This past fall Lisa Sutterer a teacher at Euclid Middle School took on the challenge of participating in the National History Day competition with her students. This competition encouraged students to conduct original research on historical topics of interest. These research-based projects had five genres ( webpage, performance, paper, table top exhibit and documentary). Students used Google Scholar and Templates from their teacher in Google Drive to begin their research portion.
Four (4) projects from Euclid Middle School students went on to State and three (3) of these projects are on their way to Nationals on June 14-18 at University of Maryland, College Park. Congratulations!
Here are a few ways these students leveraged technology to conduct primary source interviews, capture audio files and make historical connections and perspectives come to life.
(below) Three students were able to interview Bob Burdick in person. He was the editor and president of the Rocky Mountain News from 1994-2000. Students used their mobile devices taped to a tripod :-) and then used Camtasia or iMovie to edit and produce their video of Mr. Burdick. See example here.
(below) Students video conferenced with Daryl Moen a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. They used Skype to video conference and Camtasia along with Audacity to capture the video and audio of this primary source interview.
Another student was able to interview Laura (Quirk) Armstrong who assisted Woodward and Bernstein on the case during the time of the Watergate scandal. This student used a clip of the audio interview See example here
This student captured the audio interview over the speakerphone using Audacity and a snowball mic.
Audio File
These are all great examples of how technology supports content. These students leveraged technology to focus their research and primary source information to visual and audio clips along with quotes to better convey their message.
To learn more about the great work happening in Lisa Sutterer’s classroom contact her at lsutterer@lps.k12.co.us
Additional Resources
National History Day: http://www.nhd.org/about-us/
Overview of what National History Day is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHjp97oaKKs
