Lincoln Loved Learning

Here is another cool use of VoiceThread for your classroom. Melanie Lewis is an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher in Virgina and has created a webpage called Lincoln Loved Learning.

Mrs. Lewis has taken several images from the life of Abraham Lincoln and combined them together with a narrative text using VoiceThread. These photographs depict various parts of Lincoln's life growing up including his family and how he loved to read. What is especially interesting about this project is that throughout the slideshow, several students provide additional insights and comments about the life of our 16th President. Finally, Mrs. Lewis has listed several additional resources for you to explore about the President.

I have discussed the use of this type of technology before, so here is just another example of how you and your students can create and share information. These types of activities are cross-curricular and promote student engagement and creativity.

Here are some ideas for other VoiceThread projects:

• Research a Battle and discussion the important facts
• Research a particular unit and show photos and provide information
• Research a specific figure from the Civil War (lots of possibilities here)
• Research a particular aspect such as medicine and show photos of wounded soldiers

So many possibilities...Let me know what you think and if you create any in your classrooms.

Hardtack to Harddrives

Eric Langhorst, over at the Speaking of History Blog recently presented at the METC 2008 Conference on Hardtack to Hard Drives. The presentation is related to Eric's use of the book Guerrilla Season in order to integrate blogs into his classroom.

What really got me thinking was how can you, as a classroom teacher, share your presentations with others. Eric's use of Slideshare is a great way for you to do this or you can use VoiceThread which will allow you to add audio to your slides. This type of collaboration allows you to share information with others and bring others into your classroom. Perhaps you are doing a discussion of the same book and now you can participate with Eric. Are you reading another book and want to collaborate with others?

Another way for you to share what is happening in your classroom is via Ustream.tv. Ustream allows you to "Broadcast Yourself" and have others interact with you via a chat room. Eric recorded his NECC presentation on Web 2.0 in Social Social Studies with Ustream and now you can watch his presentation. Do you have someone coming to your classroom to present? Why not stream the event for others or even record it and share the recorded session. Do you have kids doing presentations then you can setup a private Ustream session and allow parents to watch. All you need is a computer with a webcam and a microphone.

How are you collaborating on projects? Let me know....

Gettysburg Photographs

As you know, I love looking at Civil War era photographs and I have discussed the site Virtual Civil War before. Well, Mike Lynaugh has put together a collection of original Civil War photographs on his website Virtual Civil War.

This collection of Civil War photographs will allow your students to view some excellent photos or provide you with some primary sources to display for conversation starters within the classroom. The collection contains a good variety of photos from pictures of dead soldiers, to the White House and even ones of famous leaders of the Civil War.

Classroom ideas:

• Have your students look at a photo and then reflect on what they are seeing or have them describe the situation. This goes back to having them think like historians.
  
• Have them create a slideshow of related photos and use Voicethread to share the presentation
  
• Have them pick a particular image and then research more about the clothing, the battle, or location.
• Play detective (CSI) and see what clues they can find by looking with their magnifying glasses (aka, using the Zoom In feature of your photo editor).
  

While you are on the Virtual Civil War site, check out Mike's section on Battlefields Today that contains pictures from battlefields across the US including Gettysburg.

So many photos, so little time. :)

Confederate Memorial Museum in Oklahoma

Wesley Fryer of the Moving at the Speed of Creativity Blog recently visited the Confederate Memorial Museum in Oklahoma. While touring the museum he took photographs of the various displays and then used Voicethread to post a narrated slide show to his blog. Check it out HERE.

This is a great way for you to see the exhibits in a museum that may otherwise be in accessible to you as a teacher. You can also check out the museum's website at: http://www.civilwaralbum.com/atoka/

Question is: How can your students do something like this? Do you live near a Civil War museum or a location associated with the Civil War? Does your local historical society have artifacts from soldiers who may have fought during the war? If so, take some digital photos and create a virtual tour for everyone to share.

Another thought...look up museums and historical societies in other towns with ties to the Civil War. Then find the local schools and get in contact with the district. Once you get in contact, ask them to collaborate on a project. Have their students go and take pictures and have your students write up the narrative.

Lots of ideas...