family history in american history

Family History as a thread for American HistoryFamily History as a thread for American History

PresentersPresenters

Sarah Sutter: Wiscasset High School art teacher and technology integrator, adjunct professor of digital imaging at the University of Maine in Augusta, Google Certified Teacher. ssutter@svrsu.org twitter: edueyeview

Mary Ellen Bell: Wiscasset High School social studies teacher, currently teaches American History and World Cultures.  mbell@svsru@org

And you are . . .

If you would please share in the chat:

• Where you are from

• What you teach (grade / content)

• Or if you aren’t a teacher, what you do

The Project

• Interactive, Collaborative Timeline

• Collaborative Maps

• Wikis to share and link multimedia

for final oral history project

WHY?• Make it personal to encourage investment in

the project

• Put history in perspective as relates to individual life experiences of people they know - or meet in the process

• Ownership of the events & chronology - not just memorizing dates

• Engage in oral history process & using primary documents

• Provide opportunity for students to engage in storytelling with history content

To provide students with a place and mode to practice multiple times throughout the semester the history skills of:  

History Skills

1.  Identifying and using appropriate sources, whether they

be internet websites, primary or secondary text sources,

visual, audio, multimedia, graphs, maps or political

cartoons. 

2.  Distinguishing fact from opinion and comprehending and

interpreting text material

3. Citing sources, both text and media, in proper MLA format

RESEARCH & READING SKILLS

1. Clarifying and summarizing in

final draft form for a peer audience

WRITING SKILLS

1. Using and following chronological order

2. Analyzing cause and effect

3. Comparing and contrasting

4. Developing historical perspective and

understanding historical context

HISTORICAL THINKING

Tools We Used

X-Timeline Collaborative, chronological thinking 

Process1. Introduced the tool, started with Jamestown

2. Students divide up events & enter events, media

3. Classroom discussion about what to include

4. Revision

5. Students add in all the Presidents & other notable bios

6. Continued discussion around what to include

7. Reflection on what’s missing

8. Addition of short essays on the causes or importance of particular events / movements / eras

9. Assigning individual or small group threads : Women, African American, Native American, Asian American, Latino American, Sports & Leisure, Inventions, etc. to engage the idea of bias & perspective in history

Google Maps:Visualizing family immigration places & dates

Moodle WikisClickable, shareable, controlled access space

for multimedia Family History project

Product Options

• Everyone creates a wiki as linked (to X-Timeline)

presentation space for images, audio, video, text

•Media in movie format

•Media in podcast or enhanced podcast format

•Audio in separate audio files

•CD of oral history with handmade book for

visuals and text

Are there any other timelines people have used that they would recommend?

**Collaborative and multimedia components a must

Intro to X-Timeline

Let’s view the timeline together.

Click here if you prefer to see it in your browser, otherwise we’ll screen share here.

Student Feedback : What works well?

• See overtime how things have come together or fallen apart for America• Gives you the chance to connect national history and personal history.  • It makes the contexts more understandable if you want to learn more

about a certain thing, all you have to do is go to the date and click• Involves the class and shows history visually which helps us to learn• Helps us look at others people's work and learn what they learned

without doing it• The way it goes by the dates of the events/ in order (2)• Organized by date of the event• Easy to navigate and it is a good study source• Easy to understand (student) explanations /(entries)• Explanations done by each other work really well• (Info) is in one place ( 4)• Easy to use

Student Feedback: What could be improved?

• If we all titled our entries better, we would know what it is about before opening it

• Titles could be more clear as to what the entries are about• Some key events are missing• Grammar and spelling checked first ( 2)• (Learning) how to cite information and find more images • I don't like using it all the time.  It really seems to be more

of a burden • VERY SLOW / It is slower than grim death.  It needs to be

sped up. ( 4 ) speed ( 3)

Options• Community involvement : Senior center interviews

• Recording oral history through cell phone

(tools for recording phone: Rondee(free), iTalk ($5 iPhone or iTouch app)

Or put phone on speaker phone next to laptop mic & record in Noteshare or Garageband or Audacity

• If family history is an issue, adopt a neighbor

• Digital audio recorders we used were Olympus WS-110 and WS-210 models (roughly $60ea)

Questions & Comments?

Use the chat to ask questions or *6 your phone to join in with audio.