The day before a break

Good morning colleagues! I hope you are all feeling rested, especially since many of you (myself included) have this whole next week off from school!

Yesterday I was thinking about how it was the Friday before a break. My broadcast students always watch the broadcast on Fridays so that a) they actually view their work and compare/contrast it to other students' work and b) they look critically at all segments and provide feedback. The broadcasts range between 10-25 minutes and this week timed at around 15 minutes. I knew that between watching the show and filling out the feedback form that the students would have about 15 more minutes of class. What could I have the students do during that time?

Isn't that a common problem... what to do the day before a break?

View this post on Instagram

Spending our last minutes before Thanksgiving break brainstorming ideas for future broadcasting segments. • • #broadcast #broadcasting #film filming #filmmaking #Mac #school #middleschool #education #students

A post shared by SMS Broadcasting (@smsbcast) on Nov 16, 2018 at 7:23am PST

I was lucky... Thursday afternoon I was digging through folders on Google Drive and stumbled across something I did with students last year: brainstorming ideas for future broadcasting segments. I knew that my current students are equally as creative, so I gave my students time to brainstorm in small groups and come up with ideas for the broadcast. They came up with some great ideas including new and exciting segments for the "Christmas broadcast."

Here are some other ideas for what to do the day before a break:

• Peer feedback. When I taught Social Studies, I was obsessed with DBQs. I would make the due date the day before a break so that I could grade their essays over break. The day before time off was perfect for the students to use a peer review day before turning in their compositions. 
• Educational game. I didn't particularly enjoy assigning a test the day before a break, but I never minded reviewing. Playing Scattegories or Taboo where the topic deals with what students recently learned (whether that week, unit, or semester) get them thinking about and discussing content information. At the same time, students are being competitive and (hopefully) having fun. 
• Blogging. Have students blog about what they will do over their time off. You could have students make a short video using Adobe Spark Video or post on Flipgrid. Get kids talking about their lives then have students talk to each other. Use the last day, when kids are often in an excellent mood, to build up your classroom community.
• Video writing prompts. Ask students a very open-ended prompt and have them answer using a video application. Adobe Spark Video works well with Chromebooks and Explain Everything works well with iPads. Students can be as creative as they want. Post student work on your blog, website, or YouTube. Offer extra credit over the break to students that watch and comment on others' videos.
• Sketchnote. Use the day before a break to teach students how to sketchnote. If you've already shown your students the basics, give them an open-ended prompt (or a topic like "Christmas") and have students design a sketchnote about the idea. 
• Podcasts. If you have a couple of days, have students write a creative story. You can make it about your content or about the holiday that students might celebrate. Students can then use Garageband (an example) to record their podcasts. If you want to take it up a notch, have students design their story like an "old-timey" radio show. 
• Goosechase/scavenger hunt. Get students up out of their seats and out of the classroom. Send them on a scavenger hunt where the clues are content (or holiday) based. 
• Reflection. Use the day before a break to have the students update their digital (or non-digital) portfolios. Give students time to study and think about their work, then post a reflection about what they've learned/how they feel about their work. 

These are just some ideas that I've done, seen, or heard about. Please don't just show a movie before a break... think outside the box and get your kids to be creative! 

Have a happy Thanksgiving! I'll be back on December 1st!

- Rachel

@historicalipad
My Teacherspayteachers website

Helping Students Research

Good morning colleagues! This week researching in class came up two different times. The first time research came up was when my former teammate needed some advice to help students analyze Civil War historical figures. The second time research was in a conversation was talking about some students that are ineligible for track because of failing a research assessment in math.

It is very evident that students struggle with researching a topic. I think the main reason is that students are overwhelmed with information as they investigate, because they expect instant results (instant gratification), and because learners have never been taught HOW and WHY they should research a topic.

This is not a blog post where I wag my finger at other people and their inadequate teaching of research in their class. I am less than a year out from being a Social Studies teacher myself, and I will own that I did a poor job teaching my students. This post is, instead, about how I think we can get students to research thoroughly.

I believe that this problem can be resolved through teaching students advanced Google searching skills. If a student is studying Abraham Lincoln, there are 10,500,000 results. TEN MILLION RESULTS! What if the information that they need is hiding on page 36 of the results?! I've long been a proponent of teaching students advanced Google searching skills. I haven't always been the best at explaining it to the kids, but it's essential to help students dig through the waste of the internet to find the diamond. I even put together an infographic of my (personally) most used Google search terms when I research. If a student is analyzing Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on Google, there are 646,000 results. "Abraham Lincoln" "Gettysburg Address" site:.edu has 8,650 results. "Abraham Lincoln" "Gettysburg Address" site:.gov has 7,550 results. Both of those searches have many results to wade through, but it's approximately 98% fewer results than the original search AND all results come from an educational or government website. "Abraham Lincoln" "Gettysburg Address" site:nytimes.com has only 343 results. We have to help students "dig" to find the information that they need. If you have your students doing general research, I would encourage you to force students to find information from .edu and .gov pages, and maybe even ask them to use a reputable news source.

If you want students to slow down as they work, SLOW THEM DOWN and give them time. I would encourage you to do a class research project at the beginning of the year. Work together as a class using the same search queries and search results. Have students look at the author to identify bias and to evaluate the source. Have students discuss what makes a result better than another. Force students to find a wide variety of sources as they research. Then, as students get better at slowing down, start giving them more of a challenge. Give them questions that cannot be "Googled," i.e., have them form an opinion about the subject and find evidence to support their answer. It makes it much more difficult to plagiarize, AND if they're passionate about the topic (or their opinion), they will invest and want to find the answers.

Why should we make our students investigate a variety of topics? I think the better question is, do we want our students to be self-sufficient, well-rounded, life-long learners? I feel like every teacher would answer yes to that question. But not every student is going to be an academic for the rest of their lives. Some kids may end up as a mechanic, a doctor, or a secretary. No matter what occupation someone has in the future, they will likely have to do some research. We seek more efficient methods for doing our job, and in an ever-changing technological world, how we do our jobs changes. We have to be able to adapt to those changes through making and understanding that evolution. So after we conquer the "why" with our students, we have to teach them the HOW. Students need to learn how to use advanced skills with Google searching, they need to understand what a good source looks like, they need time management skills through assigning small chunks of work at a time, and they need to cite the sources that they use to avoid plagiarizing someone else's work. In the end, if you want students to be excellent researchers, you have to teach them to be thorough and thoughtful researchers. Never expect that the teacher they had the previous year showed them anything about research. Take ownership of the students that you have, right now, in your class.

As I wrote out my blog, I realized there was an extra problem - meeting the needs of ALL of our students. This problem was always my most challenging. I did a decent job at differentiating and accommodating my assignments, except for research. You have to scaffold inquiry for students, whether that's finding and vetting websites for them, creating research cloze notes, or even putting students into homogeneous groups for a research project. I would also think about doing small mini-lessons for research or even severely chunking a student's time in your class as they research. It is hard for kids to stay focused past 20 minutes. How can you use that to your advantage? Can you make 20-minute research blocks available for your students so that they're not doing the same thing for 60 minutes?




Hopefully, this gives you some food for thought as you are thinking about an upcoming research project (or how you can improve a previous activity)! Thanks for reading... I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

"Teach Like a Pirate" book review

Hello to a VERY snowy Saturday at a great coffee shop in Colorado Springs! I was definitely MIA last weekend as I got SLAMMED with a nasty cold. I didn't get the flu (thank goodness), but I did miss three days of school. I spent four days laid up in bed (minus watching the Super Bowl). It was definitely something... But I am well rested, back to getting to the gym, and am drinking some chai tea.

I decided to change it up this week and do my very first book review! I discussed with Mari, a fellow #sunchatblogger, about blogging what we're reading. She's jumped in and created a book-focused blog! I'm not entirely there yet but did want to blog about a book that we're studying for Skyview's mentoring group. (I'm a mentor for another teacher. Have I mentioned that? I still struggle with the fact that I'm helping a new teacher, even if it is the second year of me doing this.)

ANYWAY. We're reading Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. The book is split into three parts. The first part is called "Teach like a PIRATE" (passion, immersion, rapport, ask and analyze, transformation, enthusiasm). Even though he explained that PIRATE was an acronym on the first page, I didn't read closely enough to realize this acronym until I was 3/4th of the way through the book. I kept thinking, "What does this have to do with being a pirate?" Duh Rachel. Get 👏🏻 It 👏🏻Together 👏🏻!

We were tasked with reading the first part before our mentoring meeting this past Wednesday. We were given a handout with discussion questions. As an introvert, I was not very excited to do a full group discussion. I wanted to discuss the book with "my people" in the building because I can easily communicate and collaborate with these people. As our whole group conversation continued, I shut down. I'll admit that I acted like a baby because the conversation did not go as I believed it should. That's a "me" thing that I have to get over.

The meeting did push me to read the rest of the book ASAP. Part two provides "hooks" to engage your students in your classroom. If a teacher doesn't walk away with one, ONE idea to incorporate into their classroom then they have <begin blunt honesty> a fixed, instead of growth, mindset. I legitimately have no other answer than this <end blunt honesty>. Part three is about "building a better pirate" which is just a way to conclude the book by looking at next steps in the classroom.

So what are my thoughts on this book? I'm going to bullet point the list because it's how I think, collaborate, and function :)

• As an introvert, this book makes me uncomfortable (in a healthy way) as it pushes me to be more creative, innovative, and "out there" than I already am. I have to work on being more silly (I don't like looking stupid) and be more humor. On days when I'm crabby, I still need to put on a show. 
• Dave talks about bringing personal passion into your classroom. I started doing that the last two years through sharing good news. I often talked about my photography and shared my pictures with my students. A few asked for my Instagram handle which I gladly shared. This has spilled into my current position as a broadcasting teacher, and now I take pictures of my students working on the broadcasts (and a few of them have asked to post as well!)
• The six words: "It's easy for you. You're creative." BOOM! This spoke to me because I've heard people use these six words against me. Yes, I'm creative, but it's because I practice. It's because I'm not afraid to take risks and try something new. This section made me realize that I need to share more about my failures in the classroom. It's taken a lot of failure and mistakes to get where I am now. The last six years has not always been easy. Turns out I can "fake it until I make it." My colleagues are none the wiser, but they should be... 
• "If your students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching in an empty room?" When I taught history, I know that some students would show. Teaching broadcast, I've heard on the regular that students come to school for my class. If I ever go back to teaching history, I would really challenge myself to make my social studies class like my broadcasting class. 
• If you don't read the whole book, please check out part two, the "hooks" section. Dave covers thirty-two different thematic hooks with multiple ideas for each. This part is helpful for new teachers, to give them ideas, and for experienced teachers, to encourage them to refresh their curriculum. 

I am quite glad that I finished reading this book. It cemented a lot about what I've already done, and what I currently do, as a classroom teacher. It also pushed me to continue to grow and learn so that I can fulfill my promise that I made in my phone interview for Skyview nine years ago... "I am a good teacher, but someday, I'm going to be a great teacher. You want me on your staff."

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Successful "back to school" nights with 1:1 devices

Good morning, colleagues!

I. Am. Exhausted. It's been a long two weeks in my new job, mostly because I was required to attend three "back to school" nights for the three, grade level iPad teams. This was my first time attending three different grade level meetings, and it was an experience!

When I first starting teaching 1:1, we did not have a special back to school night for 1:1 students and parents. We still had parents attending our traditional back to school night with the entire staff. It worked okay, but parents had a lot of questions, and the teachers did not always have the answers. We, as a 1:1 staff, realized that we needed to place more importance on meeting the students' and parents' needs when it came to the iPads. So three years ago we started having separate  1:1 back to school nights.

They were a disaster. The first year we were in the gym, and no one notified the custodial staff that we were having a special event? The custodial staff turns off the air conditioning at night to save electricity/money. So we had more than 150 parents sitting in a gym with no air conditioning. It was miserable. So last year, we notified the custodial staff AND decided to meet in our classrooms. Unfortunately, the air conditioning still could not keep up, and it was hot... not as bad, but still terrible.

So this year, we split 6th, 7th, and 8th grade nights, and held the meetings in the cafeteria which is the coolest room in the entire building. We held the 8th grade meeting first, and it still did not go well. What were the biggest issues? 1) The wifi was unable to process so many people on devices in one room. We had an open wifi so that students could log into their devices. I have a suspicion that parents and students also connected their personal devices (hey, free wifi!). We found out later that we really can only have 90 devices connected per Meraki box. We had two boxes set up in the cafeteria but then discovered that one was not fully connected by an IT specialist. WHOOPS. 2) Most of the 8th grade parents had students on a 1:1 team since 6th grade, so they didn't need all of the information they were given. They were itching to get out of there, but our principal was planning on a 90-minute meeting.

So after a not great night, my principal, our 21st C specialist, and I got together to discuss how to make this better. We knew we needed to have it figured out before our 6th grade meeting. The good news is that I feel like we finally mastered the formula! Even one of the 6th grade teachers agreed :)

#1: Parents were given the iPad when they came in the door. This was not any different than what we'd done in the past, but we had directions on the screen for how to log in to the iPad. This meant that the wifi was not overwhelmed with too many devices at once.

Parents also filled out a questionnaire once they got connected.

#2: Teachers presented information about their classes. My principal told them she wanted the teachers to present, between the four of them, for 30-45 minutes. LOL. By the last night, she told them to talk for no more than five minutes each! Parents had access to their presentation slide deck, and if they had questions, they could stick around to address the teachers.

#3: I went over logging in directions one more time and explained why the questionnaire was necessary. I then told parents that they could stick around and get logged in, or they could finish at home. Then I dismissed them to check out. We finished the 7th and 6th grade meetings in less than 60 minutes (compared to 90 minutes for 8th grade). Getting the parents out promptly was incredibly important.

So, if you are starting 1:1 teams in your school or you haven't held a special "back to school" night for your 1:1 teams, I encourage you to think about trying this next year :)

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week! 

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Summer breeze... makes me feel fine!

Welcome colleagues! Well, it has been QUITE a year! I cannot believe that I survived and that the year actually went by quicker than I thought. Though I had many ups and downs, this was easily the best year of teaching I've ever had. I'm starting to feel like I understand HOW to teach. Ironic considering I'm not teaching history next year...

Since it is the end of the year, I wanted to reflect on my #oneword2017 challenge and also talk about my summer goals.

#oneword2017: I blogged back in January about my New Year's resolutions. One of my #sunchat blogging collaborators mentioned that maybe my word should be self-care. I took that idea and RAN with it! Ever since taking on self-care as my mantra, the past six months have felt magnificent. And it really was little ways that I started taking care of myself which made a big difference. I bought a new Fitbit and have been working out consistently. I made a switch to a low FODMAP diet which has helped with a lot of my health issues (and dropped my "healthy" weight down three pounds). I uploaded my photography to our TV's Chromecast, so our TV is like a photo gallery. I've read 24 books this year, got caught up with Game of Thrones, and am obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale. I've spent quality time with friends this year, visited my sister in Pennsylvania twice, and missed the last two days of school for my nephew's graduation. My self-care goal has changed my mindset for the better!

Part of my self-care regimen for this summer is preparing for my new job. I know that people have messaged me, inquiring about what my new job entails. I will be a part-time broadcasting teacher and part-time technology specialist. As the broadcasting teacher, I am responsible for teaching students to use digital equipment to become engaging storytellers. The select seventh and eighth-grade students are responsible for putting together "Skyview News" once a week. I have BIG shoes to fill, and I am nervous and overwhelmed (but of course excited). I feel like I'm back to my first year of teaching where I was one step ahead of the students, but that's not a bad thing! As the technology specialist, I ensure that desktops, Chromebooks, and iPads in the building are available and ready for the teachers. As far as I know, I will also be responsible for building curriculum and training for the staff (and potentially district staff) so that our school continues to move forward.

Other goals for the summer?

• I'm presenting for the first time at a Google Summit! I'm presenting on visual essays, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. I need to put that presentation together... and practice! I despise public speaking, but I have to get over it, right?
• Take more pictures. Duh. And submit my photos to the Iowa State Fair. They're printed... I just need to MAIL THEM.

• Build a Google Sheets course as part of the POWER Zone Innovators curriculum. Still figuring out what to teach, but it's always good to get my name out there!
• Continue to build my educator digital portfolio. If I want my students to see the purpose of their own portfolio, it is only fitting to have an example.
• Hopefully, take a vacation in July. Maybe Mexico? 

Thanks for all of the support over this last school year - it's hard to believe that I've been blogging for almost a year! Enjoy your summer, and I'll see you in a couple months... or maybe sooner if I'm feeling inspired :)

And because it's part of my self-care regimen, enjoy this summer playlist... on me!

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Visual Essays

Greetings colleagues! I am writing to you this week as I'm finishing up my LAST unit of the school year! In fact, it is my LAST unit as a Social Studies teacher (for now). I recently accepted a job as the broadcasting teacher and technology specialist in my school. I'm excited but super overwhelmed. My job is going to look so different next year that I cannot picture it right now. This summer - it's so close!

But I digress. The unit that we just finished up was over Reconstruction in the United States. Yes, the Civil War is quite significant, but Reconstruction certainly changed the United States for a good 90 years or so, plus has lingering consequences today. To get my students to understand its impact, I had them do the DBQ Project's Reconstruction DBQ while also doing a case study on a modern case of racism (within the last five years). I felt it was important for students to see related connections - it also makes history more relevant!

The culmination of each DBQ is a 5-6 paragraph essay. I'll be honest; it's the end of the year, and I definitely didn't want to grade another essay! So I had my students do what I call a "visual" essay. This is when the students follow the same process as creating an essay, but in the end, they take the writing process and create something visual. The best three applications that I've found for creating visual essays are Piktochart, Spark Page, and Canva. For this unit, my students used Piktochart.

We spent four days going over the DBQ packet. The students analyzed four documents to answer the question, "North or South: who killed Reconstruction?" They completed the DBQ packet by filling out an outline in which they responded to the question with their opinion, and used evidence from the documents to support their answer.






They then took their outline and turned it into a Piktochart.

Did this go well? Yes! It was great for the end of the year, the students appreciated learning about something that connected to present-day, and though the Piktochart iPad app is lacking in some usability, they enjoyed trying a new app and liked the creativity and choices that it offered.

This week I'm encouraging you to try something new, maybe fun, and definitely engaging with your students. Think outside the box and get your students to connect to your content!

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

You gave students choice... and it bombed...

  

...now what? It's time for a reflection.

My co-worker and I just finished our cross-curricular project, and boy has it been a unit! We were quite euphoric with how it turned out, and were glad that the project was more of a success than we anticipated. One thing is nagging at the back of my brain - how did giving students choice work? Was THAT successful?

To answer that question, I am going to jump into "story time" and travel back to last summer. Right before the school year began, I attended a GAFE (Google Apps for Education) conference here in Colorado Springs. I was pushed by many of the attendees and presenters (in a good way) to update and elevate my curriculum this current school year. The big "buzz word" was choice: giving students a choice in your classroom. And I believe it, and I believe in it, so I tried to provide my students with choice (to give them a voice). It was a complete and utter failure.

Sometimes I wonder why teachers and teacher bloggers don't talk more about their failures, and, when giving advice, don't always talk about what might go wrong. I feel like I had a preconceived and naive belief about how choice and flexibility would transform my classroom. I would liken this to all the feels that teachers get when watching Robin Williams' speech in A Dead Poet's Society.

That was going to be my classroom this year... I was wrong. What I failed to take into account, and what I was never pushed to question, was who the students were that I had coming into my classroom. My students had eight years of traditional schooling. Often times, in my own opinion, I did not see rigor and high expectations in their previous classes. Students, in the past, did not have the option to make their own choices and did not have the capacity and maturity to make wise decisions on their own. This led to a very rough beginning to the school year (no Robin Williams moments here!) and a lot of reflection about what best meets my students' needs.

So... I gave my students choice... and it bombed. What are the next steps?

Number one: don't give up! So it didn't work this time. Why didn't it work? Figure that out, then don't do that again. It is okay to fail, but do not punish your students if the failure is one you.

Number two: figure out what your students need. Many options or open flexibility can be overwhelming if it has never been an option before. I know that when I start my next school year, I need to survey the students about their previous schooling. This will then drive HOW I teach in my classroom. I can decide how much choice I offer from the start.

Number three: start small to large. Start by giving your students two or three possibilities (not unlimited), then expand from there. I run a more project-based class so I can start with open selection when it comes to a type of project (Slides, Explain Everything, iMovie), then over time, students can have a choice when it comes to topics and content. Ideally, by the end of the year, the students have complete discretion in the classroom to display their voice.

Number four: take your time. If you realize that students still don't have the maturity to have choice, then do not give them that option. Make sure they are ready to move to the next step. Do not set up your students to fail.

As I said at the beginning, now that I've done this big project at the end of the year, was giving choice beneficial?

Yes! 

It was due to my failures at the beginning of the year and reflecting upon WHY there was failure. It was also dependent on me slowly adding in more choice as the year went on. I also feel like we gave students good options when it came to historical figures and project presentation options for this unit. 

Was it perfectly successful? No, not quite. Both my colleague and I learned a lot doing this project for the first time and have discussed changes that we will make. We still saw students choose the easy options, and I still need to figure out why they didn't want to push themselves. 

But I can see how choice works in my classroom and am excited to see it work even better next year. Keep the faith! Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Thinking outside the box

Good morning colleagues!

My class is currently one week deep into a cross-curricular American Civil War project with Language Arts. The students have done some overarching research on important historical figures during the war, found the characteristic that this person best exemplifies, and have started designing their "improvement hour" project.

Yesterday I had the students fill out a Google Form about how they are doing on their project, and any stumbles that they had. I used the data results to guide the students needing to be spoken with immediately, which students I could meet with that day, and which students I could meet with the next day. It allowed me to prioritize my conference order.

One student had this answer, and it made me pause.

Important #middleschool words: "It was just hard to think about things like most of the time your teachers make ideas then you have to 1/2

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) April 14, 2017

whatever they say but this time you are making ideas with your brain,well I don't know it is just hard to think like this I guess." 2/2

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) April 14, 2017

Though what she said is both encouraging and discouraging, I am happy for a few things. I am glad that I saved a project like this for the fourth quarter. Though my classroom style is not typical, my school is quite traditional. It took a lot of breaking down walls and barriers this year to get my kids ready. A project like this would have bombed in the first quarter. I am happy that I am doing this project at all. Those that read my blog often know that I am not having the best year. I refused to let myself get in the way of me having my students do something that benefits their present and future. I am glad that I am giving my students something with many choices. They are getting to decide what they do and how they do it. I had a quick spark of inspiration last week and also added that the students combine their project with something they are passionate about. I have seen more "buy-in" as the project as gone on.

Love how this turned out! #edchat #classroom #middleschool pic.twitter.com/ZGFUbbnJdZ

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) August 1, 2016

I am happy that I have this on my wall. I never pointed it out to students, but I've been pointing it out a lot this past week (especially the "this is too hard"). I said to one student, "I know you never look at it." He said, "Actually, I've looked at it a lot." Boom! I consider that a win :)

I think where I'm going with all of this is that this project has been reassuring. I am glad that I decided to elevate the Civil War unit. It is a challenge, but it is pushing my students outside the box and is forcing them to think in ways that they might not have thought before. This is authentic 21st-century learning that demonstrates the relevance of history while preparing them for the future. This has been the most creative, innovative unit that I've created, and I am proud of my students, my teammate, and myself.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Designing an Interactive Google Map

Good morning colleagues! I was not planning on blogging today, but I wanted to share about my awesome Spring break while ALSO demonstrating how to create an interactive Google Map!

In Drive, create a new map

Title your map, then add a layer and title

In your locations layer, click the pin, search for your location, and add to map

You can change the color and icon of your location.

In locations, add a second location. You can add an image and text description of your location.

Click on the "directions" icon. This will add a new layer where you can search from point A to B.

Change your map sharing directions so that everyone can see it!

And of course, here is my map of my break. Enjoy!

I hope that you could see a way to use these maps in your classroom, and I hope this was helpful in walking you through how to create one. Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Creating digital stories

Hello, colleagues!

I have not had a great week. In fact, turning 33 hasn't been pleasant so far. We've had a rough week of testing, and I found out that I was not accepted to the Google Innovator Academy. Whenever I have a crisis of conscience, I like to reflect on myself, my curriculum, in this case, my application, and my future in education. It's hard not to be bummed even though I knew it was a long shot. It was my first attempt, and I don't think I presented how innovative I am as a teacher. One thing that became apparent to me is that I have to put myself out there. I have good ideas, but I need to present them. I can no longer let my introversion get in the way of my big and bright future. So with that, I am going to share a unit that I just finished with my students: creating digital stories.

What is a digital story? To me, a digital story is a story made digital. Seems simple enough, right? I'm not a Language Arts teacher, but I want to my students create historical stories. I want them to be creative but historically accurate. I don't want my students to retell history but instead present something in a new and different way. I'm not letting my students create stories over whatever they want, but they do have a choice in what they create.

So here is a quick and dirty version of creating digital stories in your American history classroom. 
1. Have the students choose a topic. In my class, they picked from a list of Colorado historical and modern topics. Students chose their top nine, and literally, everyone was able to get one of their top choices.

Ss being introed to CO history topics. Love hearing, on a Monday, "There are so many cool topics to choose from!" #sschat #edchat

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) February 27, 2017

2. Have the students briefly research the subject (5Ws) in order to find three characters (real people) involved in their topic.
3. After researching further, have the students pick one person that they will investigate. This individual will be the students' narrator (does not matter if male or female).
4. Have the students find an abstract idea that best fits with their person. It could be a "good" or "bad" abstract idea; in the end, they are using this open-ended concept to create an essential question that guides their story.

5. Have the students design a plot line that tells a STORY, not the personal history of this person. I told the students that their story could take place over no more than five years.
6. Have the students design their script. The script is the expanded version of the plot line entirely written out in first-person. The idea is that the student embodies their character as the narrator.
7. Have the students research to find images that they will use in their digital story. Students were required to find a new image every ten seconds. A minimum of eight of their images had to be found from Library of Congress, the Denver Public Library, or our local Pikes Peak Library District.

8. Have the students upload their images to iMovie in which they will recite their script over the images as a narration.

These are some of my favorite projects over the years...

This is a solid project that my students have done for six years. They really enjoy diving into Colorado history, they love having choice, and they enjoy designing iMovies. But a word of caution...

I just spent the last six hours retooling a SOLID project I've done for five years. How do Ts teach the same thing over and over every year?

— Rachel Jeffrey (@historicalipad) February 26, 2017

Thanks for reading. Because of Spring break (for two weeks!), my next blog will be on April 8th! I'll see you then :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website