A Response To The Textbook Debate

This is a cross post from a comment I wrote on Kevin Levin's blog.  He had written a response to my earlier post about textbooks and the role of the Internet.  Enjoy.

The Internet will only become a larger part of our lives, whether you like it or not. Our responsibility as educators, notice I say educators not teachers, is to prepare our students, we’d all agree on that. But, if we introduce the skills (no matter the discipline) we want students to learn with traditional methods, our students will lose interest. They are growing up in a world of constant connectivity. Say what you will about this, that’s the way it is. The idea behind my post in response to “Joe’s Non-Netbook” was to highlight the fact that learning without a textbook and the skills we want them to learn go hand in hand.

If we as educators determine the core skills that we want our students to master, we can use any number of resources, we are not tied to the textbook.

As for history, we are trying to engage our students in a scholarly dialog. If we present them with multimedia (video, maps, art, charts etc.) as well as several text websites that are dedicated to a certain topic but have slight differences, the class can then determine those differences on their own not having to rely upon a textbook to tell them. As for the scholarly perspective, you can post two JSTOR articles from different historians and have the students debate the arguments and then write analytical responses on their blogs about the core differences in the two articles.

Textbook or no textbook, the skills we want our students to learn are still the same: be able to think and write like a historian. If we want to do justice to our students and keep them interested, we must acknowledge that our students consume information differently. If we completely ignore that fact we are doing them a disservice. While the top 10% of the class can understand the argument by simply reading a textbook, we are missing out on the 90% who need audio or visuals that are NOT available in a textbook. Yes, this approach will take some extra time and planning to post all the resources on-line ahead of time but the benefit for the entire class is well worth the effort.

As for other disciplines like math. Yes, math is different but that doesn’t mean that students can only learn from a textbook. Dan Meyer, a math teacher in California proves this very convincingly. Here are two examples of what he does with his class: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=213 and http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=440

To sum up, textbooks not only cost a great deal of money but they cost our students’ potential to learn. With a different approach to how we educate our students and using the plethora of multimedia and text resources available on-line, we are not only saving money but doing a great deal of good in helping to keep our students interested and wanting to learn the skills we are “teaching”.

Scholarly Crowdsourcing: Twitter Does History

Dan Cohen, the Director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, my alma mater, tried an experiment yesterday that really made me think about how we can use social media in our classes.

Cohen posted on his blog that he was going to conduct an experiment using his blog and Twitter. He would post an artifact and using a Twitter hashtag, #digdil09, and his Twitter account, @dancohen. Cohen wanted to see if his Twitter and blog followers could determine what the object, shown above, was within one hour.

The post was put up at 3:00pm EST on Thursday and within the hour both @grresearch and @opencontent had found the answer.

The hashtag feed was a true example of what history is all about, investigating a problem through discussion. The "mystery", as Cohen put it, brought random people together virtually in order to solve the question through scholarly discourse using social media.

For me, this experiment again proved that Twitter isn't just for ego maniacs trying to be more popular than a news organization. Rather, this again proves that it can develop our personal learning network (PLN).

This could be an excellent opportunity for students to learn how to do research by not just simply using Google but through discussion and learning from others. With tools like Twitters and blogs, our students can now crowdsource and take advantage of the greater community of knowledge that is not only in the "blogosphere" but also in the "twittersphere".

Google Maps and Writing

Writing is an essential part of what I teach.  But no matter how you slice it, the act of writing is evolving.

The short story, The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming is a prime example of this evolution.  Cumming intertwines Google Maps into his story so that a story now takes a very visual twist. The reader visually follows the protagonist as the story unfolds.

Changing The Game

With the evolution of technology has come this evolution of writing.  If we are to engage our students and make writing something they enjoy practicing, we must reconsider our approach.  As a history teacher, I value the necessity of learning how to research and write a argumentative essay, but a story like 21 Steps, Twitter, and blogging prove that the art of writing can and should be developed in other mediums.

By combining a powerful technology like Google Maps and a short story or for history, a historical narrative, a student can create a much deeper learning tool that not only develops writing skills but the visual connection reinforces and extends the learning opportunities.  Using images, or in this case, maps allows the reader to actually see where the events took place.

Using a tool like Google Maps in conjunction with a writing assignment could make writing an engaging and rewarding process for both the author and the reader.

Using Video To Communicate To Your Class

Are you looking for a different way to post your assignments?  I wasn't but I have started playing with an option that I think will be beneficial in the long run.

I use Moodle for my course management.  It is simple, clean, and effective.  While it has been useful, i figured there should be a better way of posting assignments, giving instructions for a class that I would have to miss, or supplementing the content to be covered in class.

Homework

I have started using YouTube's quick capture feature to fill this gap.  See my first post below.  Not only can the students comment on the video to ask questions but by keeping the video broadcasts in a central location, it is simple to find assignments or instructions that the teacher wants to send out to the students.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HERTERyPZhU

Lectures

Another use of video I have been thinking about comes from the fact that I teach AP World History.  One of the challenges I face is the fact that I want to do too much in class.  I believe that getting students to practice the art of examining documents or debating theories is much more powerful than listening to a lecture.  The idea is simple, screen cast my lectures and post them on Vimeo the night before class.  Have the students watch the lecture for homework.  Then use class time to create lessons based upon historical discussion or investigation based upon the ideas introduced in the video lecture.

We'll see how this turns out but as I try to reexamine how my students learn and how to best use my classroom time, it's worth a try.

Ancient Rome and Google Earth

If you teach World History, you need to check out the new Google Earth 3D layer of Ancient Rome. It presents Rome as it would have looked in 320 AD.

The layer was created by Google and The Rome Reborn project at The University of Virginia.

In addition, Google for Educators have created a competition that is connected to the release of the new Ancient Rome layer. Create interesting lessons based upon the new Rome layer and win some great prizes.