Commemorating the Great War with National Archives iPad app, resources, lesson plans

During the few hours that she has available between reading the Court of Thorns and Roses Series and finishing the Wii Zelda video game, my daughter spends a couple days a week as a volunteer intern at the National Archives Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. She’s had the chance to organize a ton of donated primary sources, catalog teacher materials, and watched a general from Fort Riley’s 1st Infantry Division cut a cake in half with a sword.

So . . . she’s already having a better summer that most of us can hope for.

Today I got an email from her sharing a sweet new online tool that highlights some of NARA’s resources surrounding America’s entry into World War One. (NARA has so many different teacher tools available that it can be difficult keeping up with all of it. It’s nice having a member of the crack Eisenhower staff working on the inside to keep me up to date.) So I figured I’d pass on the NARA goodness.

The United States entered World War One on April 6, 1917. To honor the 100th anniversary, the National Archives created

Top Ten Posts of 2016 #6: Integrating technology. Yes. It’s different than simply using technology

I’m sure most of you are doing the same thing I’m doing right now. Spending time with family and friends, watching football, catching up on that book you’ve been dying to read, eating too much, and enjoying the occasional nap.

But if you need a break from all of the holiday cheer, we’ve got you covered. Between now and the first week in January, you’ll get a chance to re-read the top ten History Tech posts of 2016. Enjoy the reruns. See you in a couple of weeks!

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I’m spending part of  today getting ready for my METC presentation next week.

And as part of my presentation prep, I’m exploring what it really means to integrate technology. I started with the idea that just because teachers or their students use technology as part of teaching and learning, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are actually integrating technology into what they’re doing.

That idea morphed into the next:

Post-It Plus and 4 other cool iPad apps

Though some schools are moving to Chromebooks, many are still effectively using iPads in 1-to-1 settings or off carts. And it’s always nice to have a few new iPad tools lying around to experiment with. These five apps are some of my latest favorites.

Later this week? Five helpful Chromebook apps and extensions.

Post-It Plus

Collect, sort, and share student responses with actual paper sticky notes. Open Post-it Plus and create a new board. Then snap a photo of one or multiple sticky notes. Post-it Plus digitizes them, allowing you to sort the notes and share the board as a PDF.

A fun way to do word sorts, vocab review, or to brainstorm.

Floors & Bloxels
Have you always wanted to create your own video game but never knew where to start? Floors offers a simple way to create & play games – you and your kids use specific shapes on graph paper, then use the app to take a picture of your creation, and the app creates your games based on those shapes. Get free lesson plans at their website.

Bloxels works in a similar way but uses colored blocks on a matrix instead of drawn shapes. Both are perfect tools that can be used to blend literacy, STEM topics, and social studies content at different grade levels and disciplines.

Paper 53
Designed to look and seem like picking up a notebook, Paper has a handful of powerful tools that enhance the sketching experience. It’s fantastic for doodling and exploring ideas, creating beautiful illustrations, and emphasizing handwriting skills. You can sketch images and notes onto the app, and combine them with written text, photos, or checklists. It also comes with features for sharing your drafts with colleagues as PDF, Keynote or Powerpoint files.

A great way to incorporate Sketchnoting into your classroom.

Liquid Text
LiquidText offers a fast, tactile way to review, gather, and organize information across all your documents and webpages – then apply the results to writing reports, meeting prep, or simply studying. Pull out key facts and connect them together, squeeze a document to compare sections, comment on multiple pages at once, build upon your thoughts, and much more.

PokemonGo: 21st century geocaching, lesson plans, & all around game changer

Maybe you missed this. Maybe you’ve been following the presidential election or the Brexit thing or bemoaning the fact that the 2015 World Series champions have lost seven of their last ten games and are now seven games back of Cleveland. You know, something trivial.

So let me catch you up.

A free mobile phone app just changed the world.

Okay. That may be just a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s not far off. Since last week, more people are using this app than Twitter. During that same period, the market value of the app’s manufacturer bumped up nine billion – that’s billion with a B – dollars. And all over the world, millions have jumped off their couches and are, wait for it

Using Graphite: App smashing in the social studies classroom

If you’re not spending time on the Graphite web site, uh . . .  what are you doing instead? Because I’m gonna suggest that you’ve got a problem with your priorities.

Looking for a handy site that helps you locate useful apps, games, and websites that also provides ratings and reviews? That also includes teacher feedback? That has awesome search and sorting functions? That organizes all of its goodies by Common Core – giving you the chance to find activities aligned to ELA literacy standards for history?

What you’re looking for is Graphite

. . . a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.

Their team of professional educators – early childhood development experts, doctorates in education, and teachers with hands-on classroom experience – rates each website, game, and app on Graphite based on their detailed rubric. Every product on Graphite is rigorously reviewed to dig deeper into what and how your students will learn with it.

Start with the basics. Head straight

Battleground 538 and 5 other apps to increase election fever

I love election season.

I hate politicians that say stupid things and do stupid stuff. But I love elections.

Because when you think about, the democratic election process is such an incredibly unique event. Try and ignore for a minute the billion dollars worth of Koch Brothers PAC money and the racist comments and the focus on soundbites and lack of policy discussions that might actually improve lives. And focus instead on the amazing process that ends with a peaceful transfer of power in one of the most powerful countries in the world.

It’s a system that’s worked fairly well for over 200 years.

And we need to continue sharing that idea with our students. The problem? The process is more complicated than it looks. Take, for example, an article describing why Donald Trump really doesn’t have a chance of winning the Republican nomination. Like most things, the political process (especially the primary system) is much more complicated and nuanced than pundits and politicians seem to suggest.

How can we help kids start to understand the process? Use more tech. Specifically, start using mobile apps that simulate the process in ways that make sense. Today you get a few of my new favorites.