Student Responses to a Digital Textbook Continued

This post is part of a four-part series exploring the curricular potential of digital textbooks or what I am calling "Integrated Inquiry Resources." Read the first blog here for an introduction to the ideas that informed this project as well as the inquiry resource itself. And then a second blog for an outline of the inquiry tasks imbedded in the resource and accompanying student work.

This blog post is a continuation of a previous blog post that reports on findings from an anonymous student survey which sought to document the impact of a specific integrated digital inquiry resource on levels of student engagement and learning. Of a total 50 students, 44 responded to the survey.

In the previous post I outlined some of the more positive responses to this inquiry resource. However, not all student responses were positive. Unlike the cheery picture here, some of the students comments point to a need to seriously reconsider both the organization and design of the resource along with the curricular model (why we teach a subject) and the pedagogical strategies (approaches to instruction) adopted within my digital textbook. What follows are findings associated with the questions in bold.

Finding 4: The clamation rendering of Plato's Allegory of the Cave was only moderately successful in bringing students into the world of Greek ideas and the rebirth of this learning during the Renaissance. As can be seen below, about 40% believed this was so and about an equal percent thought that these video links did this only moderately well. Notably about 18% felt that this animation failed in this regard.

DownloadCreate Chart7. The Plato Allegory of the Cave inquiry question was trying to bring you into the world of Greek ideas. To what extent did this question make you think deeply about the rebirth of Greek learning during the Renaissance?
	answered question		44
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
Extremely well		11.4%	5
Very well		29.5%	13
Moderately		40.9%	18
Slightly		11.4%	5
Not at all		6.8%	3

Did this resource help make the study of the Renaissance more interesting and engaging for students?

Finding 5: Although the resource did help make the topic more engaging for students, especially among students in one class, there was a significant number of students who found some of the sections of this digital textbook and by extension learning in the classroom not very engaging. From the advantage point of someone who put so much work into creating this resource, this was a disappointing finding. However, as I will explore at the end there was some design flaws in how I went about creating the unit. Based on the survey here are a sampling of some of the student responses to the question.

With a focus on the video links, as can be seen below over 60% of students felt the resource made the study of the Renaissance more interesting.

5. Compared to a normal textbook, did you find the video links brought to life European history in way that was more interesting to you as a student?
	answered question		42
	skipped question		2
		Response Percent	Response Count
Absolutely!		35.7%	15
Very much so		26.2%	11
Somewhat		14.3%	6
Not really		14.3%	6
Not at all		9.5%	4

A sampling from the focus group and survey responses confirm this:

• Three main advantages to the digital inquiry resource was that it was a resource always at hand and available, it went in-depth more so then our regular textbooks, it was easy to click the links and listen more about what we need to know.

• The digital inquiry resource gave us a visual 2. It let us explore as far as we wanted into sertain topics 3. It let us use are laptops to its full capabilities

• When reading a textbook there is a lot of information but the information is not always relevant to your specific question. Likewise, when you are using a digital inquiry resource you are able to find information that specifically relates to your specific question. This is because there are so many videos out there.

• To me its the fact that writing everything out is long and tedious. Also I like it because I love technology and as a result this really helps. It was easy to access. Everything that we needed was there. Also is easier to go deeper into the topic by using video links.

• We didn't just look at words, we got to see what some of these things might look like.

Finding 6a and 6b: Responses from both the survey and focus group sessions point to some structural problems with how this digital textbook, and by extension the overall inquiry unit in general, was designed. Here are a sampling of some of the responses that point to the limitations of this resource. I have grouped the responses in relation to limitations of: the design of the layout, the pedagogical strategies used to support this resource, along with the inquiry tasks themselves.

6a) Issues with the design and layout of this inquiry resource:

• There is a limit on the pages and information and how much the creator put in.

• Sometimes it was hard to read. Also it is harder to organized pictures and vids to make it more visually interesting.

• Maybe make the page style more eye capturing to really drag the reader

• People were getting easily distracted (Not me) =) Constantly needs charging

• This text-book could have more visuals such as pictures and more types of links such as interactive sites, etc. It could also be more specific on dates for timelines and more so to the point rather then dragging on.

The points here were well taken, although Shashi Shergill helped me with some editing at the end to make my writing more grade 8 friendly, having created the resource almost completely on my own it was very text heavy as I did not have the time to create a magazine style layout. One of the things I hope digital textbooks will embrace are elements of design and stop trying to hit kids with reams of information. In this regard, links to sources behind the text can make the textual elements needed, less apparent. Despite the links to videos there was an absence of pictures or other design elements that would make the pages appealing to a reader.

The most prominent limitation to my digital textbook, as articulated in a focus group session was a lack of more interactive links within the resource. Although I had links to rubrics, maps, some sites showing the spread of the Black Death, and a very interesting site showing the different routes along the Silk Road, there was an absence of a number of elements I initially wanted to include. As this students suggests there were few interactive diagrams or sites, such as a web quest. I wanted to include Khan Academy style tutorials as well, but simply ran out of time to create this. As I will explore in the end, this points to a need for a more collective effort to create a resource like this. Moreover, it provides an opportunity for the resource itself to become a student project where students become knowledge creators rather than knowledge consumers.

6b Issues with the inquiry tasks along with the pedagogical strategies used to support this resource:

• The teacher stops the video a lot, where as when you read, you can keep on reading until your done. 2. Easier to lose file / DVD]

• The videos were long. Rather tedious.

• Not carry on with Renaissance for so long

• make more art based projects

• Maybe make some more visual things like have us make a skit on one of the events leading to the Renaissance or trying to paint Renaissance art. Have more visuals and make the videos shorter so they don't lag on.

• Have the kids making videos to the knowledge they know, so it would be fun project, and would prove that they know something about the Renaissance.

Here we see a number of limitations with this resource including the length of the unit and a lack of creative projects associated with the inquiry tasks. I think these comments raise two important insights that should inform any future digital textbooks. The first of these is length. After having done the Renaissance for three years now, I have launched some epic inquiry units around this topic. However, I now understand that longer is rarely better. The inquiry units students seem to most enjoy either run parallel to another unit, so they have some variety in what they are doing, or they are very short, focussed, and concise. I see now that some of the tasks were perceived as redundant and going over the same thing.

However, the most important point raised by these findings concerns the inquiry tasks themselves. All of the tasks, including preparation for the debate speech were very writing heavy and perhaps not as creative as they should have been. Students were largely representing understandings already found somewhere else, even the task on historical significance, although requiring a reasoned judgment, did not require a lot of creative thinking. Moreover, there was no authentic audience for students to present their work. Here, I think my problem was I dragged many elements of the old model of education into this new digital medium. Without opportunities for students to draw on their creative and imaginative capacities to create new knowledge and represent their findings in creative ways, the findings here point to the need to create digital resources that supports aspirations for a more creative and interactive forms of education, rather than positioning students as passive recipients of already settled knowledge.

Student Responses to a Digital Textbook

Over the last week the media has been awash in news stories surrounding Apple’s unveiling of their new iBooks 2 application for the iPad. This free App provides a user-friendly platform allowing anyone with an Apple computer to create their own digital textbook specifically tailored to the educational needs of both their students and their specific subject area. Touting the many features that make this resource infinitely superior to the large cumbersome textbooks we grew up with, the presence of imbedded videos and interactive animations, promises, according to Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, to provide students with “a more dynamic, engaging, and truly interactive way to read and learn” (South Asian News Agency). For its most ardent champions this digital platform even promises to reinvent education itself.

In working over the last year on what I have been referring to as an “Integrated Inquiry Resource” created for a grade 8 Humanities unit on the Renaissance (see this blog post here for the resource itself), I too have been trying to create a classroom resource that could leverage the potential of a digital textbook. To create my prototype, because my students have computers and not iPads, rather than use an ePub or iBooks 2 platform, I used Pages to create the digital textbook and then turned it into a pdf document. It is worth noting that I fervently hope Apple will make the iBooks 2 platform compatible with computers, as this is a major hindrance of their current publishing platforms which only allow students to leverage the full potential of their IBooks 2 on an iPad.

Within the resource I created, I provided among other things, links to short videos on the historical events addressed in the unit, inquiry questions meant to spur students to think critically and uncover the themes and content connected to specific aspects of the Renaissance, as well as links to assessment rubrics and accompanying strategies imbedded in the document to help students provide sophisticated responses to the inquiry tasks outlined after each section. See this blog post here, for a complete outline of the tasks included within this unit on the Renaissance.

By undertaking the tremendous work involved in creating a textbook from scratch, it was my hope that through creating opportunities for a flipped classroom, Khan Academy style tutorials, and links to remarkable videos, I could truly create something that would make the classroom only one site where meaningful learning takes place. However, before I, and others in the field of education, blindly embrace the potential of digital textbooks, I think what is needed is more considered thought and greater empirical evidence as to both the opportunities and limitations opened up by the adoption of digital resources in the classroom.

To this end, through taking part in a research initiative at Calgary Science School, I asked my students to respond to a ten-question anonymous survey asking them to provide feedback on my “Integrated Inquiry Resource.” Based on the preliminary findings from the survey, I followed this up with a series of focus group interviews to further explore themes and interesting findings that emerged from my students’ responses. In my next blog post, I will comment on the findings that emerged from these conversations. This blog post reports on the responses of my students to a survey that asked them to comment on the impact that my digital textbook had on their learning.

Of a possible 50 students a total of 46 students responded to the survey. The findings from this research study open up important insights concerning both the great potential of resources like this, as well as reasons for more considered deliberation before we start proclaiming the dawn of a new era in education. Using student work as another data source along with the survey, for this particular blog post I report on how this resource and accompanying tasks helped students:

• Gain a deeper understanding of themes and developments that occurred during the Italian Renaissance
• Adopt a flipped classroom approach where content delivery occurs at home and the classroom becomes a place for deliberation and the application of new knowledge

1. What was the impact of this resource on student learning?

Finding 1: As evidenced by the quality of their work and the sophistication of their responses to each of the inquiry tasks, students showed a relatively deep understanding of events and developments leading up to and characteristic of the Italian Renaissance.

Reflected in my last blog post here, in examining student work from each of the four major sections in this resource, I was very satisfied with the quality of their work and the sophistication of their responses to each of the inquiry tasks. In relation to task 2, for example, through focussing on the need to include specific historical details in their comic representation, students were able to well communicate their understanding of a particular element of the Renaissance. Additionally, through introducing students to the SES (state, explain, support) framework, I was also very happy with their responses to task 3 where students showed an ability to demonstrate their understanding of a particular development that led to the Italian Renaissance. Evidence of student understanding was was further demonstrated in their debates concerning which development was most responsible for sparking a renaissance in northern Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. Their debates speeches were well articulated and the vast majority of students had specific supporting details to back up their assertions.

In the final section, where I asked students to complete a talking to the text exercise and interpretation of the famous Humanist poem An Oration on the Dignity of Man as well as interpret a clamation rendering of Plato's Allegory of the Cave from the perspective of Humanists at the time, I was very impressed with the level and quality of their responses. In the case of both tasks, the rich dialogue that ensued from a class conversation along with their responses were extremely creative and sophisticated. Here is an example of each of the final two tasks I asked students to complete:

Oration on the Dignity of Man

“We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth,

Neither mortal or immortal,

So that with freedom of choice and with honor,

As thought the maker and molder of thyself,

Thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer.

Thou shalt have the power out of thy soul's judgment,

to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.”

‐Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

Student SES paragraph:

The Humanists believed that man was great and humans were meant to live as individuals, not to live for the glory of god. More specifically, humanists tried to enforce the public eye that the concept of humanism was a moral obligation, not a treachery to god. By this I mean that thought was shifted from god in heaven to humans on earth. There was a shift of judgment and humans began to think that they were capable of achieving, questioning and reasoning. This lead to a political reformation in society and civilization, which was developed from humanism. Humans began questioning authority. In the poem it says, "to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine." I think this is saying that when humans started to understand that they were meant for something, they were able to achieve illustriousness.

Student Response to Plato's Allegory of the Cave:

Symbol 1: I think that the Humanists would have interpreted the cave as a place not being able to shape yourself. More specifically they would have seen this as the prisoners are not allowed to see behind them they are not allowed to see what they want to see. By this I mean the jailers are controlling what the prisoners believe and what they see. In the video they are chained so that they can only see what is in front of them. I think this is showing that they prisoners are only seeing one thing and that their perception on the world will never change because they cannot believe what they cannot see (outside the cave). They can see merely this shadow play.

Symbol 2: I think that the Humanists would have interpreted the freed prisoner as a humanist. More specifically they would have seen this as the perception of the ex-prisoner changes when he is introduced to these new and exciting things outside the cave. He know believes what he believes not what the captors what him to believe. By this I mean when the prisoner is released he now has a world to get to discover for himself. In the video it says that the prisoner when he is let go he achieves a new perception of the world and he wants to share this perception with his friends. I think this is showing that he also wanted for the prisoners to learn and to experience the other outside world.

Finding 2: the video links and accompanying summary helped students gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the historical context that set the stage for the Renaissance.

When asked the question: "To what extent did the video links help you gain a better understanding of the 2, 500 hundred years of European history we covered when beginning the unit?" students responses were varied, but here is as sampling of some of their insights:


• The videos really helped me understand the Renaissance better. I feel that the videos gave me a better understanding of it as well. The videos helped me visualize it better which was good but I would have gotten the same knowledge with the textbook.

• I feel like now I have a better understanding of how it was at that time with the video.

• It was a very good visual helping us understand how life was back then

• This helped me understand further of what was not discussed in class, however, it was sometimes hard to catch what they said in the video, therefore I had to watch the videos multiple times just to obtain small information. Other then that, it was nice how you could continue watching and get a feel of how the history went.

• I think it did well on helping me understand because I really enjoy visuals in class rather that listening to lectures

• They helped me much more that if I used a textbook.

• It helped when we were struggling, plus, it was very interesting most of the time
yes because a picture is 1000 words so wouldn't a video be 1,000,000 words?

• I feel that my understanding really improved. Now its stuck in my brain and we toke time learning it therefore I really understand the unit.

• The videos made me more intrigued in my learning. I, being a visual learner, could relate and learn to the best of my ability from this.

Finding 3: As evidenced by the following comments, there are some limitations with an over reliance on videos and documentaries to transmit knowledge.

• it was sometimes hard to catch what they said in the video, therefore I had to watch the videos multiple times just to obtain small information.

• it gave me a better visual but nothing really thrilled me

• I believe that I would have been better able to understand the Italian Renaissance if we used a hard copy of a textbook.

• The video links gave a good sense of the time frame of the Italian Renaissance. As well, we saw the comparison between the time frame of the Italian Renaissance in comparison to other significant European events. However, I believe that I would have been better able to understand the Italian Renaissance if we used a hard copy of a textbook.

• I feel that the videos did help my understanding of European history. But the projects we did regarding the Renaissance i feel helped me more than the videos did.

• The first and the second on were very helpful but after that I do not think any one was watching them

2. Did this resource help students adopt a flipped classroom approach to learning?

Finding 4: This was one of the more interesting findings in my survey. Data suggests that at the junior high school level, as apposed to say the University or high school level, it may be harder than we think to get students to watch content at home. However, the content that students are asked to watch may greatly determine whether students would watch content at home. However, students did find watching documentaries on a topic much more interesting than solely reading a text based resource.

In moving to a flipped classroom approach to learning it is argued by advocates of this approach that content delivery, which largely requires passive instruction, can occur at home and the classroom becomes a place for more active learning involving working through questions, discussing concepts and ideas, and applying new knowledge. Through creating links to documentaries and videos within this digital resource, I hoped to flip some of the content delivery for students to watch at home. However, the results of the survey show that my aspirations here were less than successful.

When asked whether they watched the links to videos at home, as can be seen below the responses were as follows:

1. When assigned to watch links within the Renaissance resource at home or on your own, did you do this? (answered question 43, skipped question 1)

Response Percent Response Count:

Always 23.3% 10
Most of the time 30.2% 13
Sometimes 25.6% 11
Rarely 11.6% 5
Never 9.3% 4

This means about 1/5 of students rarely or never watched videos at home, while just over half watched them always or most of the time. This speaks to the fact, that at the junior high school level, as apposed to the University or high school level, it may be harder than we think to get students to watch content at home; even if this content comes in the form of documentaries that many students their age do find interesting to watch. This being said, I did receive several comments from students that they sat and watched an hour and twenty minute long documentary on Leonardo da Vinci on their own because they found it so fascinating.
When asked whether they watched videos in the resource that were not assigned for homework but were encouraged to watch for interests sake, as can be seen below only 7% said they did so on over two occasions, 45% said an one occasion, and 48% said never.

2. Some videos in the resource were not assigned, did you ever watch some of the video links on your own? (answered question 44, skipped question 0)

Response Percent Response Count:

On two to three occasions 6.8% 3
On one occasion 45.5% 20
Never 47.7%

In a similar vein, when asked how often they went back to re-watch videos to gain a deeper understanding of the historical time period, about 20% reported they did so often, about 37% did so on a few occasions, and about 36% did so rarely or never.


4. How often did you go back to watch videos to get a better understanding of the topic you were studying? (answered question 44, skipped question 0)

Response Percent Response Count:

Many times 20.5% 9
On a few occasions 36.4% 16
Sometimes 13.6% 6
Rarely 22.7% 10
Never 13.6% 6

These findings speak to limitations as to the extent, within this context, the flipped classroom format is a viable model to help students to extend their learning on their own. This is confirmed by the fact that students were quite pessimistic that other students could be counted on to watch videos at home. When asked what percentage of students they thought could be counted on to watch an hour video at home for homework, over 45% of respondents indicated that only about 1/3 of students could be counted on to do this. Here we find interesting questions concerning the types of students most likely to watch a video for homework. It may point to already keen and academically successful students willing to do this, while students who are struggling could be less inclined to watch a video for homework. This finding, therefore, points to the need for further study as to the viability of the flipped classroom approach. However, probably predictably most 60% of students found watching videos at home preferable to reading a text-based resource, while only 14% claimed this was not the case; the others answered that it was somewhat preferable to watch a video at home.

Thank you if you read this; it's a bit of a slog.

Digital Textbook Inquiry Tasks for the Renaissance

by Dave Scott

What follows is post number two of a four part series on the curricular potential of digital textbooks. These posts are the result of an action research study I have been involved in as part of a research initiative at Calgary Science School to encourage innovation and reflective practice within an inquiry-based environment.

Recently, there has been much discussion of Apple's free iBook 2 application that allows anyone to create interactive textbooks for the popular iPad tablet. See this article here for details on an application Apple believes is going to revolutionize the textbook market. In working on what I have been referring to as an “Integrated Inquiry Resource” created for a grade 8 Humanities unit on the Renaissance (see this blog post here for the resource itself) over the last year, I too have been trying to create a classroom resource that could leverage the potential of a digital textbook. In the next two blog posts I would like to report on feedback I have received from students as to the curricular potential of the digital resource I created. Let me begin by outlining the inquiry tasks I created within this digital textbook.

Within this resource, I provided among other things, links to short videos on the historical events addressed in the unit, inquiry questions meant to encourage students to think critically and uncover the themes and content connected to specific aspects of the Renaissance, as well as assessment rubrics and accompanying strategies to help students provide sophisticated responses to the inquiry tasks outlined after each section. By undertaking the tremendous work involved in creating a digital textbook from scratch, it was my hope that, through creating opportunities for a flipped classroom (see this article for a full explanation on what this entails), Khan Academy style tutorials, and links to remarkable videos, I could create something that would make the classroom only one site where meaningful learning takes place.

To this end, within the resource I began by trying to provide the context needed to understand the creative flourishing and rebirth of classical (Ancient Greek and Roman) learning that was the Renaissance. Here, I included a chapter outlining some of the major events, from the Golden Age of Ancient Greece to the Fall of Rome on through to the Black Death, to provide the historical background of this age of renewal and rebuilding. Writing in a conversational voice, I accompanied a brief discussion of each period with hyperlinks to short video clips posted on YouTube of various documentaries drawn from sources such as the History Channel and PBS, to help bring these events to life. Noting that the Renaissance can be understood as period of renewal and rebuilding after the ravages of the Black Death, this video on the Bubonic Plague is an example of the kinds of documentary clips I used to help show the impact this event had on Europe. At the end of this section in the digital resource, students were asked to create a historical timeline outlining the historical events covered in this 2,500-year expanse of history. Here is an example of a historical timeline students created:

From here, after providing a series of lectures on the different aspects that make up the event we now call the Italian Renaissance, I had students choose from a list of five characteristics that can describe this time period (i.e., a period of renewal after the ravages of the Black Death, a period of intense artistic activity). Then using the cartoon-making program Pixton, we had students explain this particular characteristic of the Renaissance in this graphic novel style medium. See this Demonstrating Understanding Through Pixton blog post for an explanation of this task, along with the comic below for examples of the kind of work students created:

Students were then asked to choose from a list of 16 developments that led to the Italian Renaissance (i.e., The Crusades, contact with the Islamic World, the fall of the Byzantine Empire) and after a talking to the text note taking exercise, create a SES (state, explain, support) paragraph on their area. After presenting their development to the class, as a culminating final activity, students were asked to use criteria for historical significance and decide which development was the most historically significant for igniting a Renaissance in northern Italy during the 15th and 16th century. As a culminating activity for this section, students were asked to defend their decision in a horseshoe debate format. Here, the emphasis was on developing two arguments as to why your event was significant, developing these ideas, and identifying historical facts to back up your opinion. Unfortunately video footage of the debate was erased, however, here is an example of a student's debate script.

In the final section, we created a series of tasks that, among other things, sought to surface the worldview of key Humanist and Renaissance thinkers. To take one example, after revisiting the concept of Humanism emphasizing that this movement involved the rejection of the medieval obsession with the afterlife at the expense of this life and placed man and his potential at the centre of things, using two superb video clips to bring students deeper into this notion, we asked students the following question:

Drawing on this History Channel video Humanism Triggers the Renaissance, and after watching this Clamation version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, how do you think Humanist thinkers would have interpreted the symbols in this story meant to contain a hidden meaning?

See this blog post for video footage of what this conversation looked like. Here, rather than just saying the Renaissance involved the revival of Greek learning, I wanted to show this by bringing students into the world that Humanists would have been encountering in reading the ancient classics of Plato and Aristotle. Here is an example of a student response to this question:

Symbol 1: I believe that the Humanists would have interpreted the chains as a barrier holding them back. The barrier is the overpowering belief of God or a supreme being, which is stopping them from moving forward. Due to such an intense belief of God, people would assume that God would give them the inventions, which held them back from taking the initiative to actually do something. Cities and towns would not have been nearly as progressed because people believed that if it were meant to be, God would have made it as such. However, when the belief of humanism became popular, people became motivated to do things on their own and cities became more advanced much sooner. In the video, the cave dweller’s hands are chained back, showing that their belief in God is restricting them from advancing and pushing forward.

Symbol 2: It is my belief that the Humanists would have interpreted the real world outside as reality. Just a glance at the real world would have shown the cave dwellers that they did not need God, or a higher being to control them. People could do things on their own, rely on themselves instead of some mythical being. The real world was representing what the world could be if people believed in themselves, and believed that the individual could be great. In the video, the cave dwellers are unable to see the reality of the world, because they are chained back by the belief of God. I think this is showing that many extreme religionists were unable to open their eyes, and turn around to see the real world.

Geology and the iPad

-by Lisa Nelson, Grade 7 Math/Science

Teaching a group of grade 7s who have used 1:1 Macbook laptops for the past three years and are now part of a 1:1 iPad initiative has been somewhat challenging. The students were slightly discouraged by the limitations of the iPad at the beginning of the school year. It was our goal as a grade 7 team to get students to buy-in to iPads and to note the good things about them.

We started the year with the ‘Planet Earth’ unit in Science. To alleviate some of their frustrations, we decided to give them a project that would showcase some of the positives of iPads and ensure that they had the opportunity for success.

In past years, in collaboration with two geologists and other colleagues, my partner teacher, Erin Couillard, and I designed a field trip through the Bow Valley, showcasing different geologic landforms. We chose to modify the field trip this year to include a visual timeline depicting the geologic history of the Bow Valley region as the main product. In previous years, we had experienced challenges with the follow-up from the field trip. With the iPads, students were easily able to record or capture evidence of geologic formations which could then be used once we returned to the classroom.

Advantages of using Mobile Technology for this project:

Portability/Flexibility
Students were able to take their iPads on this trip. They had their iPads in their backpacks, and were even accessing them on the not-so-simple hike we went on. The ease in which iPads can be transported and used made them ideal for this task.

Built in camera/HD video camera
On the field trip, students were asked to use their iPads to document evidence of different geologic activities including evidence of an ancient inland sea, mountain building, deposition, glaciation and erosion. They were also required to complete a booklet, answering questions about the various landforms they saw. iPads made it easy for students to document the trip.


Project options
Following the field trip, students created a presentation using only images taken on the trip and a script using information learned from the geologist and Science class. The students needed to work collaboratively within a group to choose the best images taken on the field trip to represent each geologic event. They then placed them in the appropriate historical order in a slideshow. Students gave a presentation to the class discussing how the photo provided evidence of the geologic event, and linked the event to other stages on the timeline. We worked with students to generate a rubric for assessing the presentations. The students used Keynote to create their slideshows. You can watch a sample slideshow here (though there are no words, as the students presented in class with a script) Students had the option to use iMovie as well to show their images and record a script.

The field trip was deemed a success by most students, though some seemed to think it would have been just as easy to complete the project without iPads.

Some student thoughts:

“…without the iPad, we would just have used a camera to take the pictures.”

“On the field trip, (iPads) made things easier in a way because we didn’t have to upload photos from a camera. We could take notes on the trip, too.”

“It was harder without a laptop because normally I would make an iMovie with external sound, but I had to do a Keynote instead and I don’t really know Keynote.”

From a student who is new to our school (from a school without 1:1 laptop/iPad access): “The iPad helped so much with this project. We got to make a presentation to the class without having to make a poster or something. Keynote made it easy to collect and order our pictures of the (geologic) events. I also like how now I can do research without having to use the textbook all the time. It’s so much lighter to carry my iPad than textbooks.”

Student Engagement Captivates Me

By Ivy Waite

Student engagement captivates me.

Why is it that certain things are irresistible, while others can be such a challenge for some to find captivating? How can teachers take advantage of those things that captivate to engage our students in the classroom?

We can - if we are willing to think creatively.

During the first term of the school year I had the privilege of teaching the inaugural class of the World@War elective here at CSS. History, of warfare in particular, has always been a very popular topic among my students (mostly male). As a topic that I am also very passionate about, I decided to combine the demand for history with avid interest in popular media representations of the war to give rise to this completely independent, inquiry driven course.

Students were challenged to propose projects that had to be focused on a major conflict from recent human history (500 years), and had to include the following media types as resources:
• Documentary Film
• Period Film (from the time of the conflict, if possible)
• Feature Film
• Variety of online resources (full MLA works cited list required)
• Video Game (Call of Duty series, Battlefield, Minecraft, etc.)

Students worked in small groups (3-4) to determine the focus of their project, and to complete the proposal. It was up to students to decide what the guiding question of a project would be, and to focus on what their essential understandings would have to be in order to answer their question.

The trimester flew by. Every second day my room was filled with students watching films on their laptops with headphones, editing the footage from their own gameplay to use in their documentaries comparing the real Battle of Stalingrad with the campaign challenge from the game Call of Duty World at War, and pouring over research notes on the tactics used throughout the Korean War. Other students chose to take a different direction and looked at genocide in Rwanda, French Revolution, and the history of weaponry throughout the two world wars up to today.

The following video was created by one of my students who struggles with staying focused in regular classes but got excited about the possibility of bringing his love of gaming into the classroom. I was extremely impressed with his work and the way that he remained focused throughout the class.

Battle of Stalingrad: Reality vs. Call of Duty World @ War

During the second term, I once again challenged my students to read and review five novels. After some serious thought about media literacy, and the realities of what media students are consuming, I decided to allow them to review the campaign story from a video game that they were currently playing or planned to play. The results have been outstanding. Videos expertly pieced together using scenes from the game to support a mature critique of multiple aspects of the game have been entertaining and exceptionally well put together.

The following video is one example of the reviews that have been submitted thus far.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three Review

Exemplary learning truly does occur when we incorporate curriculum meaningfully and seek innovative ways to engage our students!!!

For more information on the place of gaming in the classroom, check out this page on my personal blog Creative Craniums: "Learn A Little: Articles to Chew On - Gaming in the 21st Century Classroom".