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These are the capabilities I am expected to integrate and develop within students as part of the Australian Curriculum.

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The 21st Century Skills are an initiative by the QCAA which focus on the skills they believe are needed for young Queenslanders to be successful in the wake of 'changing world.' As you can see, ICT skills are an integral aspect of the 21st Century Skills, looking to develop students who can access and analyse information and use technology for productive ends.

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The SAMR model is the basis for creating high end ICT based tasks. As I construct my Mini-Unit I should be considering extending my tasks into the Modification and Redefinition area to make the best use of ICT materials in the classroom.

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The Strand I intend to focus on as I construct this mini-unit. I will be focusing on the daily life of farmers across the three seasons of the River Nile.

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Some ideas for how to engage students in the classroom. While these are not strictly ICT based, elements of them could be transferred to create a new task.

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History class is much more than reading out of a textbook. Use these 10 tips to make your lessons engaging and relevant to your students.

Tip #2 Incorporate Movement into Lessons

Activities such as Historical Monologues, Wax Museum and Hot Seat make historical figures come to life in your classroom. Each year students in my Grade 8 history classes become the Canadian Fathers of Confederation. They research their Confederation father, write up a 1-minute monologue introducing the person to the class and create a costume (usually out of their parents dress clothes). This cross-curricular History, Drama and English assignment helps my students engage with the content beyond the textbook. I have also created monologue assignments for Canadian Prime Ministers and American Presidents.

Tip #4 Use Collaborative Discussion Strategies

Tip #5 Bring In Primary Sources

Where possible bring in primary sources. Photos from the time period and archival documents can make history seem more authentic to students. Lots of internet sites (government archives) have access to these excellent pieces of history. A quick Google search will contain lots of ideas. Your local library, historical societies and museums are also great places to look. Also, the New York Public Library has recently digitized a lot of pieces that could work in your classroom.

Do not discount the value of picture books in the middle or high school history classroom. Two of my favourite picture books for my Canadian history classes are The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Canadian Railroad Trilogy . The vivid images and story lines bring history alive. Picture books can also be used to provide background knowledge prior to starting a unit. In English classes, I often use the book Teammates by Peter Golenbock as a mentor text, which discusses Jackie Robinson's treatment as the first African American Major League Baseball player.

Tip #8 Historical Fiction

Last year, for one lesson I setup my classroom as an interactive museum. The unit was called Canada: A Changing Society 1890-1914. I tried to find artifacts around my house and relatives houses that could potentially represent items from this time period. I also printed off colour photos of daily living artifacts. Students had to circulate around the classroom in pairs and guess what the object was and its modern day equivalent. The item that had most of the class confused was the manual meat grinder. They definitely had a better understanding of the challenges of daily living from touching and seeing the different tools than if we had read about it online or in a textbook. Another year, while studying the settlement of Western Canada, I contacted a local museum and borrowed an educational kit which had replica items from the mid-1800's. Students loved seeing the toys and school materials from this time period.

Tip #11 Virtual Field Trips

The internet has changed the way I teach history. No longer are students only able to access information from library books, they can actually digitally visit the locations we are studying. This past year we used Google Maps to locate major battle sites and visit museum websites. Use Google to help locate interesting virtual field trips for your class this year.

Tip #12 Embrace Virtual Reality

Depending on your school budget Google Cardboard could be a very good investment. This small device allows students to download an app and view places in a virtual reality environment.

Tip #13 Use Engaging Curriculum Materials

At the end of the day, you still need to cover the contents of your curriculum. By integrating some of these tips into your daily lessons you will make history class more engaging for your students. If you teach Canadian history check out these two units by 2 Peas and a Dog which will help you keep your students engaged.

As a history teacher, it is important to contact local historical sites, museums, organizations and libraries to see how they can help enrich your program.

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10 Ways To Make History Class Engaging For Students - 2 Peas and a Dog

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History class is much more than reading out of a textbook. Use these 10 tips to make your lessons engaging and relevant to your students. Tip #1 Use QR Codes This quick technology can be accessed with personal or school portable technology (phones, iPads, tablets).

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Storyboards is a concept I could play around with. Creating a task where students are to create a storyboard on Canva depicting the daily life of an Ancient Egyptian using Canva

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What is a Storyboard?

A storyboard is a written or graphical representation of the all of the elements that will be included in a digital story. The storyboard is usually created before actual work on creating the digital story begins and a written description and graphical depiction of the elements of the story, such as images, text, narration, music, transitions, etc. are added to the storyboard. The elements of the story are arranged in the storyboard in the chronological order in which they will appear in the story and this allows the developer to organize and re-arrange the content for maximum effect.

Creating storyboards is an often overlooked component of digital storytelling and for many students, storyboarding may seem like a tedious extra step. However, storyboarding can be a valuable component in the creative process by allowing the developer to organize images and text in a blueprint fashion before the development begins. It allows the user to visualize how the project will be put together and help illustrate what holes exist since they can see the entire plan laid out in front of them. Storyboarding can also inspire new ideas as well as lets the developer rearrange existing resources before the final development begins and changes may be harder to make.

The important thing about storyboards is that they give you a way to decide how you will split up your script into individual pieces, either with or without placeholder images, so that you can then get a clearer overview of your digital story plan.

Storyboards may be created in a variety of ways, both digitally and manually on paper or artists' board. If storyboards are developed on a computer, a variety of software programs may be used, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Tips for Success

1. Make sure your storyboard progression is logical and coherent. Even if your video is a "who-done-it?" your audience expects a logical progression to a conclusion. Although plot-twists are exciting, stories that draw conclusions from nothing are neither informative nor enjoyable.

2. Using an attention-grabber at the beginning of your story can set the tone and get your audience interested. An attention-grabber can be:

a question

a scenario

an interesting image

a game

a finished example (as in a lesson)

3. When creating a storyboard, the visual parts of the frames should be kept simple and the image in each frame should be one that best describes the action taking place, or concept being explained. The images can be simple sketches, or images from your own resources or found on the web.

Putting your Storyboard Together

Get Organized

One of the things you can do to help organize your digital story is to write your script out by scene on Post-it notes or index cards. This will help you arrange your scenes and dialogue so that your video flows in a coherent, logical manner. Once they are organized, number them and place them the order in which they will appear in the story.

The frames of your storyboard will represent the images or scenes that take place. These frames will correspond to the order of your notes or index cards.

Using the Computer

How to Create a Storyboard in Microsoft Word

Downloadable storyboard templates

Word-storyboard-template1.doc
Word-storyboard-template-2.doc
PDF-storyboard-template.pdf
PowerPoint-storyboard-template.ppt (from the Bio 7 Digital Storytelling Project)
Storyboard Worksheet (from Tech4Learning)
Digital Storytelling Storyboard Template (from Jason Ohler)

After you download one of the storyboard templates, type or paste in a description of the images that will appear, the sound or narration that will be included, any music that will be playing, and any transitions or special effects that will be used for each frame or scene of your digital story.

You can use thumbnail images of the photos you have taken with a digital camera or downloaded from the web, still image captures from a video, sketches you have hand drawn and scanned, or images you have found on sites like freeimages.com to represent the final images that will appear in your digital story.

A tool you may find useful for creating storyboards is Storyboard That. A free version is available that will give you a good idea of how the program works and educational versions also available that allow students to build storyboards collaboratively

Storyboard Creator by Canva is a free tool that allows you to create storyboards for digital stories. Storyboard Creator allows you to use the Canva Image Library as well as upload your own photos.

More information about using this tool to create a storyboard may be found at: https://www.canva.com/learn/how-to-build-a-storyboard/

In the following examples, you may view the storyboards and then watch the completed digital story.

The Idea Maker Evolution
View the storyboard
Watch the digital story

Kindertransport: The Unknown Children of the Holocaust
View the storyboard
Watch the Read Banned Books
View the storyboard
Watch the digital story

How Pop-Ups Got their Pop
View the storyboard
Watch the digital story

More information about storyboards may be found online:

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Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling

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What is a Storyboard? A storyboard is a written or graphical representation of the all of the elements that will be included in a digital story. The storyboard is usually created before actual work on creating the digital story begins and a written description and graphical depiction of the elements of the story, such as images, text, narration, music, transitions, etc.

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Canva allows for the use of storyboards, where students can put images onto the screen. Students could be given two lessons to create a story about life in Ancient Egypt, focusing on farming, and how they lived in their homes.

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Rescooped from https://padlet.com/julietaudrey/Bookmarks
An article which goes into detail as to how to SAMR principles into the classroom and the use of technology to a greater degree.

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Good technology integration isn't about using the fanciest tool, it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

The biggest obstacle to teaching online probably isn't the technology. Teachers seek out educational technology, in fact, because it "can have considerable positive impacts on student performance," according to a 2016 study -improving test scores and allowing teachers to assess student achievement more efficiently. The big problem is how to integrate it: Beyond the sheer number of tech tools available, the same researchers identified "inadequate professional development and training" as the primary obstacle to using technology productively in classrooms.

Understandably, the emergence of the coronavirus has dramatically accelerated the process of integrating edtech, as educators around the country race to get online as fast as they can. But as many of our teachers have noted, the current state of K-12 online learning is more like triage-a form of crisis management-and not at all like skillfully managed distance education.

What's missing from the conversation right now, which makes sense given the immediacy of the need, is a focus on the bigger question of what the highest quality technology integration actually looks like. That's an important conversation to have, because in a post-coronavirus world there's likely to be a greater emphasis on digital learning, even as we return to physical schools and take advantage of face-to-face opportunities.

A Hierarchy of Tech Uses

A powerful conceptual tool to think about technology integration-and edtech's best uses-is the SAMR model, developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura, who was the 1991 recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa teaching award.

The SAMR model lays out four tiers of online learning, presented roughly in order of their sophistication and transformative power: substitution, augmentation, modification, and r edefinition. When switching to an online format, teachers often focus on the first two levels, which involve replacing traditional materials with digital ones: converting lessons and worksheets into PDFs and posting them online, or recording lectures on video and making them available for asynchronous learning, for example.
Creative Commons
Those are important steps, especially when teaching online for the first time, but in classrooms where tech integration has moved to the mastery level, the last two levels of the SAMR model-modification and redefinition-should also be in the mix. Students in classes where this kind of mastery is embedded find more novel and immersive uses for technology. They are creators and publishers of their own work across multiple forms of media, for example, or they are inviting professionals to provide feedback on their work products, or participating in digital forums with other peers around the world.

It's tempting to think of SAMR as a mountain to be summited. But good technology integration isn't about living at the top of the SAMR model; it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

Here's a closer look at good classroom practices at each level in the model:

Substitution

"Substitution" means replacing traditional activities and materials-like in-class lectures or paper worksheets-with digital versions. There is no substantial change to the content, just the way that it is delivered.

The goal here is to keep things simple: there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Scan your lessons and worksheets, convert them into PDFs, and post them online using Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or a similar file-sharing service. Think about the information you have on your walls, such as the classroom norms, the daily schedule, or vocabulary lists, and convert them into digital formats that students can easily reference.

It may also help to provide synchronous as well as asynchronous versions of your lectures. If you're holding class meetings over a videoconferencing service like Zoom or Skype, provide a recording for students who can't attend. You can also create your own instructional videos for students to view at their own pace.

Augmentation

This level involves incorporating interactive digital enhancements and elements like comments, hyperlinks, or multimedia. The content remains unchanged, but students can now take advantage of digital features to enhance the lesson.

For example, students can create digital portfolios to create multimedia presentations, giving them more options to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. And instead of handing out paper quizzes, you can gamify your quizzes with tools like Socrative and Kahoot.

Teachers can also create virtual bulletin boards-using an app like Padlet -where students can post questions, links, and pictures.

Modification

At this level, teachers can think about using a learning management system like Google Classroom, Moodle, Schoology, or Canvas to handle the logistical aspects of running a classroom, like tracking grades, messaging students, creating a calendar, and posting assignments.

Teaching online opens up new channels of communication, many of which can help students who have traditionally been marginalized. Research shows that girls may be less likely to speak up in class, for example, so they may benefit from backchannels -alternative conversations that can run alongside instruction-that encourage participation.

Zoom's text chat feature, meanwhile, gives students an opportunity to write their questions out, which can feel less intrusive if there are dozens of students participating in the call. Also, students who prefer to collect their thoughts may benefit from slower-paced, asynchronous discussions in an online forum or email threads.

Redefinition

Learning is fundamentally transformed at the "redefinition" level, enabling activities that were previously impossible in the classroom.

For example, virtual pen pals can connect students to other parts of the world, whether it's with other students or experts in a field. Virtual field trips enable students to visit locations like the Amazon rainforest, the Louvre, or the Egyptian pyramids. After reading a book in class, you can invite the author to chat about their work and answer questions.

Technology also provides an opportunity to bring authentic audiences into your virtual classroom, and can make publishers out of your students. Kids can write their own wikis or blogs for public consumption and feedback-and platforms like Quadblogging can connect distant classrooms together so students both write and respond. Students can tackle local problems-like investigating the water quality of a nearby river-and invite members of the community to assess their digital proposals.

Going Beyond SAMR

Finally, consider how technology can be used not just as a way to deliver content, but also to strengthen relationships with your students. For elementary school teacher John Thomas, Seesaw and Flipgrid allow him to share a daily greeting, which his students then respond to-or to each other-with a typed or voiced comment. It's a good way to provide some stability while they're isolated.

How can my lesson be improved using technology?

How can I engage and empower students through technology?

How can online learning more closely resemble authentic, real-world learning?

Remember, again, that SAMR is sometimes thought of as a mountain to summit, but it's really more like a toolbox. The goal isn't to use the most sophisticated tool, but to find the right one for the job. More importantly, however, it's a way to reflect on your technology integration by thinking about a few key questions:

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A Powerful Model for Understanding Good Tech Integration

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Good technology integration isn't about using the fanciest tool, it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand.

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Bloom's taxonomy, refers to the higher order digital pedagogy. Creating is one of the most important aspects of digital technology, and is reflected in the curriculum expectations of most subject, where students are expected to be able to create their own texts or responses.