Tag: iBooks author

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Exploring History Vol V: Six Document Based Lessons

Exploring History: Vol V

We’re very pleased to share a new multi-touch iBook just published by our Social Studies Methods class. Exploring History: Vol V was our PBL capstone and is available free at iTunes in 51 countries around the world. It features these World and US History lessons:

  1. WWII Propaganda: Close Reading by Nancy Guidry
  2. The Limits of Leadership by Paxton Deuel
  3. African Imperialism by Kelly Sutton
  4. The Harlem Renaissance by Taran Schwartz
  5. Western Expansion Text Set by James Bayless
  6. An Account of The Red Summer by David Grabin

This book is the fifth in a series of “Exploring History” titles designed by  UP preservice social studies teachers. The books have been very popular – with over 30,000 downloads from nearly two dozen countries. Writing for an authentic and global audience has been one of the prime motivators in this on going publishing project.

Interactive iBook version ~ Free at iTunes
Download Static PDF version (10 MB)

It features six engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. The units draw from a fascinating collection of text and multimedia content – documents, posters, photographs, audio, video, letter and other ephemera. “Stop-and-think” prompts based on CCSS skills guide students through analysis of the primary and secondary sources. Essential questions foster critical thinking. All documents include links back to the original source material so readers can remix the content into their own curated collections.

All of my student’s wrote for a public audience on our class blog and pursued three class goals:

  • Learn to think like a historian.
  • Become a skillful instructional designer
  • Develop technical skills for production, reflection, growth and professional networking.

The lesson design process began early in the semester when students designed lessons in historical thinking skills based on the work of Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). They focussed on three key skills – Sourcing, Contextualizing and Corroborating. Then students identified essential questions worth answering and gathered documents to explore the question.

Here’s a post (from fall ’13 class) that describes our project workflow (including how we utilized iBooks Author). The Exploring History includes four additional volume

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Class 14: Design Lab I

Design Lab I

Digital technologies have put us in charge of the information we access, store, analyze and share.  Creating an iBook harnesses those motivational factors into an engaging learning experience. The ease of distribution across the world (via iTunes) means students can communicate with a broader, and more authentic audience than just their teacher and class peers.

This week we will wrap up our first drafts of our historical thinking skill lessons for inclusion into our collaborative iBook. We’ll be working in the Digital Lab at Clark Library. This will be the fifth multi-touch iBook published by our EdMethods students.

Technical aspects
The iBooks will be designed using iBooks Author in the Mac lab. Students will bring digital versions of their DBQs to the lab – including all image and sound files, text files, citations and URLs. Here’s a quick guide to managing your files to get ready for iBooks Author: edMethods Teachers’ Tool Kit: iBooks Author

I’ve created a YouTube channel with some short tutorials that students may wish to refer to. See iBooks Author Tips

Holocaust Memorial Project

We’ll also use this session to put finishing touches on our web-based curriculum design project at Oregon Holocaust Memorial

Image credit: Adobe Spark

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Class 15: Final Pre-pub Checklist

Civilian_Conservation_Corps,_Third_Corps_Area,_typing_class_with_W.P.A._instructor_-_NARA_-_197144We’ll be using iBooks Author to finish our iBooks today (Report to Digital lab / Clark Library).

Note: You will be adding your last blog post (reflection) as a final portion of the lesson. That can be your look back at the of the entire document based lesson process.

Here’s our final pre-publication checklist

  1. We will use the Inspector/ Document to disable “Hyphenate.”
  2. Your chapters will need your names. If you have a website, Twitter or LinkedIn page, etc – you can link to it so readers can find you.
  3. Does your chapter include relevant dates (or eras).
  4. You will need to have links back to documents / content. They should not just link to jpg file, but the entire source as listed in whatever archive you used.
  5. Sources can be cited adjacent to document or at end of the lesson as Work Cited.
  6. All links should all be checked to see if they work. To save space consider just using the words source and making it a hyperlink.
  7. Looking for icons to spice it up? Check out The Noun Project. They are free and should be cited in your sources if the name gets cut off of icon.
  8. Some of the images you used are bit fuzzy in resolution. We can look for higher resolution versions.
  9. If you have large images, you can use a setting to make the images pop out to full size. (inspector/ widget/ interaction/ goes to full screen)
  10. Be sure you do not have any placeholder text in widgets “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet….” That needs to be removed. iTunes will not accept the iBook.
  11. Look to be sure you don’t have any empty text boxes you might have added. They will be in the center of the page

Image Credit: Civilian Conservation Corps, Third Corps Area, typing class with W.P.A. instructor ca. 1933
National Archives and Records Administration Identifier: 197144

 

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Class 13: Working with iBooks Author

History of the Bassandyne Bible

Digital technologies have put us in charge of the information we access, store, analyze and share.  Creating an iBook harnesses those motivational factors into an engaging learning experience. The ease of distribution across the world (via iTunes) means students can communicate with a broader, and more authentic audience than just their teacher and class peers.

This week we will wrap up our first drafts of our document based lessons for inclusion into our collaborative iBook. We’ll be working in the Digital Lab at Clark Library. This will be the fourth iBook published by our EdMethods students.

Technical aspects
The iBooks will be designed using iBooks Author in the Mac lab. Students will bring digital versions of their DBQs to the lab – including all image and sound files, text files, citations and URLs. Here’s a quick guide to managing your files to get ready for iBooks Author: edMethods Tool Kit: iBooks Author

I’ve created a YouTube channel with some short tutorials that students may wish to refer to. See iBooks Author Tips

Image credit: Image from page 94 of “History of the Bassandyne Bible, the first printed in Scotland with notices of the early printers of Edinburgh” (1887) William T Dobson,