Activity Template: The 8-Event Collaborative Timeline Challenge

Google Drawings is one of the G Suite Apps that does not get as much love as some of the other ones. Docs is used pretty frequently for writing and taking notes. Teachers use Slides for lessons and students use it for assessment and creativity. Sheets gets all your data and your list-making (we love a good list, don't we?) But Drawings is an underutilized program that needs its day in the sun! There are so many uses for it in the classroom as you can create images that can be quite interactive.

One of those uses is to create interactive timelines. Wait! Before you leave thinking this is just a post for Social Studies teachers, it is most certainly not. Any subject can incorporate the use of timelines into their curriculum. Whether it is researching an author and how it has shaped their writing in an ELA course, identifying the key events and movements in the development of nuclear technology in a Physics class, or studying the cultural history of a nation in a World Languages class, timelines are extremely useful for a student's understanding of curriculum. Let's dispel the myth that timelines are only for the History class.

As a Social Studies teacher, timelines were essential but I hated just making kids slap a bunch of events together on a line of time and calling it good. I think it is all well and good for them to understand sequence but what was lacking was their understanding of cause and effect or key importance of one event or events over others. We need to push our students to go deeper and think critically on what makes evebts so important within a given subject. We need to force them to evaluate information, make choices, and justify those choices using evidence. This is where this activity comes into play.

The 8-Event Collaborative Timeline Challenge

This is a template and an activity idea for those interested. Of course you can alter it as you see fit (don't like the number 8? Go with whatever number moves you). The idea for this activity is straight forward: get students to make informed choices and justify those choices. In the process they are hitting on the 4 Cs of 21st century learning - Collaboration, Creativity, Critical-Thinking, & Communication.

The detailed rationale and instructions for this activity are embedded on the file (click the pic below to access it and save a copy for yourself) so here is a brief snapshot of how it works: After brainstorming and discussing key events as a class, students will collaborate in small groups or partnerships to develop their top events. They'll work together on the timeline creation and their justification for selecting the events they did. When turning the activity in, you want students to have access to each other's products so the audience is not just you. They can access their peers' work and generate some interesting discussions. From there you can take it as far as you'd like (I include some ideas on the file below). You can use the finished product as an assessment or you could create a formative assessment using your favorite product.

Click the pic to access the file and see instructions for the activity - instructions are outside of the canvas so you'll have to use the slider to see them all

Timeline activities shouldn't be static. The students need to interact with events in order to fully grasp them. Instead of plotting 20 events on a timeline, let them evaluate all 20 and choose the <enter number here> most influential events. They'll be able to dive deep into their learning....and they'll thank you for not making them do all 20! 😝

Voice & Choice Activity: Show Me What You Know!

Student engagement is key in the 21st century classroom. Technology can help engage students but nothing beats sound lesson design and flow that piques and quenches a student's thirst for understanding the world around them.

Students invariably want greater control of their learning experiences. It's a lot more than just "What" they learn. Providing opportunities for students to express their voice and choose the method in which they express it is just one of the ways students get engaged in any classroom.

One easy-to-implement strategy that addresses this need for engagement and allows students to take control of their learning is through the old "menu option" assignment. Although not a new idea, its a powerful one and with technology the opportunities for student creativity goes beyond the traditional paper-and-pen method.

An example of this is the document embedded below from a group of teachers in the UK who literally took the "menu option" idea and used a popular restaurant amongst British teenagers as the basis for their choices.

If you'd like a copy of this doc, grab it here: Cheeky Nandos Copy

Utilizing the menu options giving students 'voice" and "choice" is an easy way to substitute assessment ideas using technology. The students will feel empowered to produce their best work if they feel they had some control over their choice. Especially when they publish their work for you and their peers to see....the focus of this post.

Show Me What You Know!
This idea comes from one of the creators of the Hyperdoc movement, Lisa Highfill. The idea is pretty straight forward - when appropriate in the curriculum, allow students to choose how they showcase their knowledge and understanding of what they have learned in order to demonstrate mastery.

If you would like to see other examples of this idea, visit her site here and while you're there poke around some of the other areas where she provides rich ideas for the classroom.

I've created one below as a Google Slides template for you all to have copies of. You will have to edit it to change elements on the file including: how students turn in their work to you, some of the resources you want to give them a choice to explore, or anything you'd like to add to personalize the assignment. After you edit it, simply copy and paste it into an already existing Slide deck, publish it to the web, or embed it in your Schoology course or on your website.

Get your copy of the above file HERE.

Give this a go and see what you get from students. Encourage them to explain themselves in a rich manner. Push them to produce their best and most creative work. Publish their work to the class, to other classes, to parents, to the world. Don't be scared you might not be an expert in any of these technologies. In fact, its best you aren't. Encourage your kids to be the experts. Learn with them. They may surprise you how much ownership they take on knowing you can help them only so far.

If you need help implementing this (or similar ideas like it) please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.

Reading Comprehension Task: Black Out Text

Going through Twitter # searches for EdTech ideas is a daunting but exciting task. Exciting because there are countless innovative and inspiring teachers in the world harnessing and leveraging technology to help students become better humans. Daunting because there is so much content out there that sometimes I go numb just looking at it. I have however found a number of educators and organizations that I lean on to get some amazing ideas and resources.

A view of my Tweetdeck - feel like a day trader sometimes watching this thing

Eric Curts, of Control Alt Achieve is one of my favourite go-to resources for new trends, tips, and resources. A while ago he posted on his blog a reading comprehension technique geared towards the use of Google Docs and a 1:1 environment. It was a techno-twist on an existing strategy called "Text Reduction Strategy" where students would identify the main ideas and points of articles or a given text and "black out" the irrelevant information using the highlighting or paint rolling format tools in Google Docs. Students use their critical thinking skills individually or collaboratively to identify what is essential versus non-essential information. Instead of having to summarize the text, they have virtually created one with the text's own words. The full detailed blog post is here but I will give you a snapshot of how it works.

Black Out Text Reading Comprehension Activity:
Step 1: Locate and copy text you would like your students to use on the Internet or other web resources
Step 2: Paste the text in a Google Document and set up the activity with directions at the top
Step 3: Push the assignment out to students via Schoology, your website, or other means
Step 4: Model the process for them - show them how they can access the highlighter or paint rolling tools in Google Docs and demonstrate how they are used.
Step 5: Allow time for students to complete the activity
Step 6: Analysis and Debrief - depending on your style, you can hold a discussion, a competition, have them create a visual or auditory product, run a Kahoot, Quizizz, or Quizlet Live activity

This method can be employed in any class that asks students to make sense of complex text sets. I like the idea of allowing students to collaborate as well - whether they are working on the same document simultaneously or they are comparing and contrasting and building consensus at the end.

If you give this strategy a shot in your classroom, let me know how it works out for you and your students. If you need some assistance with implementing this strategy or any others related to EdTech, hit me up and I'll help you out!