I found the idea and bulk of this project by Googling MakerSpace and Revolutions Projects. With much scrolling and linking I came to this student made web page and thought, "What a great idea." Further investigation eventually led me here, perhaps the genesis of the project. Seven years separate these two posts and I have no thread to connect the two. But if Anke al-Bataioriginally developed this project, I am very much in her debt.
I admit to (like Jennifer Gonzalez) not quite understanding the MakerSpace phenomenon. For awhile, it totally seemed like every school near me was racing to build one. I thought it a fad and to some degree I still think that way. My biggest criticism has been that the learning for some projects I've seen has seemingly ended far before the end of the project. But I'm a reformed skeptic.
I am so impressed by the thinking going on because this project. Makerspace director, Michael Darfler, has been an enormous help in helping the kids and me iterate this project. Thanks too to Dave Thomas for helping the kids with the many tools in the MakerSpace. The depth of student thinking going on in this project has only increased since they've started. I've discovered a couple of things. 1) A good makerspace project takes time. 2) Creative thinking needs to be connected to content at depth. I'm convinced that students are learning key concepts about revolutions at a deeper level because of the project. Here are some pictures of the kids at work.
The questions they are asking about content are frequent, intelligent and sometimes even profound. I'll long remember some of the "aha" moments I've seen because of these projects. Having to compare and contrast revolutions and present that learning visually through a physical metaphor has provoked some of the best thinking I've seen all year in a class of very impressive thinkers.
Understanding chronology, knowing when events occurred and putting them in proper sequence is an essential skill for understanding history. For several years, I've recommended without reservation Knightlab's storytelling tools, and among them this Timeline tool. When it no longer worked for much of April I was sad to see it go and I started looking for other timeline creators to replace it. Good News! I found a new tool I really like, Even more good news! Knightlab and Google Sheets are now playing nicely together again and so Timeline by Knightlab now works. So, dear reader, here are two web-based timeline creation tools I recommend. Here's an example of a sample I made for a colleague's class using Knightlab's Timeline.
The other tool, TimeMapper, also works in conjunction with Google and is built using Google Sheets. Here's an example:
Both of these tools take some time. But the finished projects look fantastic. I've used Knightlab's Timeline tool in my teaching. In looking for a replacement, I've come across TimeMapper. I look forward to trying it with my students as well.
Schools are one of the last places children are not glued to screens. The last thing, some argue, we should be doing is promoting more screen time. We have all read articles such as this where we learn that tech industry giants do not allow their kids to use digital tech tools or send them to schools without technology.
Others argue the very nature of literacy has expanded and we are miseducating children if we do not teach them how to use technology to research, make meaning and communicate understanding. If we do not teach this skills, kids will do little beyond consume media. Proponents of ed-tech argue, “digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.” (American Library Association (2017)) An aside, at what point do we drop "digital" from that sentence?
Recently I heard author, Daniel Torday speak about how authors are moving beyond the text to augment the power of storytelling. There are current arguments in the field of literary criticism about the novel. (Some in the field of literary criticism argue that the author is dead—except the author isn’t dead, they’re Googling to see what people are saying about them!- this immediate feedback btw is a way in which the author's place in the conversation has changed) This larger context matters; old ideas about art, the academy, and knowing are being displaced though we do not know yet what will replace these ideas.
If we agree we need a new literacy (and we don't all agree), we haven't agreed on these new literacy skills entail. What do students need for the future? Publishing once was confined to print. In the 20th century it expanded to TV, radio and records. The Internet expanded it farther making it possible for students with technical skills to publish Web sites and audio content that could (conceivably) reach worldwide. Torday argued that as an author, he needs to go beyond text and include digital and social media to enhance his storytelling,
I have been working with a colleague (+Lnovo) on an assignment asking students to make a video about a line from Shakespeare's tempest. I was struck by the video controversial NY congresswoman AOC, recently made to support her Green New Deal idea. Whether or not you agree with its merits, you can see that she has leveraged futurism and digital tools (with a lovely marriage of old and new tech) to make an intriguing video. Something about this resonates far more than a text-based article. I believe we should equip students with these skills. The tools we use will change, yet there is a visual way of knowing/ teaching -yet fully explored- that students should know.
My colleague came to me asking to help her with a project on the Tempest. The project:
Tempest project: Choose a speech (no more than 16 lines) and make a movie that captures a vision for the speech; in your piece, you should find a way to incorporate text, music/sound and visuals, working together to express that vision. (Please don’t use Caliban’s “isle is full of noises” speech.) Below are a few examples to help inspire you; you might also think of music videos you think are particularly effective as you contemplate models for this kind of project. I’m imagining that your movie will be between 1-2 minutes long.
You’ll submit the movie and a written piece at least a page long in which you describe your inspiration and the process/decision-making that went into the finished product. Be specific in this written piece, and remember that anecdotes are often helpful in conveying the process of creation. Be prepared to talk about your choices and the movie you made. We’ll watch (at least some of) the films together. Here’s an example of one from the past. Check out https://www.youtube.com/user/poetryvisualized.
And here are a few other potential inspirations for a project like this:
Almost no one except a certain type of person fearful that their children/ students will be left behind really thinks that piles of homework are a good thing. Yet, there's a certain amount of, "If it was good enough for me..." mindset among adults that fosters a generational inertia around homework. Among theorists and researchers, the argument about the efficacy of homework is largely between those who think a little is okay versus those who think we shouldn't be giving anything at all.
This article in the Atlantic explores this debate about homework and how homework is given in the United States. While I am pedagogically and philosophically in Alfie Kohn's camp; the structure of the high school day makes it difficult to give no homework at all.
For the record, I give homework. Not much. But some. I teach 9th and 12th graders. Most written work by my students is done at home. All journals are written at home. For projects, I try to allot enough time for most of the work to be completed in school. But some of the work is done at home. I also give about an hour's worth of reading a week.
This paragraph from the article jumped out:
Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.
Surely worksheets and other mindless busy work does nothing to promote learning. This article doesn't fully answer the question it poses. If I had my druthers, I do away with most homework and being fully honest, I'd give even less of it myself. But kids are trained to think about school a certain way. They conflate rigor with learning. At least some parents still expect it; I still get an occasional phone call from a parent worrying that their child isn't doing enough homework. Homework becomes a proxy for virtues such as determination, hard-work, and personal responsibility.
It seems right to me that the ultimate answer about the efficacy of homework comes down to the individual student. And if that's the case, individualize the homework. Drop the one size fits all approach. I've always felt that if we really wanted to use homework to promote responsibility, we should make much of it optional. And we should emphasize better over more. Now, I have to think more about how to do this in my own classes.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Recently, I asked my students to create a soundtrack by finding a song and tagging it to one of the Enlightenment philosophers we have been learning about.
Asking students to find songs to match these philosophers encourages them to interact more fully with the philosophers' thoughts. It promotes a level of understanding beyond me simply asking, "What does Locke believe?"
Here's what they came up with:
I played Starpower with my students this past week to kick off my unit on Revolutions. This game, developed in 1969, has players trade assets in a quickly stratifying society. Though equal at the start, within a few rounds those with wealth almost invariably change the rules to their benefit. I have had students play this game over 40 times and it is always fascinating to see the behavior of students in a system that naturally stratifies them economically and, as a result, politically. Over the last two days, history repeated itself as those who seized power from the elites made rules that cemented their newly elite status. Power indeed corrupts. As engaging as the game play is, it is the follow-up conversation/ de-briefing where the learning occurs. Here's my slidedeck I used to explain the game and debrief the game. I bought this game years and years ago. It isn't cheap. But it's a great go back to year after year. And it's never failed to promote great discussion. I've played this game with 5th, 8th and 9th graders and presented it once at a conference with adults. It's always worked. I also will refer back to the game as we launch into our study of the American, French and Haitian revolutions. The parallels in the game to these revolutions are striking.
