Animate Maps for U.S. History

From Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers:





Creating my earlier post about resources for learning about Pearl Harbor prompted me to revisit a couple of animated maps of U.S. History.




History Animated is a resource that I first started using with students in 2009. History Animated provides animations of battles of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the US Civil War, and US Campaign in Europe in WWII, US Pacific Campaign in WWII. In each of the three series of animations you will see the animated movement of armies displayed on a map. Each animation is accompanied by captions describing the strategies of the armies as well as the results and consequences of each battle. The animations will make great supplements to classroom instruction. The animations are a significant improvement over drawing or pointing to places on a map.




The Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond hosts the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. This atlas contains more than 700 historical maps of the United States. The maps within the atlas are arranged into eighteen sections. Many of the maps within the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States can be animated to show changes over time. For example, in the section on States, Territories, and Cities you can view individual maps for each decade from 1790 to 1930 or you can click the "animate" button to see the maps put together in a time lapse animation. All of the historical maps in the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States are displayed on top of a contemporary outline of the United States.

15 YouTube videos all educators must see

From Matt Miller at Ditch That Textbook
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These videos will inspire, educate, give you ideas and entertain. They’re messages all educators should see! (Public domain image via Pixabay.com)

Whenever I work with teachers, I always have a YouTube playlist handy. It has videos that always seem to resonate, entertain, educate or inspire.

I constantly find encouragement in videos that others share. And in a world where well produced, stunning videos can be created by virtually anyone, it’s easier to find than ever.

Here are the videos I have in my “Presentation videos” YouTube playlist. Some are thought-provoking. Some are entertaining and funny. Others may give you ideas for class, and others may inspire you.

And if you know of a video that didn’t make this list, please add it in a comment at the end of the post!

1. The Voice of the Active Learner – Education from a Digital Native’s Perspective —This is a go-to video for me. It’s the first-person account of a girl telling us what she’s looking for in her education. It’s a great reminder of the types of students that are in all of our classrooms.

2. Funny Toilet Paper Commercial — The term “paperless” is quite the buzzword in education these days. Going paperless can make us more efficient and create great learning experiences. But I think paper isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. You’ll see why in this video!

3. TeachingCenter — Ever wonder what it would be like if teachers were treated like professional athletes? What would a TV network devoted to education look like? Key and Peele (Comedy Central) give us a pretty good glimpse in this sketch.

   

4. Google Nose and Gmail Motion — OK, two videos here. If you haven’t seen Google’s April Fool’s Day spoofs, some of them are really funny. Google Nose tries to convince you that Google is archiving scents. Gmail Motion takes typing by gestures to a ridiculous level.

5. Skype Translator preview opens the classroom to the world — This video demonstrates an amazing feature of Skype: live translation of voice to text in another language. That means it could listen to someone in another country speaking Russian and translate it to English. Being a career Spanish teacher, I’ve tried it and, as of publication of this post, the translation accuracy is pretty rough. However, as speech to text improves with time, you know Skype will improve this function. Something to keep an eye on.

6. A Dog-Tastic Mystery Skype Adventure — If you haven’t been using Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime or other video call services in class, you’re missing out. This video shows a dual Mystery Skype/virtual field trip. If you aren’t familiar, it will open your eyes to possibilities of connecting with the world.

7. Girl’s first ski jump — This fourth-grade girl is about to her first ski jump — a K40 jump, where she’s six to eight feet off the ground at one point. It’s safe to say she’s nervous about it, but she overcomes her fears. This video speaks to educators and students about pushing past our fears.

8. 1994: “Today Show”: “What is the Internet, Anyway?” — Remember when the Internet wasn’t quite a thing yet? And we were still trying to figure out email and websites and all? This video takes us back to when these hosts struggled with new tech on air. (If you feel behind the curve with new technology, this will make you feel better!)

9. The Story of Blind Kahoot!’ing — Many teachers use Kahoot! (getkahoot.com) to review material with students. But some are starting to use it to introduce new material in an engaging way. That’s what blind Kahoot!’ing is all about.

10. “Unsung Hero” (Thai Life Insurance) — On some days, it’s easy to feel like you’re not making a difference. Or maybe that all of your efforts are for naught. This touching video reminds us how much of an impact our persistent acts of kindness and generosity have on the world.

11. Every Opportunity — The actions and words we use with children can affect them greatly. We have to be careful to make a positive effect instead of a negative one. This video reminds us how interactions with adults can make or break a child’s day.

12. Obvious to you. Amazing to others. — As educators, it’s easy to slip into this trap. We feel like we’re not doing anything different than anyone else. However, our perspectives, our ideas and our experiences can really help others — and let others know about the amazing work being done in schools. This reminds me that we must share our amazing work with others.

13. Try to do — From the description: “A story about a big squirrel and a baby squirrel.” You’ll see that the baby squirrel can’t make it over the wall. This is a great lesson about recruiting help and perseverance. Warning: You’ll find yourself cheering for the baby squirrel!

14. Iguana chased by snakes (BBC) — Never give up! This iguana was dead to rights, so to speak … but he kept fighting and running from those snakes. (There’s some inspirational value here … but it’s mostly just an amazing video!)

15. RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms — This may be one of my favorite YouTube videos for educators of all time. There’s so much to love. Sir Ken Robinson. A vision of what education can be. Sketching. If you haven’t seen this one, you must watch it!

Breakout Edu, Kindergarten Style

Today's Post:  Nicole Zumpano, an instructional technology coach in a Chicago Public School and an adjunct professor at two local universities. This blog contains information that is relevant to any educator interested in technology's place in education. Please join my Twitter PLN by following me @nmzumpano. Thanks to Joani Sullivan, eLearning Specialist at Richmond Community Schools, for the find!


This fall several of our teachers participated in The Global Read Aloud, working with classrooms across the United States to read the same books and share our thoughts and ideas about them. One such partnership was with Ms. Cain, a librarian in North Dakota who is working with one of our kindergarten teachers, Ms. Thomsen. Our collaboration takes places mainly through Seesaw where we share pictures and thoughts on the books we have read during this project.

Ms. Cain suggested doing a BreakoutEDU activity that was created specifically around our Global Read Aloud author study. BreakoutEDU with kindergarten?! I had only done this with adults (and Ms. Thomsen had never even heard about it)! Luckily, I had recently purchased a kit which made this the perfect opportunity to dive right in with students.

While the instructions for We Are Readers were well done and thorough I still modified some to make the activity run smoother for our little learners. Following are the accommodations and lessons learned.


Planning

We decided to place the students in groups, and give each group a puzzle to focus on. Since this was their first experience with an activity like this we thought it would help the students focus more and make sure everyone was engaged and had a role to play.


One of the puzzles involved students reading a narrative about travel and determining which direction the traveler went. As students new to kindergarten there weren't many in early November that could master the paragraph so I made a recording and had an iPad available nearby with a QR code linking to the audio. I also created a mat with 4 arrows so that they could easily manipulate each arrow as the traveler moved instead of having to memorize 4 sets of directions in sequential order.




The word lock involved the students solving a puzzle and then guessing the word the puzzle represented. Again, to make this easier for our first time we decided to create a word list for the students to choose from. One note: the word list is in lowercase letters whereas the lock has all capital letters. This made it difficult for some of the students to read and will be something we will make sure we address the next time.

Take-Aways
We introduced the activity, each lock and the puzzle that accompanied it. We talked about working together, persevering and how we would guide them but not give them answers. In all, the students broke out in a matter of 25 minutes! The activity was highly engaging and successful. It was a wonderful way to wrap up our author series.













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Add Text Lables to Drawings and Pictures in SeeSaw Portfolios

From Richard Byrne at Free Technology 4 Teachers

In the two years since its initial launch SeeSaw has become one of my most frequently recommended digital portfolio tools. The team at SeeSaw is continuously developing new features to make it a better tool for students and teachers. The latest enhancement to SeeSaw comes in the form of a new labeling option in the SeeSaw iPad app.

SeeSaw now lets you apply text labels to the pictures and drawings that you or your students add to digital portfolios. This is in addition to the existing feature for drawing on top of images that you add to your portfolio. Watch the video below to see how the new text labeling feature works. Then check out SeeSaw's list of ten ways to use the labels.


Currently, the text labeling option is only available in the iOS version of SeeSaw. The feature will be available in the Android and web apps soon.