Presentation Notes from History Comes Alive - National World War I Museum in Kansas City

Hello. On Saturday, September 15th I am giving a presentation at the "History Comes Alive Workshop" at the Liberty Memorial - National World War I Museum in Kansas City. Teachers from the Kansas City area will be learning about the resources available through this incredible museum and I will be doing a presentation on using technology in the social studies classroom with some additional suggestions for teaching WWI. Kansas City Time Warner Cable, the History Channel and the Liberty Memorial World War I Museum are sponsoring the event.

- Download a copy of the presentation in PDF handout format

- Download a copy of the presentation in PowerPoint format

Podcast #118 - Ideas for Constitution Day - September 17th

Hello. On September 17th schools across America will celebrate the birthday of our Constitution. According to law, each school in the country that receives federal money of any kind, is required to do some type of activity related to the Constitution.

Last year we created a short video with students and staff reading portions of the preamble. We show it on our building cable channel during student announcements on Constitution Day. We posted it on Teacher Tube and in the past year it has been viewed over 12,000 times. This year I am working on video with a slightly different theme and hope to have it completed for viewing on Monday.



Looking for ideas or lesson plans to use at your school on September 17th? In this podcast I share my favorite resources for Constitution Day ideas. We would love to hear about your plans for Constitution Day - leave a comment on this blog entry and include a Constitution link of your own.

Direct link to Podcast #118 - Ideas for Constitution Day - September 17th - MP3 Format - 11:27 Minutes

Podcast #118 Show Notes:

- National Constitution Center - Constitution Day Lesson Plan and Resource Database

- Interactive Constitution Online - National Constitution Center

- National Archives Constitution Day - Teaching with Resources

- National Archives Constitution Game - 12 paper clips and a die

- National Archives Constitution Questions / Answers and Quick Facts

- Interactive Christy painting from National Endowment for the Humanities

Sandwich Archaeology Video from Animoto

Here is a quick video with pictures of the students doing their sandwich archaeology project a couple of weeks ago. The video is 30 seconds long and took about 5 minutes to create. It was created using a web site named Animoto. Super easy, fun, energetic video creation application - check it out. Thanks to Wes Fryer of the Speed of Creativity blog.

Lest We Forget....

I was in a classroom that day, as I'm sure many of the teachers reading this blog were, teaching my students about American history when a teacher next door during a passing period said that a plane had hit a building in New York. I will never forget the events of that day. It is not often in one's lifetime that your entire world has changed so dramatically as a result of a global event from the time you woke up in the morning until you go to bed that evening.

I pray for the men and women who lost their lives that day, acted as heroes that day and those that fight to protect our freedoms today.

World War I Teacher Workshop in Kansas City

If you teach World War I history and are within driving distance to Kansas City please check out an educator workshop taking place at the Liberty Memorial - National World War I Museum in Kansas City on Saturday, September 15th. This event is being sponsored by the Liberty Memorial, Time Warner Cable and the History Channel. There will be presentations on using how teachers can use the museum's resources and tours of the amazing facilities. I am honored to have been asked to give a presentation on using technology in the social studies classroom.

For more information please check out the Time Warner Kansas City page for "Teacher Workshops" and select "History Comes Alive" There is a $20 registration fee that includes lunch, breaks and a tour of the museum. Hope to see you there.

The Liberty Memorial - The National World War I Museum Official Site

Podcast #117 - First Weeks of School - Peanut Butter and Jelly Archaeology, Student Learning Styles Quiz and More

Hello. In today's podcast I will discuss some of the things we do at the start of the year in class. Over the years we have done various things to create a tone and set expectations for the upcoming year. We don't jump right in to the first unit, but rather do a variety of activites to set up the year.

In the podcast I will explain how we complete a student information sheet, take a learning styles inventory quiz and perform an archaeological dig on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Direct link to Podcast #117 - First Weeks of School - Peanut Butter and Jelly Archeology, Student Learning Styles Quiz and More - MP3 Format - 21:40 Minutes

Podcast #117 Show Notes:

Lost on the Moon Activity - builds team work in groups with students

Student Learning Styles Inventory with suggestions on learning styles study skills

Peanut Butter and Jelly Archaeology instructions from National Paek Service

Podcast #116 - Invitation to Join Me as the 2007/2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year

Hello. Last Thursday I was extremely honored and humbled to be notified that I have been selected to be the Missouri Teacher of the Year for 2007/2008. Last spring I learned that I would represent Liberty Public Schools in the state competition as the district teacher of the year and I had an interview last week in Jefferson City as a state finalist. I don't think the huge responsibility of representing all the great teachers in Missouri has truly hit me yet and I'll learn much more about my responsibilities in the weeks to come but I'm looking forward to an exciting year. It will require me to miss some days in the classroom with speaking engagements but it will give me an opportunity to share some of the great things happening in classrooms throughout Missouri.

One thing I'm very excited about is the opportunity to discuss the potential of the web 2.0 classroom with a broader audience. Speaking at a technology conference is largely preaching to the choir but many of my presentations as teacher of the year will have a more mainstream audience and I can't wait to spread the potential of blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc. to a variety of people.

I encourage you to join me on this journey. I know that I will ask you for advice and ideas along the way. There will probably be an additional blog that will serve as a scrapbook of various events but I will continue to put all content on this blog in additional to any additional sites.

Direct link to Podcast #116 - Invitation to Join Me as the 2007/2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year - MP3 Format - 10:15 minutes

Podcast #116 Show Notes:

Missouri Teacher of the Year Program - Official Page

2007/2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year Press Release

KMBC TV - Liberty Teacher Named Missouri Teacher of the Year

Kansas City Star Newspaper - Liberty Teacher Named Missouri Teacher of the Year

First Day of the New School Year

The pencils are sharpened, the white boards are - well, white - and the junior high students will be lost and romaing the halls looking for their classes. It must be the first day of school! Tomorrow - August 16th - will be the first day of classes for us in the Liberty Public School District. Here are a couple pictures of my room as it awaits eager students. Hope everyone out there has a great start to the 2007/2008 school year.

Podcast #115 - I've Been Tagged - 8 Random Things About Me

Hello. I've been tagged - in an edublogger sense - by two fellow bloggers : Charlene Chausis in Illinois and Kenneth Y T Lim in Singapore. Thanks for the tag and I'll try to meet the challenge. If you listen to the podcast it has some additional information about the list not included in the blog post. It's not really about education, technology or history but is was fun to create. First, I have to post the rules.

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This is another meme experiment:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts

2. Players start with eight random facts / habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.

4. At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

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Here are the eight facts / habits about me:

1. I was in 4-H as a boy growing up in Nebraska and my entomology project (bug collection) made it to the state fair several years in a row.

2. My three favorite movies of all time are Hoosiers, Shawshank Redemption, and Fletch (on the podcast I forgot about Shawshank and instead listed School of Rock, which would be my #4).

3. My first computer was a Commodore 64 with a cassette tape drive that I bought as a 6th grader with money I earned "walking beans" that summer.

4. For the past 17 years I have had a chocolate malt on my birthday.

5. While in high school and college I had my own lawn mowing business - including taking care of the two cemeteries in my hometown.

6. My first concert was Bon Jovi in Omaha, Nebraska - Skid Row opened up for them - gotta love the Big Hair Bands of the 80's!

7. In my younger days as a high school basketball coach I loved to work at basketball camps across the country - North Carolina (Dean Smith), Kansas (Roy Williams), Michigan (Steve Fisher) and Kentucky (Rick Pitino).

8. My favorite place in the world to go on vacation is Glacier National Park in Montana where I proposed to wife at sunset on the shore of Lake McDonald.

Direct link to Podcast #115 - I've Been Tagged - 8 Random Things About Me - MP3 Format - 12:44 minutes

Here are the bloggers that I'm going to tag (sorry if you have been tagged already):

1. Dan Schmidt

2. Wesley Fryer

3. Dan McDowell

4. Christian Long

5. Jim Beeghley

6. Steve Dembo

7. Lance Huebner

8. Marty Kelsey

If you have any comments or comments please e-mail me at speakingofhistory@gmail.com

Podcast #114 - Book Winners and Must See Teacher Travel Blogs

Hello. Today's podcast has two topics - the winners of the Listener Appreciation Book Give Away and the blogs of two Liberty teachers who have chronicled their summer adventures.

First the winners of the book drawing. To help celebrate the 100th podcast in July and the two year anniversary of the podcast. I had listeners from around the country enter and my daughter picked two names out of the hat. The winner of the author autographed copy of Guerrilla Season by Pat Hughes is Sanjay from Flower Mound, Texas. The winner of the copy of Manhunt - The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James Swanson is Nancy from Chillicothe, Ohio. Congratulations to both winners and thanks to everyone who entered. I plan to do another book give away during the holidays.

The podcast also gives some background information on two teacher blogs that I urge you to check out. I work with and admire both of these Liberty Public School teachers and think they have done an awesome job of sharing their summer adventures.

Lance Huebner is a special education teacher at South Valley Jr High and recently traveled to China and spent 11 days taking a ton of pictures and blogging about his experiences. His My China Trip blog allows to you to visit China through his eyes. Lance also has a blog named Changing the Label in which he focuses on the use of technology in the special education classroom.

Marty Kelsey is a 5th grade teacher at Manor Hill Elementary. Marty has had a busy summer including his marriage, two trips to Florida, grad classes in Colorado and visits to a Civil War battlefield. This past week Marty blogged about his incredible experience in Florida as a guest of NASA to see the Space Shuttle launch. His blog Room 42 Daily has some great first hand accounts of a behind the scene look at a shuttle launch and great pictures.

You can also check out the other online content from both Lance and Marty on the show notes including videos, podcasts, classroom sites, etc.

Direct link to Podcast #114 - Book Winners and Must See Teacher Travel Blogs - MP3 Format -14:07 minutes

You can subscribe directly to the Speaking of History podcast on i-Tunes here


Podcast #113 Show Notes:

- Lance Huebner's My China Trip blog

- Lance's 9th grade Broadcast class at SVJH with video archive of 2006/2007 shows

- Lance's classroom site

- Marty's Room 42 Daily blog

- Dear Mr. Kelsey autograph blog

- Marty's classroom site