The Election of 1896 in 4 Minutes

As I write this you are either just done with the election of 1896 or this will be exactly timed correctly for you.  Above is a History Channel 4 minute video on the election.  I found out about it on my Twitter feed from the History Channel. 

A Little Problem

This blog is having a problem with the links so check back in two days and it should be fine.  None of my other blogs are experiencing this problem.  

So I am Published!

Well the book, Deeper Learning Through Technology, is at the warehouse and after a quick look see (don't ask me I only work here), it will be shipped to anyone who wants it.  So you will be getting pieces of my book on my blogs in hope that you and your colleagues, will find it useful and even change the way you teach.  

The book looks at how you can better individualize student learning in your classroom, but to do so it does something rare in giving the reader some background research.  For example, Project RED (Greaves et al., 2010) looked at 997 schools in 47 states and the District of Columbia to see the impact of the digital learning environment. The report found that in schools where students all had digital devices, test scores went up while dropout rates went down. The report emphasized that for the introduction of technology to be effective, instruction must also be meaningful. Project RED identified two levels of change—“first-order change” and “second-order change”—stressing that teachers and administrators should strive for second-order change if they want to improve student learning. 

An example of first-order change would be when a teacher requires students to submit work online. This might save time that could be used for more direct instruction, but it is not necessarily changing instruction in any meaningful way. Whether assignments are on paper or submitted online, they still very likely reflect a similar quality of work. In contrast, second-order changes occur when technology allows for innovations that could not happen without it. For example, a teacher can assign students to watch an online video lecture (flipped video) for homework, visit and review several websites, and then collaborate with fellow students by commenting on the video and sites on one collective online document housed in the cloud. There are several second-order changes included in this scenario. (1) Placing the lecture online allows students to watch it at their own pace, stopping and starting the video or watching it several times until the material is understood. (2) Collaborating online means that students can work together regardless of where they physically happen to be (home, school, library, etc.). Both uses of technology (online video lecture and online collaborative document) allow students to do something that they could not have done without the technology. 

Of course the crux of my book then is a practical guide to effectively changing the way teachers collaborate and teach.  It comes with step by step instructions as well as classroom examples and teacher challenges.  

Win Scholarship to Attend AP Summer Institute

Over the years I have gone to a number of AP institutes, but my county pays for them - which is good since it is also required!  At any rate go here to apply and if you are in a high minority/low income schools, here is another way to get funding.  

What to Flip in a Flipped Class

This is adapted from my book, Deeper Learning Through Technology: How to Use the Cloud to Individualize Instruction, which comes out on the 27th (and you can pre-order now).  

WHAT TO FLIP IN A FLIPPED CLASSROOM          

To say you should take your current PowerPoints and break them down into segments of video for your students would be to miss the point.  You might want to first think of what is going to be done in class and then make a flipped video of the background needed to prepare for that work.  If, for example, you were looking at William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, you might want to give students an exercise looking at the main points that Golding was trying to make and his view of our society.  These would be tough questions that students might need assistance in understanding.  A flipped video on Golding’s life and how he was led to his beliefs and subsequent writing of the book, would be a good topic for your video.  This video could even include the short clip found online of Golding’s thoughts on his well known book.

Once you have your lesson and the video idea ready, you will need to line up what

you need for the flipped overview.  I usually include a few Presentation slides since written words often help student comprehension. I also have additional tabs set up on my browser.  Perhaps a very short clip from theLord of the Flies movie might enhance your presentation as would a picture of Golding.  Once these assets are set up, it makes it easy to move through the parts of the video remembering that it is okay to have bloopers as students seem to like it when their teachers appear more human in a video.  Adding in personal touches also make the videos more interesting for your students.  My own children have all had cameos in my instructional videos as have the family pets!  

Flipping, though, does not need to be limited to teachers.  If administrators truly want to initiate a flipped school, they need to model the practice.  If teachers are watching the videos, then students aren’t either and administrators need to learn how to maximize watching so as to work with teachers and students to do the same.  How many times has a school started a new initiative and had training sessions.  Why not give people the option of watching a short video instead.  What about an opening day speech when teachers would prefer to be working on lesson plans.  Have them watch a 10 minute video (or shorter) and answer key questions, much as teachers would want their students to do.  Modeling the practice over and over is the best way to sell flipping to your teachers.

It is important to note that it is okay to use videos from other educators as long as they fit your needs.  Use your Twitter/Google+/Google search engines to look for flipped videos on your topic.  Ask your Twitter followers for recommendations or send a message to someone with a large Twitter following and see if they can help point you in the right direction. There is a growing library of short videos on the Internet that you can add to your digital library by bookmarking them for later use.   

Want to learn how to make a flipped video, get more guidance on where to find flipped videos or even how to use Twitter to benefit your teaching, then you might want to buy.

Below is a flipped video I created on essay writing so my students could do the hard part (ie write the essay) in class.

Does Homework Perpetuate Inequalities in Education?

We are doing a study of our homework assignments and amounts in our county.  Interestingly enough it is coming from the best and the hardest working students whose parents see them taking six AP classes and working 4-5 hours a night on homework.  That being the case I have always believed that homework is there to reinforce, introduce, but not improperly burden.  As my principal said the other day, if it adds nothing to student retention, then why give a particular assignment.

With that in mind this article from OECD looks at the PISA results and sees some very interesting results: lower income students complete less homework (perhaps because they are also less likely to take more challenging classes), are less likely to have a quiet place to study (which is very important for my children who prefer their rooms now that they are getting older), have less homework today than a few years ago (or, as the article points out, may be doing less because of competing interests brought on by the Internet and mobile devices) 

Selma Resources

Undoubtedly your students are going to start talking about the new movie Selma.  Above is a video which lets you listen to a conversation between LBJ and MLK, Jr. (LBJ taped all of his conversations).  Here are many other resources put out by the LBJ library.  

Above is a video of the actual march to Selma from History.com.

Great Series of Flipped US Videos

For me a good flipped video covers the main point for a class, has visuals, puts up words to let the visual learner retain the knowledge and sets up for a great in depth class "interactive" (the word I use in my book).  That being said I want to again (I showed it to you a few months ago) point out JoczProductions for its great topic videos for US as well as its reviews which you can find here. 

What to do on a Snow Day Tomorrow

The other day I learned that my book has gone to be printed and will definitely be out on the 27th of this month.  One of the topics I discuss is how to deal with "alternative days" such as snow ones.  If you like what you see below, you might want to pre-order my book: Deeper Learning Though Technology."

I will admit that I can't get away with this with all of my classes, but my AP Comparative (which is AP US Government and AP Comparative in one year) and AP Economics are a motivated bunch. But tomorrow is looking like we will have either a two hour delay or more probably no school at all.  So for me that means I have pre-determined a time when I am meeting my students online.  This will be our second day in a row that we have missed so, as with the first we will just move our classroom into the cloud.  To help you do this, you might consider the following:

1. For my online kids I use Blackboard Collaborate.  So I created a class and gave my brick and mortar kids the link back in late October and we all agreed that at 10 am on a snow day we would have class.  24 of my 30 kids made the class and the others watched the session which was recorded.  If your school district doesn't have one for you, here are seven free ones you can look at using.  
2. Alternatively you could Google Plus Hangout live stream where you could send a link to your students and they could watch a live lecture (here's how).    You could then use Today's Meet to send a link to students and you could see their live questions.   You would be able to do this by splitting your screen. 
3. If the day is cancelled tomorrow we will spend much of the period answering questions on review problem sets and then I will assign a few more so that we can have our quiz on Wed and our test on Friday without missing a beat.  
4. But you don't always have to meet your students.  For example last year  I decided not to have an online session and instead made the video above as both an introduction and a continuation of our material.  Then my kids will watched this video to look up these court cases.  
5. I communicat with the kids by using Remind, Blackboard and even using my grade book which has all of the kids' emails.  For the Remind message I used a shortened tinyurl (tinyurl.com/fcpscoldday) which linked to my normal homework e-sheet. so I didn't have to text the kids multiple times with the assignments.  
6. So if you have a motivated bunch and you can't afford to miss a day of school you might want to try some of the techniques. 

Ditch the Textbook Facebook Page

If you read most textbooks, they are often (aside from AP ones) little other than the state required "essential knowledge" with verbs thrown in.  I believe they are popular because they are easy as in a teacher telling his/her students to just read pages 33-35 as opposed to giving a flipped lecture and then finding a primary document (something rarely found in a textbook) or exercise (which some books do come with).  In three of our my courses this year my students are using it as a resource and that's it and I am working on the 4th little by little.  At any rate, I just found a Facebook page called "Ditch the Textbook" which I am going to be looking at a lot this year for ideas.