I’ve been exploring AI use for teachers and students for the past view months. I recently was interviewed by Aaron Maurer for his educator’s podcast “Peter Pappas And How AI Is Challenging Educators To Rethink Practices Of Teaching And Learning“
Listen on Apple Podcast
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Here’s an AI Toolkit that I designed to assist students and teachers with integrating AI into teaching and learning. This is reposted from my course website: EdTechMethods
Since the recent launch of ChatGPT – Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are in the news. Here’s a brief list of AI tools and resources. All are free (or have free intro promotions). We will be integrating them into our course over the semester.
You are free to use AI tools in this course for your weekly assignments. Some assignments – like this week’s – will require it. You are free to use AI in creative ways. But be sure to always site AI use as noted in #1 below. See my example at the end of this page.
Be aware of the limits of ChatGPT and other text generating apps:
Start Here: How to use AI to do Practical Stuff: A New Guide And Seven Ways of Using AI in Class
AI note for this page: I elected to use AI to generate a featured image for this page. Thought it would be proof of concept. I used Lexica and this prompt: “A steampunk tool box in a mysterious setting.” It took me a number of tries to add descriptor prompts to get something I wanted. The final image included some elements that make no sense – what’s the “screen” at right and cables in foreground? Mysterious?
This is repost of a lesson I did in my social studies methods class at University of Portland. It explored the largely forgotten government policies that segregated nearly every major American city and metro area. We also looked at how those unconstitutional actions fostered inequality in America since their enactment in the 1930s.
Scroll down for student projects.
In preparation for this class,
students watched the video Segregated by Design.
Class opened with the brief film Housing Segregation and Redlining in America: A Short History. I then put students into breakout groups and (using a Jamboard) they created mind maps of the legacy of redlined neighborhoods based on what they had seen in the two introductory videos. They brainstormed and developed visual comparisons that explored multiple factors such as – income, wealth, health, schools, policing, services, employment, environment.
Next I introduced the tools they would use for the lesson – digitized version of 1940 US Census and the website Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America . Mapping Inequality allows the user to explore the “redline” maps created by agents of the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) between 1935 and 1940. The maps are displayed over contemporary maps that make it easy to view where redline districts are today.
Next I took them to the the 1940 US Census and showed them how to look up street addresses and navigate to specific neighborhoods. I shared census pages from some Portland neighborhoods.
Sample “Best” and “Hazardous” neighborhoods
“Best” A7 Arlington Heights District- Census page from 229 SW Wright Ave. in A7 | 229 SW Wright Today
Clarifying Remarks from HOLC map: Deed restrictions have expired but single-family residential zoning and topography give ample protection. Infiltration of Subversive Races is remote. Foreign-born families: 0% Negro: none. Residents: Executives, business and professional men, retired capitalists, etc.
“Hazardous” D8 Southwest River District – Census page from 931 SW 1st Ave in Portland in D8. | Rooming house torn down. 931 SW 1st is now the World Trade Center
Clarifying Remarks from HOLC map: This is distinctly a workingmen’s rental district and approximately half of the population being employed in the industrial plants along the river.
Infiltration of Subversive Races has occurred. Foreign-born families 35%; Orientals 750 Chinese, 250 Japanese, 35 Filipinos, Negro 30%
Note: it helps to refer to Blank 1940 Census form showing categories
You will “search by location where the person lived.” Begin by narrow search by state, county, city, street.
After you click search, you have the option to add a cross street.
It will take you to multipage document that may not exactly zero in on the intersection you wanted. You may need to scroll through some pages to get to that location. You can find the streets and house numbers on far left. (Street written vertically)
I wanted the student to draw a personal connection between the HOLC categories (best, still desirable, definitely declining and hazardous) and the data from the 1940 census. To demonstrate, I shared my mother’s family entry from 1940 census then showed that my grandparents and family were living in a HOLC designated “Definitely Declining” neighborhood. I shared some family photos of the house and neighborhood. Then we looked at the family home value in 1940 and shared how the neighborhood had steadily declined to the point that the home today is currently valued at less than one-half of the inflation-adjusted value listed in the 1940 census.
I knew that not all students would be able to find a family listing in the census nor might they ever have lived in a city mapped by HOLC. So I left the final product very open ended and invited them to make connections that worked for them.
A number of students were able to find family members on the census and family home in the HOLC maps
A few students focused on the history of homes they lived in.
Some students looked how the HOLC influenced residential options for immigrant groups
Others looked at redlining’s impact on property values and neighborhood development
]]>Here is a repost of the lesson I assigned my University of Portland pre-service teachers. Original here.
In honor of the historic nature of the 2020 election, students will have the opportunity to explore historical turning points and their own creativity by designing an alternative history. Students should have fun with this. It could be set in any era or region of the world.
You should embed the slide show in a post. Include at least an explanation on why you feel this event was a historical turning point.
I got very positive feedback from students who really enjoyed this lesson. They also thought it could be easily expanded so that students had to defend their alt histories. Another ideas was for the teacher to assign everyone the same real events and let students focus on creating and defending their own alt histories.
Here’s a few of the alt histories my students created.
I’m sharing the idea to help teachers assist students in making connections. You can easily modify with new content boxes to match your instruction.
Download and copy Keynote file from Google Drive
In my Ed Methods class, students worked remotely in teams to explore the documents in my book, Progress and Poverty in Industrial America (available free at iTunes). Also available online as a Microsoft Sway. We used the 11 sources to create a graphic organizer that responds to the essential question: “How do we evaluate the social costs and benefits of technological innovations?”
They had read all the documents in advance of class. As part of our Zoom class session, I put them in breakout groups and supplied them with a Keynote file “Hexagonal Thinking Corroboration Tool.” Corroboration prompts are from SHEG. This thinking tool was inspired by this post. Keynote design adapted from here.
Instructions:
Work with the members of your breakout group to corroborate the source readings.
As a final exercise, I supplied them with a Google Jamboard and asked them to evaluate the question “How do we evaluate the social costs and benefits of technological innovations?” in the context of the modern world.
]]>Most materials are in the public domain if they were produced before 1923. I see this as roughly equivalent to everything that happened in the world up to and including World War I! If you’re looking for newspaper articles in Chronicling America, for example, you will note that coverage ends in 1922.
Primary sources produced by the federal government are normally in the public domain both before and after the magic copyright date of 1923. That explains why we as teachers can use the fabulous oral history interviews of former slaves collected between 1936 and 1938 by workers from the Federal Writers’ Project.
Being able to find and curate historical source material is a foundation of historical thinking. This activity merges three instructional goals: finding / curating historical sources, looking closely at historical sources and using WordPress tools to add images and hyperlinks. It will help students learn how to find material for future lesson design activities.
Example: Image with two crops
In class practice images. Choose one. Add to a sample post. Include source hyperlink and crop with comment.
Teachers can use historical documents to build literacy skills in a content area while empowering students to be the historian in the classroom. But document-based instruction in this context requires four key elements to be successful:
In Class 7 we will practice some strategies for assisting students to more closely read a document (in all their multimedia formats) by answering three Common Core questions. Broad version:
More specifically, what do we mean by close reading? Teachers can guide students with scaffolding questions that explore “texts” (in all their forms).
Key Ideas and Details:
What does the text say? Identify the key ideas. What claims does the author make? What evidence does the author use to support those claims?
Craft and Structure:
Who created the document? What’s their point of view / purpose? How did the text say it? How does it reflect its historic time period?
Integration of Knowledge and ideas:
Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text. Recognize disparities between multiple accounts. Compare text to other media / genres. How does it connect to what we’re learning?
And what’s it mean to me?
Find a historical image and pair it with one of the Primary Source Icebreakers. The post to the padlet below. Include title of icebreaker, response to prompt and hyperlinked source of image. (See example below) These icebreakers are from TPS Connect at MSU Denver.
Today’s class will focus on finding and curating historical content – in this case images. Our focus will be on sourcing material that is in public domain using our historical archive resources.
Most materials are in the public domain if they were produced before 1923. I see this as roughly equivalent to everything that happened in the world up to and including World War I! If you’re looking for newspaper articles in Chronicling America, for example, you will note that coverage ends in 1922.
Primary sources produced by the federal government are normally in the public domain both before and after the magic copyright date of 1923. That explains why we as teachers can use the fabulous oral history interviews of former slaves collected between 1936 and 1938 by workers from the Federal Writers’ Project.
Class will open with a discussion on strategies for supporting remote learning – both in our course and our student placements.
Next, Peter will share some information on public domain and Creative Commons. He will also share strategies for searching using a selection of historical archives.
Students will then practice:
Lastly, Peter will introduce this week’s assignment and some strategies for working with WordPress to create learning activities base on close readings of historical images.
Being able to find and curate historical source material is a foundation of historical thinking. This activity merges three Instuctional goals: finding / curating historical sources, looking closely at historical sources and using WordPress tools to add images and hyperlinks. It will help students learn how to find material for future lesson design activities.
Here’s some sample student work from Fall 2019.
Example: Image with two crops
WordPress now has a built in “Image Compare” block. Find a two suitable images to compare and use the compare to explore continuity and change.
Do the image compare for two sets of images. So you will have two separate “image compares” with guiding questions for each.
Note that this post uses JuxtaposeJS to create the same image compare (it was before it came to WordPress). So ignore that aspect and focus on examples of comparative images and my technique for getting best image alignment. I used Google slides in video. But same technique would work in Apple Keynote.
Click on image. Then open Format window. Click on Style. Then adjust the opacity slider to where you want it. Once you have images aligned, remove all opacity. Duplicate the slide with one image on each.
Feature image uses photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
]]>In advance, I created a Google site – “Pandemic Teachers’ Toolkit” that profiled ten free (or freemium) edtech apps. Each app page included a brief overview, how to log in, samples of the app in action, a how-to video on using the app, and instruction on how to get a sample project from the app to a Padlet showcase. The apps were numbered 1-10.
On the morning of the session, I logged in 42 students and I opened with a brief intro and an overview of the morning’s activities. I did a short presentation on the apps using Keynote with some screen shots that highlighted each app and what it could do. I then used Zoom’s built-in breakout group tool to create random groups of four students each. Each breakout group was assigned to explore their corresponding numbered app. The suggestion was for each student in the breakout group to explore the assigned app in parallel fashion and offer help to each other as needed. When they completed a product with the app they posted it to the corresponding Padlet along with comments on working with the app.
As Zoom host I was able to drop in and out of breakout groups offering support as needed. If anyone had a question they could message me via Zoom. After about 30 minutes of work time we all got back together and shared observations. For example – you can’t be in Zoom and Flipgrid simultaneously – the are both fighting over your camera. (Why didn’t I think of that?)
Then we repeated the process and I created 10 new random teams. Some student found themselves back at the same app. So they did not agree to join that group. I was quickly able to see that and assign them to a new group. Students spent about another half hour exploring the second app. They again posted their work and observation to the corresponding Padlet.
I should note that their app-posts were very clever and creative. And their comments were spot on. As a closer, I provided a Google Form exit ticket. Their responses demonstrated that they saw the experience as very valuable and that it achieved it’s goals.
Here’s a two of the exit questions and student responses.
I Am A Man” VR Experience is an interactive virtual reality experience set to the historic events of the African- American Civil Rights Movement. Users will witness the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Worker’s Strike and the events leading to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. using the Oculus Rift VR headset. The VR project was created by Derek Ham and won an award for funding through the Oculus Launch Pad program.
Traveling While Black is a cinematic VR experience that immerses the viewer in the long history of restriction of movement for black Americans and the creation of safe spaces in our communities.
Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams and Emmy Award-winning Felix & Paul Studios’ film transports you to historic Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington DC. The viewer shares an intimate series of moments with several of the patrons of Ben’s as they reflect on their experiences of restricted movement and race relations in the U.S.
1,000 Cut Journey is an Immersive Virtual Reality experience in which participants embody a Black male, Michael Sterling, experiencing racism as a child through disciplinary action in the classroom, as an adolescent encountering the police, and as a young adult experiencing workplace discrimination.
Mapping Amache: The Amache Internment Camp is located near Granada, Colorado. It is where over 10,000 Japanese-American citizens and persons of Japanese ancestry were forced to live from 1942-1945. It is also called Granada Relocation Center.
This weblog is intended to follow along with the long-term project of mapping this one square mile of earth where so much history took place. The basic map of Amache has been developed over the last few years. There are layers for things like roads, boundary, housing blocks, barracks and so forth. The challenge is to present this information in a way that makes it useful, accessible and honors the people who lived there.
Featured image credit
Girl at the March on Washington with Banner 8/28/1963
National Archives National Archives Identifier: 542030
What drove my seminar model was PBL approach with weekly research tasks – though I had yet to hear the term “project-based learning.” My experience using this approach back in the 1980-90’s convinced me that advanced placement can be much more productive than the traditional AP model of lecture, read, memorize and test.
While this seminar approach produced great results on AP exams, its prime outcome was fostering students’ responsibility for themselves as learners. Covid-19 is upending our traditional classroom models. Instead of simply trying to find news ways to deliver the same stuff, we should leverage this disruption to refocus teaching and learning in ways that engage and motivate both students and teachers.
As we look for ways to blend virtual learning and meet live in smaller classes – this model could be modified by substituting an online session for the full class large group. Seminar size and frequency are adaptable to the setting.
Class size typically ran between 24 – 36 students. All students in the class would meet one day a week in a large group session. This might be used for unit testing, or to introduce or conclude a seminar cycle with a lecture or full group discussion. The large group was also divided into 4 seminar groups of 6-9 students. Each seminar would meet with me one day per week. Thus each student met one day per week in seminar and another day in large group. During the remainder of their week, students worked independently or with their seminar group in preparation for the upcoming assignment. Today, we would call that “flipping the classroom.”
Seminar assignments built off the large group session and were project driven. Students in the seminar were required to present and defend their finding to their peers. I sat “outside the circle” as an observer – occasionally tossing probing questions into the group.
Of course, there were many weeks that were modified because of holidays and other interruptions – but you get the idea. Our high school was on traditional 8 period schedule. These AP classes were taught in a double period configuration of about 95 minutes for both the seminar classes or large group sessions.
My first experience was teaching one semester of AP US History while one of my colleagues was on leave. I focused on essential questions that fostered greater depth and relevance. So when we studied the Founding Fathers we didn’t focus on “Should the Constitution be ratified?” Our seminar revolved around a more enduring question – “How powerful should the national government be?” For more on that approach, see my post “Essential Questions in American History: The Great Debates.”
After my semester of APUSH, I settled into my primary AP assignment – one semester of AP American Government / Politics and one semester of AP Comparative Government. There I used the seminar approach to give students guided experience in research, critical thinking, collaboration and presentation.
Visualize the typical American government lesson. Teacher standing up front asking students to follow along as they go over the diagram of “how a bill becomes a law.”
Congress and the Lobbyists
This extended seminar will investigate the relationships between Congress and the lobbyists. You will develop an investigative report which will ultimately answer the question “Does Congress represent the needs of its public constituency (the electorate) or its financial constituency (its contributors)? Weekly seminar abstracts will be used to prepare Tabloid TV-style PowerPoint report in support of your investigation. To see the full seminar assignment click here.
Students were assigned a member of Congress who sat on one of the major committees. Their task over the next few weeks included researching and developing the following: