Interactive Maps--Tripline

This week our focus is examining the lives of the Lost Boys of Sudan before we are fortunate enough to have two Lost Boys visit Shepard and share their experiences with us.  (To learn more about the Lost Boys yourself, check out this link: http://www.lostboyschicago.com/LostBoys.htm)  Part of our studies includes using maps in order to see where the Lost Boys traveled. Rather than printing out several maps and having students plot it using paper and pencil, I learned about a cool website called Tripline (http://tripline.net/) from Jill Maraldo (Thanks, Jill) at a recent technology "playdate" held after school for Deerfield College.

Tripline allows users to create amazing interactive maps--with captions, photos, and music.  This was the perfect way for students to visualize the travels of the Lost Boys as well as examine the hazards and challenges they faced along the way.  The students were much more engaged and the end result was, quite frankly, pretty cool!

Sharing Student Work

Today seventh grade social studies students spent some time exploring each others' work thanks to the power of technology!

Before spring break, students submitted their Africa Project, a project which required them to explore four of eight regions of Africa through the lens of a trait of civilization such as the arts, ethnic groups, and geography/economy. (More about the project can be found here on the project website I created: http://goo.gl/aE3cIh)  They worked diligently on their own trait in their regions, so I wanted to give them the opportunity to explore other traits and other regions--the hard work and efforts of their peers.

With the help of Maria Galanis, I created a student showcase gallery, where students submitted their work using a Google Form I made. (Here's an example with my Core 2 Student Gallery: http://goo.gl/M1sSzq)  When students filled out the form, there was a spreadsheet on the website that populated.  Students were thrilled to see their names show up on the website, knowing their work was submitted and secure.  Today we went back to this gallery, so students could click on the links of their peers' work in order to view and comment.

Before viewing and commenting, we talked about the what kind of feedback everyone should give one another in order to avoid the vague and dreaded "good job" or "nice work" kind of comments; we referred to the CCSS-based rubric that we used to guide us through the project as we thought about targets for feedback.

Since the work was published in District 109 and anyone--teachers and students--could see the work AND the comments, the students took this entire process much more seriously.  As a result, there was great growth in students' writing, and students were stronger peer evaluators.

None of this could have happened without these Chromebooks.  Technology continues to transform teaching and learning on our team!