US History Teachers Blog

Amazing Collection of Flipped Class Items

2013-05-20T17:57:00.003-04:00

I am writing a book right now and one of the items I found in my research is this amazing research on flipped videos. It gives research, Twitter handles, examples of flipped teaching, sites to go to learn about flipped learning, digital tools explaining how to make the videos. If you are flipping or thinking about it, it is amazing so thanks to Dan Spencer for putting it together.

63,000 Page Views Last Month & 4200 Posts to Search

2013-05-19T10:32:00.001-04:00

We had a nice bump up last month from a previous high of 48,000 page views to a new record of63,000 (in part thanks to this article that was reproduced in a ton of news sources and school districts). So to our new viewers please know that between the US history teachers' blog, the US government one and the world history teachers' page, we have nearly 4200 posts in the five years since this blog started. So go to the search engine on the upper left and look up any content field of our subjects and look at what we have posted. We also have a ton of technology to show you how to integrate the content. If we are missing something please e-mail me (kenhalla@gmail.com) and we'll get it up or alternatively if you have a good idea or a great lesson plan, please contact us.

What is a Cookie?

2013-05-18T13:31:00.004-04:00

Developed by Lou Montulli in 1994 when he worked for Netscape, cookies help direct what we see on the Internet. Cookies are being downloaded on your laptop all the time and are collected by the web browsers you use. Essentially they are individual ID numbers that a website assigns your computer and it collects information on how you used their page. Some have even better "third party cookies" that collect information from multiple sites that you visit. Indeed apps that you might add to your webpages often collect this information which is why they can be free as they might sell your information to a group that is trying to reach people like you. For example I recently visited the Republican and Democratic Virginia party websites and within one day I started getting ads for lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Aneesh Chopra who the microdata thought I might like to select in our upcoming primary (as not surprisingly he was the tech czar for my former governor Tim Kaine and Barack Obama). The good is that you see what you want to see (ads for your needs) and the bad is that you may not go beyond your own needs (check out this post on the Filter Bubble). Of course you can go here if you want to delete all of your cookies, but that will also mean when you start to type in a webpage it will not finish out for you as it will know know that you were there before.

Our Two Month iPad e-textbook Pilot

2013-05-17T20:19:00.001-04:00

Last November Houghton Mifflin Harcourt asked me to pilot their new iPad e-textbooks which we did for two months ending just this past Monday. The pilot was for Patterns of Interaction and I must admit the first day we had them there were some collective groans especially when I told the kids they could no longer make their maps using Google Drive drawings. But the groans very quickly turns to glee when they saw how the iPads came on instantly and after I had taught them a few procedures to make their iPad life easier we were up and running. Most of the kids were decidedly unhappy Wednesday when they had to pull out the slow starting netbooks.

So what did I like? To begin with there are two different versions of the Table of Contents which you can get in landscape or portrait modes. Secondly you can scroll through entire chapters, the individual pages or using the contents go anywhere in the book you want. There also is a search box which is not present in our myhrw.com format online. You can also manipulate all of the pictures flipping them around, looking underneath for objects such as an oracle bone or Viking ship. Each section also has five multiple choice questions (not available on the myhrw.com page). There were also movable features such as putting the levels of the Caste system in order. I actually asked that they do the same for historical maps so students could drag and drop (and be rejected if they are wrong) all the maps the kids have to study. As with the online version there are also videos in each section, links, etc. I must admit as the pilot progressed I stopped using my laptop during the class and just plugged into the LCD or walked around the room with it as I was working with the kids. Finally we used the four finger method to scroll between open webpages, the ibook, Google Drive and even music which made it very easy to manipulate.

My only beef - and this is with Apple, not HMH, is that the e-book can only be accessed on the iPad it was downloaded on. So if you forget it at home, you are out of luck. I should also add that if your district, school, etc. is looking to purchase the iPad book or the online versions of any textbook, you will have to consider restructuring your purchasing plans (easier said than done with state and school board mandates now somewhat obsolete, but still very much unchanged) as the e-textbooks are constantly changed and if you want the newest and latest, you have to put that in the contract (which is probably going to increase the cost). At the same time textbook companies have to consider "Google Driving" their e-textbooks meaning as changes occur, why not just give them to the school districts. This would also mean they would not have to service multiple platforms. With changes coming so quickly today (HMH is also working with Kno for other innovations, but not the ones described in the previous paragraph) the traditional 5-6 year contracts means your e-textbook will be obsolete 3-4 years before the end of the its run in your district. Of course as is argued in The Tyranny of the Textbook, teachers hate changing textbooks and have to learn (hey isn't that what we teach students every day) to adapt to ever changing textbook formats and multiple methodologies of delivery (and yes those reading this blog, I know, agree with me - it's the ones who don't that have to be convinced!).

If you go to the iTunes store, you can get a free chapter download for the Patterns of Interaction, The Americans and United States government iPad books and check them out for yourself.

I should add that I wasn't paid a penny, nor received an iPad or e-textbook to do the pilot so these are my unvarnished thoughts. In if I had my way I'd have a laptop that has a manipulative screen and could access the iPad textbook on any device (smartphone, laptop, etc. and any system (Apple or otherwise) which means you get to decide what works best with your students. If you already have iPads, you'll certainly love the books.

Knowmia Video Search Tool

2013-05-16T14:31:00.001-04:00

Keith Hughes who has a tremendous Youtube channel for US and government (and 17 videos for WH) just told me about Knowmia. Keith's Knowmia page is here. There is a search engine and you can set up your own page (for free) where you can house videos or tag ones from other people. For graded K-12, they claim to have 13,000 lessons.

Ten Buildings that Changed America

2013-05-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

Watch 10 Buildings that Changed America on PBS. See more from 10 Buildings that Changed America.

This is a new PBS series that, according to Open Culture, is "a cross-country architectural road trip" across America. The buildings include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Chicago, Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in New York City, and Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall.

Lucid Charts for Chart Creation

2013-05-15T12:13:00.001-04:00

A couple of months ago I wrote about a great flowchart maker called Text2MindMap. Well now you can add Lucidchart to your Google Drive account. As you can see from the video above it lets you create complex flow charts of different types.which are then added to your Google Drive account. Thanks to Ken Martin for giving me the heads up on this one.

Flipped Learning Network Interview

2013-05-14T22:53:00.004-04:00

Okay so perhaps only my mom will really want to listen to this entire thing. But there are a lot of websites mentioned, ways my classes work and more in this 50 minute podcast on the Flipped Learning Network interview I did a few weeks ago which was posted today.

Ken Burns' Civil War on Youtube

2013-05-14T22:39:00.001-04:00

I am finishing the twenty-second year of my teaching career this June. Back in the third or fourth year I created a video of key points of the Civil War from the Ken Burns Civil War series. I kept it on a VCR and ever year I would do some exercise on say Shiloh and then would finish by showing five minutes on it. While Ken Burns' videos have been blocked on and off they are now all over it. So you too can show some short clips or flip your class and do an exercise when the students come to school. Here is what is on Youtube.

Flip Your Entire US History Class Videos

2013-05-14T09:36:00.004-04:00

Actually I wouldn't espouse flipping the entire class as any format done too much gets old, BUT Keith Hughes has a video for every portion of US history and has been chosen by the Kahn Academy as a finalist for the YouTube Next EDU Guru award. Most are all ten minutes and under and feature interesting backgrounds and great ways to remember (dance moves is one of them) to remember them, but I wish he did more visual than himself. But if you want to save the time making your own flipped videos and want an extremely interesting teacher go no further than his complete Youtube library. You can follow Hughes on Twitter here. Thanks to colleague Rich Hoppock for this find.

TedEd & Flipping the Classroom

2013-05-11T22:20:00.002-04:00

Above is a great video you can use to flip your classroom on Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin (short for engine). Here are a bunch of other ones and here are some examples of how to flip your classroom complete with videos, multiple choice questions and the after video lesson plan.

Individualizing Education Using Technology

2013-05-10T17:37:00.005-04:00

There were many reasons why I had a great day yesterday when Richard Culatta, who is the Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, spent the day in my classroom. In between my two classes, we spent several hours sharing ideas so I will be sharing some of them in the next week. Since I am writing a book on using technology to individualize education I was very interested in his Ted Talk above. He mentions great innovations around the country such as an elementary school that has students report to different places in the school depending on how they did the day before, giving three questions at the end of the class to decide how to teach tomorrow, Arizona State U that has figured out how and when students should learn new items and what makes them hesitate to answer a question as well as new innovations the Dept of Ed is doing.

He ends his short talk with something called #PencilChat which is a way to counter anti technology people. The idea is that you need to put the word pencil in to replace every item of technology such as "Why should we give students ~~computers~~ pencils when they can wait until they get to a job to learn how to use them" or "What should I do if a ~~computer~~ pencil breaks in the middle of my class, how should I be expected to work with such a disruption?" The video below is a funny collection of many of the pencil chats.

The Digital Public Library of America

2013-05-09T20:52:00.000-04:00

The Digital Public Library of America has great some online exhibitions on topics in American history like the Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal, prohibition, and the Bread and Roses strike in 1912. The exhibitions include great images and short histories.

The DPLA includes material from museums, archives,and libraries and includes books, images, historic records, and audiovisual materials . The Berkman Center for Internet Security at Harvard University with funding from the Alfred P Sloan Foundation developed the idea for the site.

Keyboard Shortcuts

2013-05-08T19:45:00.002-04:00

My children always ask my wife and me how we type so quickly to which I tell them that their time will come. But if you want to type more quickly than you already are, you might want to consider using shortcuts

. Here are one hundred+ of them from everything starting from how to cut and paste to how to do subscript, to finding a word in a document to adding footnotes and basically anything on the drop down menus without go to them.

Ted Talks Education Coming to PBS

2013-05-05T13:05:00.001-04:00

Watch TED Talks Education Preview on PBS. See more from TED Talks Education.

This is interesting as television is moving more towards online, anytime. But Ted Talks, perhaps showing how big it has become, will have Ted Talks Education this coming Tuesday on PBS at 10 pm. The show is dedicated to education. Of course if you miss it, I would assume you can find it on my link or on the PBS teachers site.

Thanks to the G+ post from Larry Ferlazzo.

Become an AP Grader

2013-05-05T11:22:00.002-04:00

The first AP grading I ever attended was for US history. I had no idea what to expect and even brought a textbook to look up information, but found it such an enriching experience that both my US and AP government scores went up the next year. When I tell people that I grade exams their first reaction is to say that grading is the worst part of their job, so why would anyone want to go. Well 1) I am a much better teacher because of the work I have done as an AP grader in two different subjects. After all if I know how to grade an exam, then I know how to better prepare students for future essays. 2) The people I met give me both great friendships, but also colleagues near and far to exchange ideas and assignments. 3) You get to go to great places. This year I will be in Salt Lake City and even though, yes, you do work 8-5 (with lunch and AM/PM break) we did have time to go hiking one day, go to the Great Salt Lake, on another and see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice in their 20,000 person arena and usually we catch a baseball game. 4) I am so much more a proficient grader and can very accurately whip through lots of free response questions - which means I can assign more and better prepare my students (who this year wrote 12 for grades and another 3-4 for practice in my class).

Basically it works like this. Day 1 - fly to AP grading site Day 2 - learn the rubric. They give you all the answers and truthfully most of my AP students could grade given the training. By the end of the day you will be very accurately grading exams and giving them the identical grade to everyone at your table Day 3-7 - grade all day in 4 quadrants and yes it can get hard at times Day 8 - Finish the grading which means you only get about 50-75. Only once have I ever graded beyond noon on this day and then you get the rest of the day to do things like do real sightseeing. Day 9 Fly Home.

So if you are interested, here is the place to sign up.

DOE Director of Ed Tech Coming to my Classroom

2013-05-03T23:12:00.001-04:00

So I was asked a few weeks ago if I wanted a member of the US Department of Education to come to my class. They picked well and I ended up with the Director of Educational Technology, Richard Culatta, who will be spending the day in my class this coming Thursday. That night we also get to meet with Arne Duncan (for the second time in as many months). So, my question to you is do you have any questions that you would like me to address? Culatta's DOE page says he is interested in individualized student learning so I have lots to speak to him already, but would love any feedback or thoughts if you would e-mail me (kenhalla@gmail.com).

The Scourged Back: Photography and the American Civil War.

2013-05-02T18:48:00.001-04:00

In March or April of 1863, the slave above escaped from a Mississippi plantation to a camp of Federal officers. Medical officers examined the slave and noticing the severe scarring on the slave's back asked a local photographer to document the scar tissue. The image, according to this New York Times story, eventually appeared in a special Independence Day issue of Harper’s Weekly. The image is now part of a Civil war exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, called “Photography and the American Civil War. Here (and below) is the story about the exhibit. Thanks to Open Culture for the link to this story.

How to Use PBS Resources

2013-05-01T13:19:00.001-04:00

I would assume most of you have used the PBS resources which include thousands of standard based lesson plans and bijillions of hours of free video. Above is a video telling you how to use it. Thanks to EdTechReview for the heads up on this.

The Starving Time in Jamestown

2013-05-01T11:54:00.000-04:00

As this article in today's WashPost says no one saw people being eaten, but we do have diary entries of cannibalism in Jamestown and the famous Richard Frethhorne account of how bad the circumstances got. But the article discusses bone findings that show evidence of the skull being hacked open and a meat cleaver being used on a leg of a 14 year old girl.

10 Tech Tips from David Pogue

2013-04-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

Here are some very useful and cool tips from New York Times tech columnist, David Pogue. Did you know for example, that in a text on any phone, all you need to do is press the space bar twice and a period will appear? Instead of using the scroll bar to move up on any page, just hit the space bar to scroll down a page and the shift key to scroll up. Watch the 5 minute clip for 8 other cool time saving tips.

Great Review Cards for US History

2013-04-27T22:02:00.005-04:00

My county's (Fairfax County, VA) special education department produced a great set of 20 two page cards that cover the entirety of US history. They have pictures, maps, summaries and all of the main points on our state test (and probably any state test). I loaded them on the Internet for my department, but you can use them too if you are so inclined. I JUST ADDED THE MISSING ONE ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

Notes & Video On One Screen

2013-04-26T23:23:00.000-04:00

From a G+ post by Craig Nansen that I found within the Google Certified Discussion community in G+ (which anyone can join) something brand new called VideoNot.es which, in Google Drive, splits your screen and puts the video on the left and the notes on the right. As you take notes, it records where you are in the video. You can then save the video and the notes in Google Drive. If you just want the notes, drag your cursor over them and paste it into a regular Google Drive document. Above is a short video on how to do this.

Google+ As a Part of Your PLN

2013-04-24T07:00:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday I will doing an in-service for my fellow social studies chairs. Time permitting (and it will be tough since I am also showing them Twitter), I will be discussing Google Plus (also known as Google+).

To begin with Google+ came into existence in 2011 as an invitation only social network. As of January 2013 it surpassed Twitter as the second largest (to Facebook) social network in the world. As of December 2012, it had 500 million users with over half of them active users.

The left side of the page has a stream listing the user's "friends." As with Twitter you can follow anyone who either allows you or has a public stream. To send a message, enter in whatever you want (unlike Twitter which is limited) in the box by your picture where it says "Share what's new...". You can also add pictures, video, video links, etc.

On the rights side of the page you will see your name and a number besides it. The number signifies how many people want to have you accept them as a friend. The "+ Share" allows you to click on it and place a message in your feed. If you look at name in the middle of the photo it signifies that I have a camera on my laptop. If I click on the names below that I could either text or have a video conference with others in Google+. Here is how to do all of these things.

If you want to follow others, you need to first have a group of people to follow. Below is a list of people and groups you might want to follow. To add a person or group, you simple go to the search box at the top of the screen and enter in a name or a topic. When you find someone, simply add it to your circles. To create a circle look for the symbols with three circles and click on it. You can then quickly add friends, create circles, etc. The advantage of the circles is that you can create feeds that only some people can see. So, for example, you could create a feed for your students and they could set it so you could not see all of their private messages. is how to use it. Here and here is how you can create your circles. Some of the people and groups you might want to include are noted below.

Google in Education

Edudemic

Education Revolution (community)

Education Week

Eric Sheninger (Principal)

Larry Ferlazzo (ESOL, US History)

Gamification in Education (community)

Google Apps for Education (community)

Google Certified Teachers (community)

Ken Halla (Yours truly)

Phil Wagner Google Education

Richard Byrne (FreeTech4Education)

Jordan Pedrazza (Google Apps)

Shelly Terrell (Noted Teacher PLN Person)

Teaching World History (Group of Teacher)

US History Teachers (Group of Teachers)

Next you can also have Hashtags such as are done in Twitter. You can create your own or follow others. Use the same symbols as Twitter as in "#HistoryTeachers."

The coolest part, though, is a Google Hangout. This allows you have a conversation with up to ten other people. While you are conversing you can share text messages and urls. You can also share your entire desktop and anything you have in Google Drive (here is how). You can also record a Google Hangout and put it straight onto Youtube. Here is how to do this.