Tag: iBooks author

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Class 9: Using the Digital Lab

France_in_XXI_Century._SchoolToday we meet in the Digital Lab in the Library.

Our class has two phases:

Document-Based Lesson Pitch: Our class will open with a bit of “speed dating” of our ideas for the Document-Based Lesson Assignment. Students will have 3 mins to stand up and pitch their lesson idea using our shared Google slideshow. That will be followed by 6 mins of feedback from peers regarding the following:

  • You have an interesting generative / essential question worth answering.
  • Your initial appraisal indicates there are suitable documents available.
  • You have an idea for how students will be asked interpret your documents

Intro to iBooks Author: Students will have a chance to see how easy it is to import content into iBA. Some time to mess around with app should give you insight into how you will need to manage your workflow. For more info on using iBA see our edMethods Toolkit

Assignment:

Due 10/31: Next week we will do our second lesson study – be prepared with a 4 minute pitch with a lesson idea (not the same lesson as your document-based lesson). You might use our content, process, product, assessment approach (or any other format you prefer) We will give you feedback. No need for any media presentation or handouts. All oral presentation. Matching Halloween costume optional.

Preview: If you want to plan ahead, here’s what’s coming on document-based lesson. Students will begin to layout their document-based lesson using a Google Site. With one webpage to correspond to each page of the lesson.

Image credit: A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000

A series of futuristic pictures by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists issued in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. Originally in the form of paper cards enclosed in cigarette/cigar boxes and, later, as postcards, the images depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the then distant year of 2000. There are at least 87 cards known that were authored by various French artists, the first series being produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. More information and cards here.

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Our New iBook – Exploring History Vol III

Exploring-History-IIIHere’s our new iBook just published by our Fall ’15 class at the University of Portland. Free at iTunes. Static pdf version Exploring History Vol III (29 MB)

It features thirteen 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 our students assignments had a public audience on this class blog and were designed to meet our 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 in an extended lesson design process.

Exploring History: Vol III was our PBL capstone and is available on iTunes in 51 countries around the world. Here’s a post (from fall 13 class) that describes our project workflow (including how we utilized iBooks Author).

Here’s Exploring History: Vol I created by our fall 2013 class. And Exploring History: Vol II designed by our fall 2014 class.

Here’s the US and World History lessons in chronological order:

  1. Finding Egyptian Needles in Western Haystacks 
by Heidi Kershner
  2. Pompeii by Caleb Wilson
  3. Samurai: Sources of Warrior Identity in Medieval Japan 
by Ben Heebner
  4. The Declaration of Independence by David Deis
  5. Reconstruction in Political Cartoons 
by EmmaLee Kuhlmann
  6. Regulation Through the Years 
by Chenoa Musillo Olson / Sarah Wieking
  7. Battle of the Somme by John Hunt
  8. The Lynching of Leo Frank by Jeff Smith
  9. The Waco Horror by Alekz Wray
  10. The Harlem Renaissance by Monica Portugal
  11. A Date of Infamy by Mollie Carter
  12. Anti-Vietnam War Imagery by Felicia Teba
  13. Examining the Ongoing Evolution of American Government by Eric Cole
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Thoughts on Creating Document-Based Lessons

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Vietnam War Protestors at the March on the Pentagon in 1967

For the past three weeks, we have been working on designing our own Document Based Lessons (DBLs) to be published on iBooks Author. This experience was interesting . This was my first time working on a project like this. I found that the process was a bit long and required having good knowledge about the topic. This is why I chose to cover anti-Vietnam War images in my DBL. I know a lot about the anti-war movement and it was a topic I felt would be interesting for high school students to examine.

When working on designing this DBL, I had first thought that I wanted to cover ’60s pop culture in relation to the counterculture movement. I then had a difficult time finding sources that were not copyrighted or would have such problems arise. This moved me to find images related to the anti-war movement. I found many images, including the one featured above,  that related to looking at anti-war protests and what those who were against the war were arguing.

Once I had these images, I arranged them around an essential question: How can images/language usage help us understand the goals of a movement or group? I chose to base my DBL around this question because it helps students to build skills around historical thinking skill such as Sourcing and Close Reading. Each of the images in my DBL  features the essential question as a reminder of what to be thinking about, and each image includes 4 questions specific to the image. This helps the student to make deeper connections to the images and what they are conveying.

When creating this DBL in iBooks Author, I found the experience to be interesting, and a little scary. It was interesting because I was able to get creative when designing the layout for my image set. I used various colored shapes to help my essential question and each additional question stand out. I also used a couple of widgets that allow students to magnify the image, and another that allows you to click the image and receive additional info about it, almost like a caption box. I feel like these additions helped to make my DBL feel less dull.

If I were to get the chance to, I would definitely like to do another project like this. It makes you think about what questions are worth asking, and what you want students to look at as historians.

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vietnam_War_protestors_at_the_March_on_the_Pentagon.jpg

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Class 15: Publish or Perish

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). Here’s a  pdf copy of our rough draft “Exploring History Vol III” A collection of student-designed document based lessons.

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.

We will also take some time to complete our UP Smart Evals

Here’s a  few iBooks Author reminders:

  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. Some chapters need dates (or eras).
  4. Some have used sections, some not. That is your call. Unless the sections help deliver the content, we should consider eliminating them and going to chapter with pages.
  5. 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.
  6. Sources can be adjacent to document or at end of the lesson as Work Cited.
  7. 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.
  8. Looking for icons to spice it up? Check out The Noun Project. They are free and should be cited in your sources
  9. Some of the images you used are bit fuzzy in resolution. We can look for higher resolution versions.
  10. 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)
  11. Some of you still have placeholder text in widgets “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet….” That needs to be removed. iTunes will not accept the iBook.
  12. If you want to embed a video, we will use the Bookry site. Here’s a video how to
  13. I’ve created a YouTube channel with some short tutorials – iBooks Author Tips

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