2014 Defining Moments

This is a bittersweet post to write for me, as it is my last one I will compose at MRHMS.  These past 4 years teaching at MRH have been amazing, largely because of all of the amazing and awesome students I have had the privilege to teach.  The students are the reason I do what I do, and I am so thankful and grateful for the hundreds of kids I was able to teach--and learn from--these past 4 years.

This fall I will begin a new adventure, and use this blog to document that.  I will be moving to Ursuline Academy to teach technology.  As much as I hate to leave MRH, Ursuline is where I've been called to teach, because my passions lie in technology, and educating others about all of the awesome tools they can use in their projects, and teachers can use in their classrooms.  Stay tuned this fall for this new adventure I will embark on in teaching!

I wanted to share with you all some of the capstone digital stories--Defining Moments--that my 8th graders just completed as their final project in 8th grade.  I shared 2 years ago some of the Defining Moments from my last loop of 8th graders, and I wanted to continue that tradition and share some from my current group of kiddos.

First off, if you don't know what a Defining Moment is, watch this:

Now that you know what a Defining Moment is, I want to share some of these amazing group of students' digital stories.  Each on of these tell a unique story about a moment or event that has changed and shaped their lives.  If you click here you can visit the entire playlist.

I hope you enjoyed these...and I hope you've enjoyed my posts these last several years about our expeditions, adventures, and learning at MRHMS!  Here's to a new chapter in education!

Google Tour Builder: Civil War Timeline

Earlier this year my students did a Google Tour Builder with the Donner Party--they mapped out the Donner Party's route west via Google's new Tour Builder.

This project was a huge success--for both the students and me!  The Google program was easy to use, and even in the beta version it had minor bumps and hiccups when the students used it.

I've been wanting to do a timeline-type activity for the Civil War, but wasn't impressed with any timeline software out there.  We've used Timeglider in the past, which is pretty good (and free!), but I didn't really like the appearance of it.  I then thought, "Wait, why couldn't we use Google Tour Builder to make a timeline?!"  It would be perfect: each battle/event would be a new "location", and with Tour Builder you can input start dates, end dates, information, location, pictures, and oodles of details.  This would be perfect!  Plus, the students already know how to use it since we used it earlier this year.  So I decided we'd go this route with our timeline.

Students were given several specific events/battles that they'd need on their timeline, along with what information each of their "locations" would need.

The students set out to create a timeline using Google Tour Builder.  The results were awesome--and definitely a much better looking (and interactive and very visual, with the map serving as the background) timeline than anything else I think I could have had them done.

Check out a few of the students' timelines below.  Once again, I'm super impressed with what they created and came up with!

Civil War Timeline 1

Civil War Timeline 2

Civil War Timeline 3

Civil War Timeline 4

Clementine Hunter Paintings, Take 2

Two years ago I posted about our Clementine Hunter art integration project we did with our fabulous art teacher, Mrs. Schepker.  Clementine Hunter was the daughter of former slaves, and was a self-taught artist.  The subject of her paintings were the slave memories and stories that she heard from her parents and (former-slave) grandparents.

Clementine's style was very primitive and childlike.

I loved the way this project turned out so much two years ago I decided we needed to do it again.  It combined art with primary sources: the perfect integration piece for our Civil War unit.

The students were first asked to analyze 8 different primary source slave quotes in detail.  We spent some time in class analyzing these and discussing these.  Students then were introduced to Clementine's work and her style and technique were discussed and critiqued with Mrs. Schepker.  Students then selected one of the 8 quotes they analyzed that they connected with to then paint--in Clementine's style--on a canvas.  They sketched their painting first, then got out the acrylic paint and started replicating her style.

Once students finished their painting, they were given these directions to reflect on their own painting, the quote they selected to illustrate, and Clementine's style.  Students used the screencasting feature built in on QuickTime on their laptops to do this video reflection.  They then uploaded their reflections to the class YouTube channel--that was how they "turned in" their painting and reflection.

Check out some of their final Clementine Hunter paintings and reflection videos below...you can click here for the entire playlist.  I am so proud of these kiddos and how their art integration project turned out!

African American Life in the 1800s Video Challenge

It is no surprise that I love a good video challenge.  We actually have done a video challenge this year already (Lewis & Clark), so the students knew the routine with this challenge: they would take the information that we had been talking about, reading, and studying all week and synthesize it into a movie (using iMovie) in one class period.  I sure do love a good challenge--especially a video one.

After learning about how African Americans lived in the 1800s in the US (both as free and slaves), students had to create a video in just one class period (they actually got until 8pm that night to get it uploaded to the class YouTube channel) that included all of the following information:

African American Life in the 1800s

Video Challenge Directions

---

past video examples

Your Video MUST Include:

• use information/pictures from Lesson 19 and the Zinn Reading
• at least 6 pictures
• sound (either spoken text or background music)
• at least 3 important details about African American life in the 1800s
• details about how free blacks in the south lived
• details about how free blacks in the north lived
• details about how slaves lived
• creative, engaging, and informative
• uploaded to the class YouTube channel by 8pm TODAY! (in iMovie, go to “share” then select “YouTube”--make sure you title your movie with YOUR NAME--then type in the YouTube account info below!)
• username: XXXXXXXXX
• password: XXXXXX

Once again, I am blown away at what these students can create when given a challenge and a limited time to do it! Check out a few of their videos below or click HERE to go to the entire playlist from 2012 and 2014. Bravo 8th graders!!

19th Century Reform Movement Posters

Recently in social studies we've been looking at various reform movements of the 19th century.  Our friend John Green from Crash Course gave us a really nice introduction to these reform movements before we dove into our chapter in History Alive! about the movements we would specifically look at.

We focused our lens on 5 particular reform movements of the 1800s: prison reform, education reform, women's rights, abolition movement, and the spirit of reform.  After we spent some time in class reading about these and doing a few activities with them, the students picked out of a hat one of these five reform movement that they'd focus on for their poster research project.

Using the directions below (or here), students set out to create a detailed poster on their reform movement.  We had spent some time looking at past posters that were advocating for a particular movement so students could get an idea of what a good poster looked like (although theirs would have more words and text on it, since I was requiring them to include more than most posters include :).

Directions: Using your Lesson 17 reading and notes, create a poster (using Pages, Google Drawing, Keynote, Prezi, Glogster, or another app) that includes ALL of the following requirements about the 19th century reform movement you’ve been given.

Your Poster MUST INCLUDE:

1. What your reform movement is (title)
2. When your reform movement took place (date)
3. What your reform movement did, and the impact it had
4. At least 2 people who supported your movement
5. At least 2 pictures
6. At least 2 things that your reform movement did well
7. At least 2 things that your reform movement could have improved upon
8. Your reform movement’s legacy (what impact did it leave on the US?)
9. How your reform movement has impacted TODAY’s society (you need a specific example for this one...you may need to do some outside research!)
10. CREATIVE, ENGAGING, and INFORMATIVE!

What I really liked about this project is that students got to choose from a variety of mediums in which they could use to create their poster. One of my own professional goals this year is to give more student choice when it comes to demonstrating their knowledge and what they know; so I felt that this project really opened up some freedom to create a poster in various different formats--Glogster, Prezi, google docs, Keynote, Pages, Murally, etc...

Below are a few examples and links to the posters students created. Once again, I am super impressed with what the students created! They are so creative and really embraced the medium they picked to highlight their reform movement and detail all of the important information about it and the impact that it has had on today's world as well. Enjoy!

Education Reform (Prezi)

Education Reform 2 (Prezi)

The Spirit of Reform (Glogster)

Prison Reform (Glogster)

Abolition Movement (Google Drawing)

Andrew Jackson's Facebook Profile

A couple years ago my 8th graders made Facebook profiles for Andrew Jackson.  I really liked this activity because it had them synthesize the material they read about Jackson into a modern-day social media profile.  I had them use a Pages template to complete their profile for Jackson.

Social media is such a huge part of our world today--and the lives' of these 8th graders!--so I thought it'd be great to bring a little bit of it into our lesson.  Like we did last week with our War of 1812 twitter challenge, we took Facebook and used history to make it come alive.

Since Facebook is blocked at school, we had to improvise a little bit.  There are some great sites out there like Fakebook that allow students to create Facebook statuses; however, I really liked the traditional Facebook layout because it asks for so much great information that can really give you a good bio or overview of a person.  So I just whipped up a template for the students to use and then they got busy creating their Facebook profiles for Andrew Jackson.  We also talked about how when they were going to list Jackson's "friends" that these didn't have to be literal "friends", but instead could be what we think of as Facebook friends: people you may not necessarily be "real" friends with, but you are on social media because you are curious as to what they're up to.

Here are a few of the profiles students created.  Once again, their creativity shines through!  The "current status" portion is my favorite: they sure come up with some funny statuses that Jackson probably could have said! :)  Enjoy!

Donner Party Skype Chat

Recently in our Manifest Destiny unit we have been talking about the Donner Party (remember this post about using Google Tour builder to map the Donner's route?), and I thought it would be cool to see if we could talk to actual Donner Party historians from Truckee (near where the Donner Party got stranded).

After a little searching, I found The Donner Memorial State Park and grabbed a contact email from their webpage.  After my email was forwarded around to the correct person who could help me with what I was inquiring about (doing a video chat with a Donner Party historian), I was put in contact with an awesome person who wanted to help us out and set up a Skype chat! 

After many email exchanges and picking a time that worked the best for both us and the historian and park ranger, my students developed some great questions that they'd ask the historians.  Unfortunately only one of my classes was actually going to be participating, but the rest of the classes got to hear and see a bit of the Skype chat after it was over.

Donner Party Skype Chat Questions

• Tell us a little about the Donner Party.  Is there any cool facts that not many people know about in regards to the Donner Party?
• What do you find most interesting about the Donner Party’s story?
• Why didn’t the Donner Party turn back once they got a warning?
• Why did you become a Donner Party historian?
• Were the Donner Party actual cannibals, or is this something that is still a controversy today?
• Was James Reed really one of the group’s leaders who didn’t listen to the warnings and signs about taking the “short cut”?
• Was the Donner Party the most tragic westward expansion party?  Were there any other parties that had experiences like the Donner Party?
• Who was the first person to die?
• If we were to visit the Donner Party Memorial today, what would we find?  
• What did they do with the remains of the bodies?  Bury them?  Were there any left?
• Who all survived?  Were there any kid survivors?
• If it snowed 6 feet, how did they walk around their camp?  How do you even set up a camp in so much snow?
• Would you want to be someone moving westward if you didn't know about the Donner pass?
• Why didn't the Donner turn back when they got warnings about Hastings Cutoff?
• How do we know today about everything that happened with the Donner Party?  Did they keep diaries or journals?

• Did anyone commit suicide, or did they all die of “natural” causes or diseases?

The chat went fantastically well! My 4th period social studies students totally rocked it; it was completely student-led, and they asked the historian and ranger some great and insightful questions. It really was a super cool experience (I think on both the historian and students' end!!) and I really hope to do more of these in the future with other historians in other content areas. As much as I love Google hangouts, that option for a video chat wasn't available for us this time, so Skype Classroom was a good alternative to use that worked out great for both ends!

The War of 1812 Twitter Challenge

A couple years ago we did a twitter challenge with the War of 1812.  This year I wanted to do the same thing, but actually take it a step further and modernize history.  Students wouldn't just tweet on paper, they would actually take their tweet and LIVE TWEET IT on the twitter account I set up for this activity, @the_war_of_1812.

Students had to synthesize their reading, notes, and discussion questions that we did in class the day before and turn them into a 140-character tweet that summarizes the War of 1812.  They could use text speak (b4 = before, 1 = won, etc...) so they could get as much text in their tweet as possible.

Students first tweeted on paper, then grabbed our classroom's Nexus 7 tablet and live tweeted.  At the end of class we looked at all of the tweets on Storify to see what everyone had to say.  Their exit ticket out of class was not only live-tweeting their tweet, but handing in their paper tweet as well.

If you click HERE you can check out our Storify story.  Enjoy!

Lewis & Clark Expedition Challenge 2

A couple years ago with my last loop of 8th graders, we did a Lewis & Clark Expedition Video Challenge.  It went awesome.  The students loved it--they were glued to their macs for the entire class period creating and editing their movie, and they had to be: they only had ONE class period to get their movie completed and uploaded to the class YouTube channel.  However, they weren't going into this challenge cold turkey: we had spent the previous 2 days discussing the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis & Clark.  They had a storyboard and a scavenger hunt activity to pull information from for their movie.

Here's the directions they were tasked with for their video (and note: they did have untit 5pm to upload their movie...just in case they didn't have time to do it in class and/or the YouTube class username/password was log-jammed).

After a quick intro in class (and a viewing of a past example), they got to work on their videos.  It was awesome seeing them so tuned-in and taking their work from the previous days and turning it into an iMovie. 

Check out a few of the students' videos below (or you can check out the entire Lewis & Clark video challenge playlist from 2012 and 2014 here)...I hope you are impressed with their one-class period video products as I am!