I have used Screencast-o-matic many times since I discovered it last spring, but the ways I have used it is rather limited. To date I have only used screencasting for recording lessons for students to share them for remediation purposes or for those students who have been absent. Until completing this learning module, I had never thought of possibilities for student use. Obviously the first to come to mind is for students to use it the same way I use it but in reverse: to teach one another. They could use it as an option for presenting a project. I also love the idea of students setting visuals to a podcast they have discovered themselves. Students could use this tool in a myriad of ways and I can almost guarantee that they could think of many more ways that I ever thought possible once I share it with them. I also like the idea of using screencasting for demonstration purposes. I often find tools that I think are useful for my peers but often have to wait and share the use of the tool during professional development and then I have to narrow it down to my favorites. Screencasting gives me an option to record how it can be used without having to wait to share it later! I have a feeling that I will be expanding my use of screencasting very soon. To see how I would use screencasting to share a tool I’ve discovered, see the video below.
In a post on Podcasting a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I struggled a bit with podcasts because I am a visual learner and merely listening to audio is something that I have trouble with. Creating a podcast with a visual element is how I would describe screencasting. Screencasting is a way to capture both your voice and computer screen simultaneously and harnesses a lot of potential for the classroom. There are many options for screencasting like Jing, or Educreations and ShowMe, which are more tablet based with many limitations but are still useful, but I find Screencast-o-matic the most user-friendly. There’s nothing to set up unless you just want to download the tool. You can just click the record now link and begin! I have used Screencast-o-matic many times since I discovered it last spring, but the ways I have used it is rather limited. To date I have only used screencasting for recording lessons for students to share them for remediation purposes or for those students who have been absent. Until completing this learning module, I had never thought of possibilities for student use. Obviously the first to come to mind is for students to use it the same way I use it but in reverse: to teach one another. They could use it as an option for presenting a project. I also love the idea of students setting visuals to a podcast they have discovered themselves. Students could use this tool in a myriad of ways and I can almost guarantee that they could think of many more ways that I ever thought possible once I share it with them. I also like the idea of using screencasting for demonstration purposes. I often find tools that I think are useful for my peers but often have to wait and share the use of the tool during professional development and then I have to narrow it down to my favorites. Screencasting gives me an option to record how it can be used without having to wait to share it later! I have a feeling that I will be expanding my use of screencasting very soon. To see how I would use screencasting to share a tool I’ve discovered, see the video below.
1 Comment
I first discovered Edmodo at the advice of a colleague this time last year. Edmodo is a social learning network that provides a safe, secure environment for communicating, collaborating, and sharing amongst educators and students that is modeled after social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. What I found as I began using Edmodo is that it is supremely helpful in guiding new users through many of its different features by a “profile completeness” percentage calculator. It shows you how to connect with others, add to your own library, create groups, and many other things. Students navigate the communication posts pretty easily and often respond to each other when there are questions more quickly than I can. I also like that you can share content with students and create assignments in ways that allows them to submit them directly on Edmodo. One of the more professional things I like about Edmodo are the “Discover” and “App” tools. I have found so many things that I now use regularly in my classroom on these pages on Edmodo. If you are wanting to try out Edmodo in your classroom, I’d start by creating a profile and explore the interface to familiarize yourself with how it works. Once you feel you’re comfortable with it, try creating a group for just one class to pilot it with. Share the class code with them and walk them through the profile creation process. Start by simply creating a dialogue with students and see how that process works. As you become more practiced, then begin trying out the other tools, like the poll, quiz and calendar options. Another option for social media for educators is Classroom 2.0. Classroom 2.0 is a way to create posts and discussions with other educators or read other discussions about how Web 2.0 tools and social media is used in the classroom. If there is something specific you want to know more about, you can create a post or search for other posts. You can also subscribe to feeds that you find interesting so that you stay on top of new information that you like. Google Docs have also transformed my teaching. Google Docs are various types of documents that can be generated, edited, saved, and shared online. Students love to use Google docs because they no longer have to save their work onto a flash drive and they can access it from anywhere. As a teacher, these types of documents are so valuable for many reasons. They can be easily shared with many people since they are available online and you can allow others to add to or edit your work. This is wonderful for students because you can send them a document that you wish for them to add to or a template that you wish for them to fill in. We as a staff often use Google docs to track grades and behavior for students who require interventions. Below you’ll find a short slideshow created in Google Docs with some of my favorite quotes. Enjoy! YouTube, in case you've never heard of it, is an online platform for sharing videos. Though perhaps not its original intention, I personally believe that YouTube has forever changed the way we share information with each other. There is something incredibly powerful in visual images and many people choose to use YouTube as a way to get a message out to people. Others use it as a fun way to share their videos with a large audience. In addition, YouTube has already transformed education and will continue to change it as educators begin to realize its potential. Teachers can create their own YouTube channel to share content with students and other educators, but even more powerful, students can create videos to share with the world. TeacherTube is also an excellent, safe alternative to YouTube, especially if YouTube is blocked at your school. The content on TeacherTube is put on strictly for educational purposes and has many good offerings. I find it very good for demonstration videos for science. In my YouTube search, I began with a search on how technology has changed. I ended up finding the video Technology Rapidly Changing, which basically details the statistics on how technology use has changed in just a few short years. I furthered my search and looked more specifically at how technology has changed education and found Paul Hamilton's illustration Technology in Education in which he describes effective use of technology. I've seen this video before but I have always found it interesting. Next I searched, "How to embed a Google calendar," because I have really struggled with embedding my Google calendar on my class website and have been pretty dependent on the calendar on Edmodo to communicate with students and parents. The best one was Expert Villages' video. Once I was done with the professional searches, I searched Kid President just for fun, because I think he's just precious and he always makes me smile! Below you'll see his video, A Pep Talk to Teachers and Students. Enjoy! Prior to this learning module, I had very little experience with podcasts. I do occasionally download one but only when someone suggests something specific to me or when I miss a message at church. Since I am a very visual learner, I struggle a little with podcasts and feel that I have to focus a lot more in order to understand what is going on. For example, I am not one of those people you will find listening to talk radio or even to a ball game on the radio while I'm driving because I find it very distracting. What I found in my search for podcasts for both professionally and personally is that many of them are also video podcasts and I did find that I enjoyed them a lot more. TEDTalks was especially interesting to me and I found that I could listen (and view) podcasts for education and podcasts on science and medicine, which is my personal interest.
That being said, I find that many of the other talks I listened to very informative and entertaining. Tech Chicks especially piqued my interest, since they focus primarily on uses of various technology, though I found that they were a bit slower in their introduction that I preferred. I really feel that teachers can benefit a lot from subscribing to podcasts related to education or their subject areas. It is one way to stay connected and to stay current on skills and information. In addition, teachers could create podcasts for students to listen to and provide another option for students to connect outside the classroom. I also feel that students could benefit from podcasts in a variety of ways. Students could search for podcasts as a form of research or to further their knowledge in a particular area. Students could also create their own podcasts for specific content as a type of assessment or project. We all know that pen and paper has its role and its value in the classroom. What many educators don’t realize, however, is that there exists a multitude of technological applications that take what is done on paper in the classroom to new levels and allow students to express their thoughts to a large audience, the express their creativity, and even to think critically. I recently discovered an app that has enormous potential for the classroom: Popplet. At the time, I was actually browsing different apps that I could use for concept mapping. My students had recently worked with concept maps by hand for comparing urban and rural uses of land but I wanted to try and have an option for them to use their personal devices and perhaps make it even more interactive. In my search I discovered Popplet. Popplet is an app that works on a computer or mobile device and allows you to create “popples,” or idea clouds. Each popple can be connected to another and allows a user to create a concept or brainstorm map, called a popplet. My explanation of my search for an app like this alone has likely already made any educator take a second look but if you still need convincing of the possibilities of using this tool, take note. Popplet can work for a myriad of different lessons: brainstorming ideas during projects, concept maps, projects, comparison and contrast, and more. What makes Popplet so much better than using standard pen and paper is that it can add to the critical thinking task that you have already assigned when students add multiple elements such as images and drawings or even when they begin categorizing parts by color. A student example of how I have allowed students to use Popplet is shown on the left, in which students were asked to research an energy source that they thought would be best suited for our community and defend their choice. Popplet isn't difficult to set up or use so it would require little training for students or teachers to use. A challenge to using this is one we often run into: limited access. Since this app can be used on mobile devices, a way to overcome this is by allowing collaboration with the task. Another app that was shared with me that has incredible untapped potential is Glogster. Glogster is a tool that allows users to create virtual, interactive posters. Glogster has many features that are exciting for any student to use, including galleries of images, animations, and sounds, and also allows its artist to be even more creative by adding in other multimedia such as videos, images, drawings, and words. Rather than have students answer a question like: “What are the characteristics of a tropical forest biome?” on a sheet of paper, have students create a virtual poster that not only describes the biome but that would allow a person viewing it to experience what it is like in that biome by incorporating many types of multimedia in their poster. Or have students defend a particular stance on an issue by adding elements in the poster from experts, including videos and links to journal articles. Glogster is a tool that could turn menial content into fun, interactive, engaging lessons that incorporate critical thinking. Glogster is a tool that can be downloaded on many mobile devices but is easiest used on a computer. This tool would require a bit more preparation and training for those involved, both students and teachers, since the interface can be overwhelming. With this tool, the best way to overcome this challenge is to follow the well-known mantra: practice makes perfect. The more often you and your students use this tool, the better you will get at it. Obviously, these two tools do not begin to harness the power that many web apps can hold for the classroom. There are many lists of other apps that can be used in the classroom, including my favorite, The Top 100 Tools for Learning: The 2013 List, which tells you the rank of the web app and a very brief description of the tool. The key thing to remember when searching for a new app to use in the classroom is simplicity: take something you are already doing and use the app to expand on it. As an educator, I consistently use the web to find ideas of thing to use in my classroom. I often find neat pictures, lessons, among other things that I would love to be able to use but up until recently, I have pretty much just used these things as starting points. I have always been very hesitant to use anything I find on the web in my classroom for any reason simply because I may be violating someone’s rights. If I ever used videos or pictures as a part of my teaching, I was always careful not to change it in any way and always attributed credit to the owner. Of course, I, like most other educators, understand fair use and transformative use (if you don’t, please follow the link to Media Education Lab) but I am still always hesitant to use something that I do not own. It is interesting, though, to think this way because considering I own the copyright to my own work, I would be fine with someone using and/or transforming it in their own classrooms and would like to let them know this. Last fall, however, I discovered Creative Commons. To put it briefly, a work registered under Creative Commons allows for certain creative uses. The license will describe in non-legal terms under what terms the work can be used and makes it so much easier for someone to understand how they may use the item. I realized then that I had seen the characteristic “CC” on lots of things I had viewed online, especially on a particular favorite of mine, The Biology Corner. This particular website shows under its usage terms what kind of Creative Commons license it holds. I now know specifically how I can use and edit these materials in my classroom without any confusion. In addition, I plan to try to share my own creations online and will use Creative Commons so that others know what ways they may use the material. I think the only drawback to using Creative Commons is when creators don’t know of its existence. They may feel as I did, that they would like others to be able to use their creations for certain purposes but don’t know how to go about allowing others to do so. One amazing tool that has part of its power actually housed under a Creative Commons license is Flickr Creative Commons. Flickr is a social platform used to share images and short videos and its power lies in its tagging feature (Richardson, 2010). Users can upload their images and videos and attach tags which allow other users to search for the images. In addition, users can search for images based on their tags (Richardson, 2010). I searched further uses of Flickr in the classroom, particularly the possibility of users adding annotations and notes to particular images. My classes currently use interactive notebooks and have mentioned the possibility of creating virtual notebooks. (Sidenote: Don’t forget that you will always have things to learn, especially from those you teach.) I really like the idea of them being able to organize their material this way but was trying to figure out how to take this idea further. This particular feature of Flickr would allow students to add notes and annotations to their work but also allow them to link it to content they find on the web. This could really take their critical thinking/output sections of their notebooks to new levels and it engages them simply because they are able to use technology to do so. In addition, the commenting feature would allow their classmates to add commentary and promote class discussions on particular topics. I also hope to share what I’ve learned about Flickr from my colleagues, especially the geotagging feature with my peers who teach geography. In my personal search under the Creative Commons licensed images in Flickr, I simply searched "science." The image above is one I'd like to use on my class web page. The creator simply asks for attribution and to state if alterations had been made to the original image. Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin. As we become more connected with technology at our fingertips almost twenty-four hours a day, we are constantly exposed to new information. The sheer amount of it can overwhelm anyone and without a way to organize, filter, and use this information, much of it could be lost, even that which is of great value. I discover resources on an almost daily basis that I don't often have time to read or reference at that particular moment. Sometimes I find myself saving them for later in my bookmarks or emailing the link to the resource to myself. Then comes the subsequent retrieval of the article or blog post, which usually means that I have to go through many places to recall where I put it in the first place. On top of that, I often can't find the article much later when I want to because I had no way of organizing and storing it in a way that prompted easy retrieval.
I have often used Pinterest for this purpose and have found it very helpful, though much of Pinterest is very visual and makes use of pictures to identify its resources. When I discovered Diigo this week, I felt almost as if a weight had been lifted. Diigo is a social bookmarking site in which tags or keywords are used to organize information a person stores on its site, where it can be accessed from any place with an internet connection (Richardson, 2010). Not only can you organize your own information with tags of your choosing but you can also search through what others are viewing by searching those same tags in the Diigo Community. In addition, Diigo allows you to highlight important information and create virtual Post-It notes directly on the page. Lastly, you can also share what you've been reading with specific people, who (if you choose) can see your personal highlights and annotations. Social bookmarking has completely changed the way I will store and even share information with my colleagues. Some of us often share articles and other information we find useful but I really like that we can view one another's notes we have made on a specific article. I plan to share the idea of social bookmarking with my students as well, once I get used to using it. I believe that students can use social bookmarking for both personal and collaborative research purposes. Social bookmarking opens many doors for collaboration and sharing in addition to organizing and filtering the vast amount of information available on the web. You can view my Diigo page here. Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin. In our highly connected culture, most people are familiar with Wikipedia and how it works. Due to the fact that anyone can post and edit a page, most people scoff at its validity since it is not written by experts. What most people don’t understand is the power of such: that people all over the world can contribute to the knowledge found there and that together people can build much more knowledge than someone can alone (Richardson, 2010). No matter where you stand on this issue, what you may not know is that Wikipedia is not the only one of its type. A wiki is merely a webpage where anyone can post and edit content at any time (Richardson, 2010). When you understand this, you can begin to understand the power of collaboration and learning that this tool could harness.
On my journey to explore wikis further, I found some incredibly interesting examples of how wikis are used for unique learning experiences in classrooms all over the world. The first one I encountered was Code Blue. Code Blue is a wiki in which students take on a medical persona and open their own virtual medical clinics. On the pages of their medical clinics, students have added links to content about particular systems of the human body, both written and visual. What I really liked about Code Blue is that the home page has content that the teacher has identified as useful for the students to give them a starting point. If I were working on this wiki, I probably would have also put a rubric or requirements link to give students guidance in case they had any questions throughout the process. The next wiki I viewed was Greetings from the World, a wiki in which students all over the world can post links to virtual posters called Glogs (see Glogster for more information on using this neat tool) that discuss their view of various locations throughout the room. What an authentic and connected learning experience! This wiki also has language options for students who do not speak English as their first language. The other interesting thing about this wiki is the map on the home page which identifies where different studies who have posted are at throughout the world. The last wiki I viewed was Schools in the Past. I chose this one in particular because it is so far from what I teach (high school science). This is a wiki done by first-grade students who were asked to interview older people about what schools were like when they were kids. The wiki is very straight forward and is separated by topic, playgrounds, for instance. I thought this wiki was a very interesting way to get students to incorporate technology into their learning objectives. The only thing I would have changed is have students record the year that this event took place and then have them place it on the wiki in the order that it occurred to add to the cross-curricular experience. Another thing I might have tried is opening the experience up to various community members to add their own experiences and have the students check the wiki to see what has been added. As you can see, wikis can provide excellent learning experiences for students. I plan on beginning to use wikis in my own classroom. While there are so many opportunities to begin incredible projects, I will begin with creating a home wiki for my students and create group wikis for small project groups in each class. Students will use the wiki to collaborate while doing their research and will later post the link to their final projects on the home page. I like the idea of monitoring their collaboration so I can know who contributed what content to the project (Davis, 2007). Blazik, Arjana. (2009, Oct). Greetings from the World. Retrieved from http://greetingsfromtheworld.wikispaces.com/About Code Blue. Retrieved from http://codeblue.wikispaces.com/wiki/members?responseToken=a4dbcfbcc9f604ee5b250fa13494712f Davis, Michelle. (2007, Sept 12). Wiki Wisdom: Lessons for Educators. Digital Directions. Retrieved from http://jdorman.wikispaces.com/file/view/Wiki+Wisdom+Article.pdf Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin. Schools in the Past. Retrieved from http://schoolsthen.wikispaces.com/ My ultimate goal for student blogging is for students to begin a Web-Based Portfolio which they begin their freshman year and build upon throughout high school. Since I teach at a separate freshman campus, I hope that teachers at the upper campus will use the blog for class activities in a similar manner at various times throughout the year. Since students can also personalize and take ownership of the portfolio, I think they will have found the value in it and post on their own even if they aren’t using it at the upper levels.
However, since I have never used blogging in my classroom before, I figured I’d start small and work my way to the web-based portfolio. I would like to incorporate blogging into critiques and discussions of current events related to the content we are covering in my classroom, as described in The Top Ten Ways Blogs and WordPress are Used in Schools (Waters, 2013). I would create student blogs within a class blog to promote collaboration related to the current events students have chosen. Students would be expected to reflect on the article, using facts from the article and other sources to support their ideas. In addition, students would be expected to comment on one other student’s blog in the same manner. I got ideas for my rubric from Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything (Schrock, 2012). You can download my rubric here. Schrock, K (2012). Assessments and Rubrics. Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything. Retrieved from http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html Waters, S (2013, Nov 11). The Top Ten Ways Blogs and WordPress are Used in Schools. The Edublogger. Retrieved from http://theedublogger.com/2013/11/11/the-top-10-ways-blogs-and-wordpress-are-used-in-schools/ Pretty much anyone who has had some instruction in upper-level literature has had to write a research paper, one in which they defended their argument with the support of literature from experts. Students are asked to make a stand for a certain point and learn how to defend it by critiquing literature. Prior to the use of blogs, this authorship was limited to the classroom, mostly between the student and teacher. Similar to Richards' (2010) thoughts, I think blog-reading follows this same idea of making connections and thinking critically. Blog-writing can build on these same skills while also using expert literature to support the argument. Blog-writing is unique from the research paper example in that it adds an audience and makes the writing become more multi-dimensional. Connections to other authors can be added via hyperlinks and new connections can be added through comments. However, I don’t agree that blog-writing is only used for this purpose. I think that blogging could simply be one person’s ideas and be a way for them to simply share their own views, opinions, and experiences. Due to this, students will have to learn to decipher which sources are reliable and which are not when reading and then writing their own blogs.
I have always considered myself more of a task-doer than a person who writes. That being said, Richardson (2010) made excellent points about uses of blogging in a classroom, largely that its use allows students to have a platform where they actually read and think more critically and make connections between different ideas. When taking a break from the reading, I immediately began thinking of ways that I could incorporate blogging into my own classroom. As I was coming up with ideas, I realized the importance of personal blogging – in order to effectively use blogging in my classroom, I will first have to use it myself in a similar manner to the way I expect my students to use it. As I read further, Richardson (2010) suggests the same idea, that teachers must be familiar with blogging in order for students to really see the relevance of it. My idea is to blend the two: learn to blog about the tasks that I’m doing, namely how and why I am implementing different types of technology in my classroom. Once I have become familiar with blogging and how it is used, I can start to incorporate student blogging in my own classroom to foster critical thinking. Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
July 2015
Categories |