the person may be thinking. At the bottom of their page, ask them to describe the theme or message that the artist or photographer is trying to create.

An option at this point is to provide a set of documents that kids can read to gain a further sense of the event. Kids should then recreate the event depicted in the image by “freezing” in place as a group. Kids should then take turns briefly describing how their character is feeling. No props are allowed.

After the the Frozen Theater, have kids reflect on their paper by asking them to describe how their feelings have changed as a result. Some pretty powerful stuff!

We used the image of Washington crossing the Delaware. Good times!

During my second year as a middle school teacher, I encountered my first passively non-compliant student. (I’m sure there were some my first year but I was just too clueless!)

John was not a classroom management problem but he very clearly was choosing not to participate in class, not to complete assignments and seemed completely comfortable with the forgone conclusion that he would not pass my class.

But I noticed that he was very successful in art class. John’s art teacher noted that he was a great cartoonist. Long story short? I offered John the option of creating work in comic strip format.

Essay on Lewis & Clark? Draw me a comic strip outlining the purpose of the trip and where the trip took place.

Veen diagram about causes of the Civil War? Political cartoon about states rights.

We know that our kids are visual learners and enjoy working with multimedia. One of the ways to encourage kids to work with text, documents and content is with comics and comic strips.

But what if our kids don’t have the skills that John did? Are there tools out there that all kids can use? Glad you asked! Here’s a few:

Comic Life is the one of the best tools around for creating comics. It is cross-platform and there are discounts for educational uses. You can download a free trial version to try it and the web site has a nice gallery of examples. There are also some nice resources online for educators. These are good too.

I also like Comiqs.

• “a service that lets our users create and share their comic-style stories with the community. We aim to provide our users with easy to use tools that transforms their most cherished and most memorable photographs into something fun. We also aim to build to build a fun and light-hearted community where people can hang out to have a laugh or two.”

Here’s a few ideas for using Comiqs.

There are a couple of others that you may want to try out. Comics Sketch is one. Pikistrips is another.

Give them a try and be sure to have fun!