Just wanted to boast  little - iHistory is quoted in “Reinventing Project-Based Learning”, a new book on technology and learning recently published in the US.

I’ve been a bit absent on this site lately. The reason is that I’ve been working 2 jobs as I prepare to go on leave from teaching until the end of the year. Hopefully I’ll still post some history stuff this year.

The Australian History Summer School in Canberra almost didn’t happen due controversy surrounding its funding - but it was fun to present at, and I got lots of positive feedback.

Here is the recording that the Summer School made of my presentation. Have a listen.

As a short assessment of our bushranger unit, I got my students to write (and not so short) summaries of different Australian bushrangers. Some of them you may have heard of…others are less well known.

Listen to the podcast.

I presented again at the HTAV annual conference. Last time there were about 60 people at my workshop - this time about 20…but I found people were more open to the idea of podcasting and were quicker to think of applications to their teaching.

Here’s the little podcast we made together!

Tomorrow the class is going on a trip to Victoria Hill - hopefully more than last time will turn up! Victoria Hill is an old mining site - it hosts what was once the deepest shaft mine in the world as well as George Lansell’s first mine…he went on to make a mint out of gold.

The task sheet that I usually give them is too long for the hour that we’ll have. So here it is. If you want to listen to the podcast, go here.

G’day all. I’m beginning a unit on Timor Leste (East Timor) with my Year 8s this week, and planning to do a stations strategy again, including a podcast introducing things. I was lucky enough to be able to interview Kirsty Sword-Gusmao, so that forms part of the podcast as well.

Last week we had Major Daniel from the ADF come and present about his time in Timor, which was fantastic…the boys were mainly concerned with whether he had killed anyone, thrown a grenade into a house etc (no and no if you’re interested).

Read the unit

Read the script

Listen to the podcast

Regular readers of this blog will know that I take my students on a one-off competitive fieldtrip around Bendigo, during which they use podcasts to complete tasks about the history of Bendigo, and hence, Australia.

However, I’ve got a particularly ratty (for the PC - energetic, students with different learning styles, cute) students and I need to get them out of the classroom more regularly. So, every 3 weeks we’re going out on the public bus into town and spending an hour at various locations. We had a minor glitch when 5 students failed to turn up at the bus stop, and being a public bus we couldn’t wait…needless to say it was a few students who I didn’t mind leaving behind.

John took us around and was an excellent guide, and the students really took to the tasks. At the end, 2 students that we’d left behind turned up, and one tried to skateboard down the gloriously smooth and hard aisles of the cathedral! He had a quick exit.

Site Tasks

Site Podcast

Last week I presented at a PD for history teachers on how to integrate technology into history learning. Great diversity of teachers from primary, secondary as well as state, Catholic and private. They recorded their own podcast - listen here!

A big issue for the secondary teachers was access to technology - computer labs always booked etc. I think that computer labs will be less and less needed, except for ICT-specific subjects. It’s very rare that whole classes need to be on computers simultaneously, except for word processing, which is a pretty lame way to integrate ICT. I think that the way forward lies in having smaller amounts of accessible technology ie. pods of computers in or between classrooms, and in having a variety of activities, some of which require ICT. 

iHistory is being featured in an educational journal called Learning and Leading with Technology. This came about because I took part in some research about education and technology, which is being produced into a book by the International Society for Technology and Education.

They’ve put together an article that is a forerunner to the book. Go here for a look.

We’ve got 3 weeks after exams, so my students are making podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts) to exchange with a school in Singapore. Topics include the school, life as a teenager in Australia, Australian culture etc. They’re really getting into it, and one student is using his musical skills to provide backing music.

My thought is - how to integrate student production of podcasts (not just consumption) into the everyday curriculum of Australian History and SOSE? I produce a lot - they don’t.