Blogging for Edutopia

I am excited to now be blogging for Edutopia!  Check out my first post: Gamifying Student Engagement:

• http://www.edutopia.org/blog/gamifying-student-engagement-matthew-farber

IOSSBR Spring Conference

Below is a picture from today's International Organization of Social Sciences and Behavior Research (IOSSBR) Spring Conference (http://www.iossbr.com/atlantic_city_april_11-12) in which I attended and co-presented "Gaming and K-12 Curriculum Integration."  The conference was at Trump Plaza, in Atlantic City.  We're on page 20 in the program, page 21 of the PDF.  

Video Game Design in the Social Studies Classroom

This week, my 6th grade social studies students conducted research about medieval European topics, then they each remixed, "modded" (modified), or created brand new flash-based video games.  They also wrote a reflective essay that explains how their game relates to their researched findings.  I used a completely constructivist teaching style, only giving students a short overview, then links to a YouTube tutorial and a PDF step-by-step.  No actual coding is required; programming commands are put together by matching color-coded interlocking bricks, although practical knowledge of math (angles, degrees, x, y plane) is inherent in game design.  Video game design is not only engaging, and part of STEM (http://stemchallenge.org/students/scratch/), but it also challenges learners to consider how to teach to the topic they are tasked to study.

This video link fully explains Scratch's potential as a learning tool: http://vimeo.com/60294183#.  Scratch is a free download from MIT Media Labs: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_1.4_Download

Below are links to some of my student's examples (click each picture to play):

My Interview in Streaming Media Magazine

I was recently interviewed by Streaming Media magazine about video in the classroom.  My interview is in the February/March 2013 issue.  Here's the link to the article, The State of Education Video http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-State-of-Education-Video-2013-87980.aspx

Look For Me In NJEA Magazine

I wrote a reflection about the class-created iPad book my students authored and submitted it to NJEA Review magazine.   My article appears in the February issue, which will be mailed this week to all NJEA members.  The article, titled Have Your Students Write an Ebook, appears on p. 18. Here's the link to the PDF version (the article begins on p. 20 in the PDF): http://www.njea.org/njea-media/pdf/Review_Feb2013.pdf?1359575589401.

Class-Created iPad Book Now Live in the iBookstore!

Our class-created book, The Corns Visit the 13 Colonies, is now live (and, global... in 50 countries!) in Apple's iBookstore! 

Our book, which is historical fictional, follows Damitria the Unicorn, Henrietta the Hippocorn, and Willamina the Shnoopacorn on an exciting trip back in time to visit the original 13 American colonies!  The book features multi-touch widgets, like 3D movable colonial buildings, photo galleries, an interactive student-created glossary, puzzles, a sketchpad, and original artwork! 

Each chapter and section is the result of collaboration from my 2nd period seventh grade social studies class.  Students researched and wrote in groups, chose copyright-friendly photos, and created the overall concept.  I edited and compiled using the free Mac app, iBooks Author, on my MacBook.  Each student receives writing credit on page 40 of the book (thanks to each parent for granting written permission).

The book is a FREE iPad download.  If you have an iPad, or know someone who does, please download it!  The students are really proud of their accomplishment!

The Corns Visit the 13 Colonies: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/corns-visit-13-colonies/id583368930?mt=11

Understanding Economics in U.S. History

Just got Focus: Middle School World History, a great book of economic lessons from the Council for Economic Education, for my 6th grade world history class!  The lessons "use a unique mystery-solving approach to teach U.S. economic history to your high school students."  It's an excellent, additional resource.

Here's the link: http://msh.councilforeconed.org/

Creating Interactive SMART Board Lessons - Workshop

Tomorrow morning I am giving a workshop on SMART Boards at Raritan Valley Community College titled, "SMART Boards: Creating Interactive Lessons."  I've given the workshop several times at different locations, but not in awhile.  Should be fun!

Course Description: Go beyond SMART Board basics - learn a new way to create eye-catching lesson activities, full of customizable tools and templates that you can use to create professional-looking lessons. The Toolkit helps you create engaging content like word games, quizzes, Crossword puzzles and sorting tables. It also offers Adobe Flash tools like hide-and-reveal, drag-and-drop, plus lots more.

NJCSS Workshop

This Wednesday, I am giving a workshop at the NJ Council for the Social Studies (NJCSS) Annual Fall Conference (I am one of the North Jersey Directors).  The conference theme is "Social Studies and the Common Core: Moving Forward" and it's being held at the Busch Campus Center, Rutgers, Piscatatway, NJ.  My workshop is titled, "Social Media in the Social Studies Classroom," and will focus on building a Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) and using Edmodo in the classroom.  I will also unveil the redesigned NJCSS website that I created, along with the Facebook fan page, the Twitter feed, and the Tumblr blog that I curate.

I'm Published!

I'm published in the latest issue of "Journal of Interactive Learning Research": 

The article I co-authored is titled, Civic Participation Among Seventh-Grade Social Studies Students in Multi-User Virtual Environments.  Here's our abstract:

Technological advances on the Internet now enable students to develop participation skills in virtual worlds. Similar to controlling a character in a video game, multi-user virtual environments, or MUVEs, allow participants to interact with others in synchronous, online settings. The authors of this study created a link between MUVEs and participation in civic activities by seventh grade students. This purpose of this case study was to evaluate how face-to-face cooperative structures would translate to an online setting. The study also assessed whether working cooperatively in a MUVE would have an effect on student civic participation. The virtual environment did provide an authentic setting for students to practice the civic lessons they learned in class. Student involvement in a participatory culture generally translated to an increased tendency to be civic-minded.

Here's the to the article link: http://www.editlib.org/j/JILR/v/23/n/4.

Finally, here's the official citation:

Zieger, L. & Farber, M. (2012). Civic Participation Among Seventh-Grade Social Studies Students in Multi-User Virtual Environments. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 23(4), 393-410. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Free Classroom Guides and Educational Downloads for 2012

Click here: Free Classroom Guides and Educational Downloads for 2012 from Edutopia

Upcoming Community College Classes

My course schedule was published today by Raritan Valley Community College.  My classes are on page 6 (under "Education") on this downloadable PDF: http://www.raritanval.edu/uploadedFiles/cce/cfa/personal-enrichment_fall2012_class-listing.pdf.

Cape Cod Vacation Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

Cape Cod Vacation

Hope everyone is enjoying summer!  Last week, my family and I went to Cape Cod, as well as Plimoth Plantation.  Below is a movie trailer (made with iMovie) about our trip:

http://youtu.be/rPKgEUX4F1M

Reading Like A Historian Curriculum

Education Week is spotlighting Stanford University's Reading Like A Historian Curriculum. I began to use the materials last spring and plan on using it all next year, starting September. It's a great introduction to DBQs (document-based questions).

Here's the link to EdWeek article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/30/37socialstudies.h31.html?tkn=RTCC6r%2BHufOfbe0OwJYn8pKYTLTzy8Qppb%2FQ&cmp=clp-sb-ncss

Here's the link to the curriculum materials: http://sheg.stanford.edu/?q=node/45

Mister Rogers' Viral Video

As the school year winds down, Mr. Rogers reminds us, it's good to be curious about many things. Thanks PBS Digital Studios for this remix! Brilliant! Mister Rogers Remixed - Garden of Your Mind, remixed by Symphony of Science's John Boswell.

Age of Exploration Movie Trailers

My 6th Grade students each used Animoto to create movie trailers about an explorer during the Age of Exploration. They also made digital posters and a description of their "film." Here's a few examples of their work:

NJ History Fair - Washington Crossing State Park

Click here to view these pictures larger

NJ Higher Education Showcase of Exemplary Practices: Excellence in Teacher Preparation

I am proud to announce that I was nominated to be recognized in the New Jersey Higher Education’s Showcase of Exemplary Practices: Excellence in Teacher Preparation for my "distinguished work as a New Jersey Educator."  An awards ceremony and reception will be held at the Chauncey Hotel and Conference Center in Princeton on Friday, April 20, 2012.  The purpose of the event is "to recognize exemplary programs and practices in teacher preparation in New Jersey, share them within the teacher education community, and disseminate them across the state."  The event is sponsored by Acting Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle Hendricks and the New Jersey Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.  The audience includes teacher educators, New Jersey Departments of Higher Education and Education staff members, policymakers, funders, media, and other stakeholders.

Using "Assassin's Creed" to Teach the Renaissance

New Media Literacy
This project was inspired by Dr. Henry Jenkins' book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.  Jenkins writes about "participatory" fan communities, such fanfiction.net and the unofficial Harry Potter fan site, MuggleNet, in his white paper, "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century.  A new collection of fan-made wiki sites, devoted to movies, books, video games, etc. can be found on the site Wikia. 

According to Jenkins, the New Media Literacies (NML) project "argues that media literacy skills, broadly defined, need to be integrated into school-based and after-school programs, into adult education for parents and teachers and into popular culture itself if we are going to fully address the challenges of this moment of media in transition."  For more, check out NML on Twitter, @nml_usc, their website, newmedialiteracies.org, or Jenkins' blog: henryjenkins.org.

Background
"Inspired by Historical Events and Characters."  This is how each game in the popular open-world, third-party, role-playing game (RPG) Assassin's Creed series, available on Xbox 360 and PS3, begins.  The Assassin’s Creed series of video games is an example of historical fiction.  In historical fiction the "setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the main characters tend to be fictional" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_fiction).  Examples of historical fiction range from the film "Titanic," to "Saving Private Ryan," to video games, such as "Assassin's Creed."

The storyline of the Assassin’s Creed is essentially "The Matrix" meets "The DaVinci Code."  Here is the link for the game series, published by Ubisoft: assassinscreed.ubi.com.  Check out this clip in which Assassin's Creed Revelations' lead script writer Darby McDevitt talks about the historical setting and people that lead character Ezio meets in the game Assassin’s Creed: Revelations: youtu.be/Kn-310RoBMY. 

Below is a picture of Leonardo DaVinci with Ezio, the lead character of the games.  Also appearing in the game series are Machiavelli, Copernicus, popes, members of the Borgia's, and the Medici's.

Included in the game are "databases," in which players are given historical information about people and places from the time period.  Below is a screenshot from one of the game's many "databases" in Assassin's Creed II:

Using "Assassin's Creed" to Teach the Renaissance
This spring, I constructed a project-based lesson (PBL) titled The Assassin's Creed: Renaissance Character Web Project.  This PBL is framed around creating additional Renaissance-era characters to further integrate into the video game series via downloadable content.  The students were asked, "what if Ubisoft decided to integrate other real Renaissance figures as characters in the game?"  The unit is tied to historical fiction, which makes history more "real" and relatable to middle school students.  My 6th grade social studies student teams created character pages on a wiki.  (Not sure what a wiki is?  Watch this: www.commoncraft.com/video/wikis)

Links to my student's finished wiki pages:

• farber7th.pbworks.com/ACRen1 
• farber7th.pbworks.com/ACRen2 

Examples of My Sixth-Grader's Downloadable Character Wikis:

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Dante Alighieri
• Galileo Galilei
• Nicholas Copernicus
• Niccolò Machiavelli
• Isaac Newton