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Tech in History

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Nearpod

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HOW TO USE NEARPOD FOR STUDENT ENGAGEMENT!

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Modern Tech for the modern teacher

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by Marjorie Hunter

Students now entering the K-12 system have been raised with advanced technology from birth. These students-the post-MTV Generation-never saw a BetaMax videotape or experienced the joys of making a phone call using a pencil jammed in the finger holes and listening to the click, click, click of the rotary dial. With the advent of cell phones and, most notably, the iPad, effectively incorporating new technologies in the classroom has become a costly challenge in many schools, particularly in high poverty areas.

I primarily teach Advanced Placement (AP) and Pre-AP World history at the Academies of West Memphis, a suburban school located in West Memphis, Arkansas. I have taught U.S. history, economics, and lower-level world history at the high school level. Last year the high school underwent a name change and a revision to the curriculum. Through a collaborative effort with a local community college, the Academies now offer courses in high-tech fields such as website design and digital communications as well as a traditional high school curriculum.

The local economy relies heavily on traditional blue-collar work such as trucking distribution centers for several major companies and some light manufacturing. Of the 1,100 students at the Academies, approximately 85 percent are African American, 14 percent are white, and less than 1 percent are Asian. The Academies and most of the other district elementary and junior high schools qualify for Title I status while the entire district has free and reduced lunch through a special federal grant.

The ability to tap into Title I funds allows the Academies to implement WiFi access points throughout the school. Luckily, I have a router in my classroom so my students have strong WiFi signals for the iPad and Chromebook carts-on most days. Occasionally, the WiFi refuses to cooperate with my lesson plans and students have logged onto the "Whopper WiFi"-the free internet access at the Burger King across the street. I refuse to allow an inoperative system or slow internet connections interfere with my students' learning. Thank you, Burger King!

The WiFi issue is but one of many difficulties I face when incorporating technology into my students' lessons. Technology becomes obsolete quickly and schools cannot keep up with the changing pace. The iPad cart in my classroom has twenty-nine iPads that recently celebrated their fifth birthday. Grant money runs out eventually, so iPad apps need to meet the essential budget requirement of free or I must purchase the desired app myself. Some of the apps students love using have undergone enough updates that they are no longer free or do not work properly with the iPads due to changing operating systems.

The problems with technology sometimes seem never-ending and often require creative problem solving. For example, one of my AP students was able to access the Internet only through his smart phone. Completing his online homework became a challenging obstacle to overcome-the small screen size, phone browser and website incompatibility, and data plan severely curtailed his ability to complete assignments on time. Many of my students had to use the public library, stay after school, give up lunch, or come to school early-some arriving as early as 6:30 a.m. and staying as late as 6 p.m. In addition, students voluntarily come to school on Sunday afternoons for several hours to work on their assignments, including group projects.

The problem of access led me to ask students this past fall to brainstorm a list of stores, restaurants, and other public places with free WiFi for customers, thinking that perhaps someplace other than school would seem more desirable to students. An amazing number of local places turned up-pizza parlors, fast food restaurants, and even gas stations! After this survey (and a stern teacher warning about the perils of three or four teens sitting inside a parked car at the local gas station), students began meeting at the Burger King or a nearby McDonald's to work on cooperative learning projects and other assignments. I suspect that the gatherings often garnered many suspicious questions from parents, but the students produced some amazing projects and demonstrated critical thinking skills by devising solutions to technology limitations.

Too often teachers and students see technology as a game or as a reward for completing boring worksheets or taking lecture notes. When used effectively in the classroom, iPads and Chromebooks encourage in-depth reading because they allow students to follow various links embedded in websites. Students willingly attempt complex texts that normally receive a cursory glance and sometimes a dismissive attitude when the vocabulary is perceived as too difficult. Last August, for example, I gave each student a copy of a National Geographic article on the Iceman found in the Alps some years ago. Students experienced difficulty with the reading and using context clues to decipher meaning. I used a combination of two different reading strategies that work well in group settings and eventually we slogged through the three-page document in four class periods. By the end of the week, we were all exhausted and heartily tired of the magazine article.

When I assigned a website hosting a similarly complex text document on the same Iceman topic, however, students struggled less with vocabulary, engaged more enthusiastically with the material, and asked more thoughtful questions about the content. I attribute this difference to reading the text on the iPad. One of the most telling markers for increased student concentration was that students were still reading, taking notes, and discussing the document when the bell rang! As the year progressed, this phenomenon became more commonplace and a few students actually came to class the next day discussing additional research they did during lunch or at home. Even one of my ADD/ADHD students came to class early from lunch eager to share what he found online the previous evening!

Typically, I start the year by assigning a tried-and-true classroom activity such as a small, manageable poster presentation. This allows students to foster a cooperative team spirit that lasts throughout the school year. I gradually increase the technology used in assignments so students have ample opportunity to use it for learning rather than game playing, texting, and social media. By the end of the spring semester, students have become accustomed to iPads and Chromebooks in the classroom through summative assessments, reading assignments, and projects resulting in a well-prepared class that can begin working on more advanced technology-driven projects.

I try to incorporate a variety of technology experiences for my students. It is not enough for students to create a Powerpoint with a few historical images and post it online. Traditional history classes teach students how to read pie charts or bar graphs for statistical information. I, however, teach students to collect and summarize data needed for authentic historical inquiry. I also want students to examine and discuss topics not usually found in textbooks. I want to stimulate curiosity about our nation and our place in world history. For example, many books mention the influenza pandemic of 1918 but few delve beyond citing the 450,000 Americans that died. I developed a study unit that required students to use Internet resources to discover how societies changed and adapted due to diseases such as cholera, measles, polio, and diphtheria. Students compared information found on multiple websites and then used Infogram to create an infographic summarizing the changes and continuities. This free website requires public publishing in order to view the completed product, which allows my digital users to become digital producers for the first time.

My Pre-AP classes finished the school year with a complex technology project on the Cold War that included music, Google images, and embedded YouTube video clips. Students began by researching vocabulary associated with the Cold War such as domino theory, containment, the Warsaw Pact, and NATO to help set the stage. We also watched the made-for-TV movie The Day After so students could connect visually with the effects of the Cold War and a failed mutually assured destruction policy. This film encouraged my students to immerse themselves into the Cold War and heightened their awareness of today's nuclear proliferation concerns. Students then used Google slides for their presentations. After developing a working vocabulary of the historical period, I divided the topic into three sub-topics: the Space Race, political and military issues, and the social aspects of the Cold War. Each group of students selected an overarching topic and could choose to approach their project however they wished. One group chose to examine how the Cold War affected U.S. pop culture by examining James Bond movies that reflected ideological tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. Another group researched nuclear weapons development and the SALT talks. Yet another group decided to examine some of the scientific aspects of the Space Race, including freeze-dried convenience foods such as Tang and instant coffee that influenced American culture.

As a result of my pedagogical shift to technology infused with project-based learning, my students have become consumers and producers of historical information. This change has allowed me to rediscover the joy of teaching a classroom filled with highly engaged, curious students who ask questions about their world and have an eagerness to share their technological prowess and historical knowledge with friends and family.
Marjorie Hunter is a teacher at the Academies of West Memphis in Arkansas, where she teaches AP World History and Pre-AP World History. She received a doctoral degree in Heritage Studies from Arkansas State University-Jonesboro.

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Using Technology to Encourage Students' Engagement with History

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by Marjorie Hunter Students now entering the K-12 system have been raised with advanced technology from birth. These students-the post-MTV Generation-never saw a BetaMax videotape or experienced the joys of making a phone call using a pencil jammed in the finger holes and listening to the click, click, click of the rotary dial.

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Book Widgets

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Book widgets could be the next big thing in digital publishing. Ever since their introduction by Apple's iBooks Author, they've been used more frequently in interactive ebooks. They have the potential of rapid expansion in this industry, especially with their easy customization and integration. They resemble Lego blocks, with the difference that they can be reproduced and reused an infinite number of times. Because the contents of a widget are based on open web standards (HTML5), they can be created or edited in basic HTML/JavaScript editors. Thus, they're very flexible.

However, book widgets are considered to be a new topic for many, as there are no confirmed standards yet (or are there?) to be employed by creators other than iBooks Author. So you will find online resources about book widgets scarce. This is why we decided to collect as much information as we can about book widgets, and give it to you here.

A lot of visuals will be used to make this article light and easy to follow, so no worries. If you're ready, jump into the first section.

Book widget examples

Let's first look at a few practical examples of different book widgets that can be incorporated into ebooks of different topics.

Social media sharing

This generic type of widget can display a share button for each chapter. Clicking on the button will allow you to share a summary of the chapter through different social channels of the user's choice.

BMI calculator

Imagine reading a health and fitness book and trying to determine your BMI (Body Mass Index) to know which fitness plan works for you. Instead of using an external source you can use a BMI calculator widget inside the ebook.

Cookbook recipe scaler

This is an actual widget we developed for a client's cookbook. This kind of widget allows you to specify the number of servings for a recipe in order to see the specific ingredient quantities needed.

Interactive scientific experiments

In science books, it's hard to explain a full experiment and the outcome of it only with words. This is where you use this widget to show how it's done and even let the reader take part in the process.

Quizzes and exercises

There are various quiz widgets out there to help you test your readers. Easily integrate different kinds of exercises to the end of each chapter and have the results automatically calculated.

Types of book widgets

Believe it or not, the EPUB 3 standard supports a widget specification as you can see here. We haven't been able to reach any other documentation nor find examples implemented by developers. Not to mention that these specifications must be supported by the ebook reader. So we will treat these definitions as young at this moment, and perhaps in the future, once it has become more mature and practiced, we can update this article. Let's look at the commonly applied widgets instead. From what we have seen, every widget can be categorized into one of two groups: popup widget or page widget.

Popup widgets (a.k.a iBooks Author widgets)

Popup widgets are our best effort in naming this kind of widget in the most meaningful way. Those are the types of widgets used in Apple's iBooks Author. These book widgets are represented by a button on the page that can be placed anywhere. Once the user clicks the button, the widget app will open in an independent popup window, filling the screen. Popup widgets are better used for apps that need to take a big chunk of the screen and do not need to have the ebook content concurrently visible. Examples include interactive maps, exercises, and mini-games.

Page widgets

Page widgets, on the other hand, appear inside the ebook page itself, alongside the book content. In fact, the widget flows with the book content and preserves its order within the information. This is better for widgets such as animations, charts, forms, interactive info-graphics, or any kind of material that needs to be backed up by surrounding content. This is technically feasible using a canvas or iframe HTML element. The drawback here is that the available space for the widget is limited. Not to mention, having many widgets running simultaneously can affect the ebook's performance.

Where to find book widgets?

There's no better answer than to Google them. Different companies provide specialized widgets, focused on their cause. However, there are a number of websites dedicated to book widgets, which you can use to download common book widgets. You can even customize them with your own content and design. We've been using two for quite a while in our projects, and we greatly recommend them.

Bookry offers 34 free widgets available for download. Their widgets fall into three main categories: puzzles and games, web services and functions. Their widgets are cloud-based, which give you some benefits, such as tracking user behavior, collecting analytical data, and pushing updates to your widget automatically. The widgets are customizable such that you can be using your own data (for quizzes, tests, etc.) or your own imagery (for games and puzzles). Bookry can develop custom widgets for you at $499.95 or allow you to use their available free widgets in a single book, without the Bookry branding, for $124.95.

BookWidgets is a similar provider of book widgets like Bookry. They provide customizable widgets in diverse categories, but we realize there is a particular focus on education, such as exercises and school activities. Widgets are free to use, but they are overlayed with a watermark that is removed once you subscribe. The subscriptions are annual and give you access to all widgets in their library. Subscriptions are $49/year (for teachers) and $199/year (for publishers). You may access the widget library from here.

*Any mentioned prices were checked at the time of publishing this article and is due to change in the future.

Adding book widgets in Kotobee Author

Kotobee Author supports both types of widgets: popup widgets and page widgets. This means that you can use any of the widgets available from the previously mentioned websites, even though they are thoroughly marketed for iBooks Author / iPad. The widgets will run correctly and consistently for web, desktop, and mobile (Android, iOS, and Windows Phone).

To add a widget into your ebook, click on the Widget tool from the toolbox.

You will first need to choose which type of widget you want to add.

With page widgets, in particular, you will have further options to set, such as the dedicated space for the widget, margin, and text-wrap. For popup widgets, you will be able to select a custom button image of your choice. Click on Create, and your widget will be added.

How to create book widgets from scratch?

Creating your own widget from scratch highly depends on your web programming proficiency. If you believe this is something difficult for you then stick to widget builders like the ones in Bookry and Book Widgets. If you need to create something very specific then here are some guidelines for the process.

As we've already mentioned, an ebook widget is basically an HTML5 app bundled into a Zip archive. The HTML5 app may consist of a root HTML file along with a collection of images, JavaScript, and CSS files. It does not mean that the entire functionality is limited to these files. It can be shared with a backend system, written in any language of your choice, such as PHP, Java, or .Net. If a backend system is used, then an internet connection is required for the widget to operate correctly. A smart widget may run without an internet connection, but once one is detected, it will utilize services from the backend.

JavaScript is perhaps the most important coding tool required since it's what intercepts interaction from the user, as well as controls what displays on the screen. Entire games and apps may be developed using JavaScript. To develop your widgets, you can use JavaScript frameworks and libraries, that can ease the process for you, such as jQuery, Angular, Knockout, etc. Just be careful with the file size - many times you're better off sticking with vanilla JavaScript (plain code) if you want to achieve simple functionality.

After your app is developed and ready, name the root index file as index.html. All that is left, to make the widget compatible with iBooks Author, is to add an Info.plist file. This file defines some properties that are not mentioned elsewhere, such as the width and height of the container, and the location of the root file (index.html in our case). Also, if you would like to represent this widget with a certain icon as the button, the icon should be named Default.png and should sit at the root level. This is an example of an Info.plist file:

Place all the files into one folder postfixed with ".wdgt", compress it into a zipped file, and congratulations!

In a separate article, we will take a real-world example and implement a book widget completely step by step.

Conclusion

Widgets are potential game-changers in the industry. They just need the right exposure and creative implementation to make it spread. Book widgets will give a real boost to your ebook and add true interactive value to it. Luckily, with specialized providers such as Bookry and BookWidgets, it's easy to get your feet wet immediately without requiring the expertise. Otherwise, you can develop your own widget using open web technologies. Whatever you create, let us know, and we'll be happy to share it across our channels!

Read these posts.
Creating a BMI Calculator Widget for Your Ebook Utilizing Anchors in Your Ebook Turn Your Book into an Ebook App in Minutes

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Book Widgets: Everything You Need to Know - Kotobee Blog

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Book widgets could be the next big thing in digital publishing. This complete guide talks about book widgets, where to find them, and how to create them.

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Technology for US History Teachers