LifeSnapz goes to school as history learning tool (a case study)
Cushing Community School
Recently I’ve blogged about different ways people are using LifeSnapz in their businesses. I blogged about a marketing services company that uses LifeSnapz as a content and project management tool and a film production company that is using LifeSnapz to catalogue and track filming locations, costs and vendors.
Today, LifeSnapz is going to school… kindergarten to be exact.
Beth Vickery, a kindergarten teacher at Cushing Community School in Cushing, Maine is building timelines with her students using LifeSnapz. Here is the interview with Beth on how she is using LifeSnapz.
LifeSnapz: Please provide a description of the task for which you are using LifeSnapz.
Beth Vickery: My kindergarten is building a timeline. The project was inspired by my students’ line of inquiry during a presentation by our French teacher about castles. The students wanted to know how long ago the castles were built and how that related to other events from history. (The voyage of the Mayflower, life of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abe Lincoln, etc.). The project is snowballing to include a wide range of topics from how long our town’s general store has been in operation to how long a squirrel stayed on our feeder to when Legos were invented.
LS: How many people does your group consist of? What type of people are using/accessing the site (adults, kids, web-savvy, non-web savvy, etc.)
BV: The group currently has 13 members in all: 4 full members and 9 view only members. The full members include me, my education technician, our librarian, and my husband. I hope to get a member of our town historical society to become a full member, too. The view only members include parents of current students, past students from ranging in age from 12 to 20, and other school personnel.
The group members range from avid web users to those who have never participated in a web 2.0 environment (social networking, blogging, etc.). I am hoping to start posting my students’ writing to this project soon, but I’ll have to do the posting for all but one or two of them.
LS: How hard was it for the others to get up to speed on using LifeSnapz?
BV: People seem to feel comfortable posting content to the site right away.
LS: How hard was it to convince others that LifeSnapz would be useful?
BV: Most people think this project is pretty neat and are impressed that kindergarten kids are into this kind of a project.
LS: Were you surprised by anything in your group’s use of LifeSnapz?
BV: I am not really surprised, and I’m pleased at how Lifesnapz helps my students see history in context and increases their higher level thinking. My students have an understanding of time and history that I’d not observed in this age group prior to using Lifesnapz. It also helps them connect historical events in new ways.
LS: How did you discover LifeSnapz?
BV: I did a Google search specifically looking for a time line tool that would include maps. (After the aforementioned castle presentation.)
LS: Why do you like LifeSnapz for performing this project? Any particular features that stand out to you?
BV: My class is really enjoying our project, and it is a great way to weave a classroom full of unique interests into a group project. I like that we can seamlessly combine mapping, pictures, video, and commentary to the recording of an event.
I like that we can look at time in a variety of spans from century to 12 hours. When we had a squirrel on our bird feeder for “a long time” my students could easily see that was a different kind of long time than how long our general store has been in business.
I also like the way my students can see how events relate to one another. (Our store opened in Abe Lincoln’s life time, for example.). It’s also nice to be able to look at events by location on the map feature, and I like that I can tag events and toggle between different time spans.
Finally, it’s great to have a choice of how to view the information we post, and I really appreciate the automatic email alerts when there is activity in my group.
LS: Had you used anything else to accomplish your task prior to using LifeSnapz? If so, what did you like or dislike about the alternative solution? If not, did you consider anything else?
BV: The other programs I looked at did not include mapping. Lifesnapz sowed up pretty early in my search and seemed to fit the bill. I have not tried this sort of a project before as it is supposed to be beyond the grasp of six year olds to understand time like this. Lifesnapz does for time what Google Earth does for place. Google Earth has made mapping less abstract and more accessible to very young children, and Lifesnapz seems to be doing this with time.
LS: OK, it sounds like you’d give LifeSnapz a passing grade. The site can’t be perfect. What would you improve on LifeSnapz?
BV: In one respect, I like having control over who is in the group and who contributes, but I wish it was easier for people to just view the information. I think visitors to my wiki may not bother to look at this project because they must register to become part of my group. I wish the timeline would extend to BC…for example, my class would like to include the invention/discovery of Pi on our timeline. Also, it would be great to be able to move from an event to exactly that point on the timeline without having to scroll through time. It would also be nice to be able to color code the lines based on tags. We embed Voki talking avatars into our wiki and use voice thread to create other projects. It would be really neat to be able to leave audio comments in Lifesnapz, too.
For the most part, though, Lifesnapz was exactly what I was looking for to help with this project.
LS: Thanks for your feedbak. Anything else you’d like to say?
BV: Stay tuned…we’re just getting started with this project and we seem to be gaining momentum! I may be presenting at my state technology conference for educators next year. Maybe I’ll present about this project and your site. I haven’t seen anyone else bring this kind of a project to that convention.
Thanks Beth for using LifeSnapz and for including the site in your class. We’re thrilled that we can help with your lessons.
Are you using LifeSnapz in a unique way? We’d love to hear from you. Let us know at feedback@lifesnapz.com.
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