I’ve never really spent much time experimenting with YouTube simply because I found it to be busy and potentially inappropriate. I felt uncomfortable with the way the homepage displayed “featured videos” that oftentimes included offensive material or material unsuitable for young students. Now that I have created a YouTube account, I have been able to customize my own homepage that allowed me to remove the YouTube featured content. Unfortunately I haven’t yet been able to remove the one, final “promoted video” from my homepage because it seems like content that has been paid for. Any thoughts on how I might remove that one too?
The “advanced” search button on YouTube allowed me to filter my search so that unsuitable content was not delivered to me, and I was able to locate a video (see below) that taught me how to preserve the last remaining hydrangeas that are blooming in my yard right now. Useful video is not difficult to find through YouTube, and several times I found the list of “related videos” to be useful for expanding my search. As I watched various videos in search of the best ones for classroom and personal use, it became clear that if my students or I were to create and upload our own videos to YouTube we would need to use a microphone that produced high quality sound. It’s frustrating when you just can’t hear what is being said!
I also really liked learning more about TeacherTube, and once again I created a personalized account for this resource. My favorite feature of TeacherTube was the “Channels” tab. Under the channels tab, I was able to grab an rss feed for six different content areas, from math to history. I then added the feeds to a new Pageflakes page and then made the page public. Now I can check my Pageflakes account for video content applicable to my classroom teaching.
With my Google Reader and Pageflakes accounts, the ideas have truly been rolling in. I’ve been especially impressed with news related to Wordle and I’ve tried to keep up with ways people might use this online tool in their classrooms. A post to the langwitches blog caught my attention in Pageflakes. The post, titled, “Digital Storytelling Part IX- Wordle” offered an excellent idea: use a word cloud to “showcase characteristics of a protagonist in a book.” I loved this idea! At my school we begin the year in reader’s workshop with a study of character; we dig into characters’ personalities, decision-making patterns, relationship histories, etc., and I think a Wordle project would be a fun, engaging way to share our thoughts about character and help students connect to the books that others read.
I just finished reading Bob Smith’s memoir, Hamlet’s Dresser, so quickly I created a sample word cloud using all the words I could think of that connect to my experience with the book:
I wonder if Library Thing would allow me (or my students) to upload a Wordle creation as part of a book review. That would be a great way to get a conversation around a book going on Library Thing…
For this K12 Learning task, I used evoca for the first time to create an audio recording of three ideas I have for integrating podcasting into classroom teaching and learning. Have a listen!
1. Ms. Edmison’s Weekly Podcast gave me the idea of using podcasting as a way to communicate news and upcoming events with parents at the end of each week. Ms. Edmison’s class uses its podcast as its weekly newsletter, and I love how that idea puts responsibility and creativity into the students’ hands. I wonder how much preparation Ms. Edmison has to do to get her podcast up and running each year.
2. We study early American exploration and colonization as part of our social studies curriculum, and I was thinking that it might be fun for my students to create podcasts from the the perspectives of different Spanish conquistadors and other European explorers. By taking on the role of various historical personalities, the students would be enhancing their knowledge of the content, sharing their ideas with others, and allowing me as the teacher to assess their understandings and dig deeper into their interpretations.
3. In a previous post, I commented on an idea I had for incorporating flickr into classroom teaching. My idea involved having students collect images of any misspellings they come across out in the world. Enhanced podcasts sharing several if not all the images they find through the year with commentary on the significance of the collections could make an interesting podcast…maybe a final podcast project?
I found evoca to be quick and easy to use. I had no trouble getting the html code needed to embed the recording into my blog, and I like the way the embedded file looks on the page. I really like how evoca provides the rss feed for the podcasts I create under my username. One thing I thought was really neat about evoca would be a handy tool for skype users. Skype users can record calls and have the recordings sent directly to evoca accounts! I can definitely see how this would be a useful tool for teachers like Ms. Edmison who create weekly podcasts with their students.
In my last post, I sort of complained about the trouble I’ve had in the past with locating interesting and relevant podcasts for both my fourth-graders and myself. Well, I decided to dig a little further into the subscribing to podcasts thing, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found with very little effort. Success! I now have a public page in Pageflakes with Steve Dembo, Vicki Davis, David Warlick, Chris Frederick, The Tech Teachers, ColeyCast, and History.org podcast subscriptions–all content I will be able to use one way or another with my students–and they play right in Pageflakes!
Before reading through the podcasting information listed on the K12 Learning wiki, my search for educational podcasts was limited to the Education Podcast Network, NPR, and iTunes. To be honest, I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the variety of podcasts available for elementary age students; they are either too long, too short, too advanced, or too juvenile. I find this is especially true on iTunes. If you have had better success with iTunes than I have, I’d love your suggestions for my new class of fourth-graders in the fall. Now I’m happy to have added Learn Out Loud and PBS to my delicious page, hopefully to meet my future podcasting needs.
I watched a CNN Student News’ “Young People Who Rock” video podcast. I got lucky and found that this recent episode featured Zac Sunderland, a 16 year-old who is attempting to break a world record by sailing all the way around the world..alone. I was thinking that this news story would be the perfect introduction to the chapter in our textbook about Ferdinand Magellan and his circumnavigation of the globe. We might compare Zac’s route to Magellan’s, and we might discuss the similarities between the two journeys. What a cool way to make the social studies content more applicable to kids! I was unable to grab a feed for the actual video of Zac’s interview on CNN, but I did subscribe to the blog that accompanies this featured CNN coverage.
Our assignment for “Thing 13” was to “attend” one of the archived K12 Online Conference sessions from 2006 or 2007 and then comment on it. Our fearless K12 Learning 2.0 course leader said we could have our PJs on while completing this one, so it’s Friday night, and I am snuggled up in an oversize t-shirt and PJ pants to listen to and read through Anne Davis’ presentation about the steps she follows when introducing blogging to 5th grade students.
9:48pm.
Who knew opportunities like this existed on the Web?! I loved having the chance to sit down and take part in this activity. I adopted the role of a student as my teacher (Anne) suggested, and I completed a WebQuest all about the questioning, writing, proofing, sharing, commenting, and reflecting processes involved in blogging. Everything I needed to know was spelled out on Anne’s wiki.
I like how Anne’s presentation included blogging tips from actual student bloggers: Alejandro and Angel, for example; I also thought that Derrick’s blog could be used as an example of how thinking about layout, design, and color-scheme is important for new student bloggers to consider. It was difficult to read.
This online session raised a question in my mind about whether or not I should keep future class blogs private: while viewing a page of Anne’s wiki I came across a comment posted by a “mystery person” on a child’s blog. It read, “You are the worst blogger in the whole world I will never come on this site again.” Hmmm…while this could be a potentially damaging comment, it would also provide the perfect opportunity for a teachable moment. Now I see why a blogging policy is an important, useful tool to develop with student and teacher bloggers. This session also got me thinking about my past experiences with student bloggers. I never went into the kind of detail or laid the kind of groundwork that Anne shared in her session with my students. Was I going about blogging in a rushed way? YES! I found this link to student bloggers’ reflections to be an eye-opening resource: would my past students write reflections like these? NO, because we jumped into blogging without the sense of purpose and direction that Anne’s students had.
I just finished Jerry Spinelli’s book Stargirl for the third time, and in a Q & A at the end, Spinelli says that he has many rules for when he sits down to write, but his number one rule is to always write about what he knows and cares about. In this online session, Anne interviewed a child about his thoughts on blogging and shared it online in audio form. When asked what he would blog about if he had his own weblog, Zachary’s response was that he would write about what he cares about: his life, how it’s going, and what’s going on in the world around him. I think Zachary’s blogging–and other students’ blogging about noticings, wonderings, analyses, evaluations, and understandings–would make Spinelli proud.
Thank you to Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis who “twittered” (is that even the right term?) about new templates for Google Docs and Spreadsheets that were released today. I like the collaborative feel of Google Docs (especially after learning how to create a survey in Google Docs with Lucy Gray at iSummit!), and I’m thinking that in many ways it could be useful for my fourth graders–and grade level team–in the fall.
This task reminded me of a “before and after” puzzle on Wheel of Fortune: Library Thing/Thing 16: Library Thing 16.
I can see myself using this tool with my fourth graders. The website offers them a way to track their reading–the thought of posting all the books they’ve finished reading will likely be a motivational tool in and of itself–review the books they’ve read, read the comments others have written about certain books, add to the “common knowledge” about a book (characters, setting, date of publish, etc.) To me this site has the same feel as a wiki; not that students can edit and change the actual LibraryThing site, but that they can contribute to the life of a book posting. Posting an opinion carries a feeling of importance and significance that we can all appreciate. Through LibraryThing, students can see how their ratings compare to the average rating for any given book, they can click on links that will allow them to view others’ libraries, and they can see how many other LibraryThing users have also read their books. As a teacher, I can create Book Clubs through what LibraryThing calls “groups” while my students are in the middle of their genre studies. To me, the group feature is an attractive component of LibraryThing because managing classroom book club discussion threads on one class blog can get kind of hairy.
One of the most interesting things I came across while learning about LibraryThing was a group called “Guess the book v3.0.” From what I gathered, one user posted a quote taken from a mystery book, and then other members of the group were challenged to name title and author. This might be a fun activity to start in a classroom (even as early as kindergarten) once a teacher has begun her classroom’s read-aloud life a little ways into the school year. I’m thinking of mystery quotes for the little ones such as “I do not like them Sam I Am.”
Lastly, I stumbled across #9. “Make a Photomosaic” under the LibraryThing “tools” tab. I clicked on the “see all your covers” link and navigated to a page that showed the covers of all the books I have added to my account at this point. So cool! It would make an awesome website background or Desktop image.
I wanted to play with Wordle a couple weeks ago, but couldn’t until my laptop was updated to Leopard. Now that I’m updated, I am free to play. This is my first creation, and I’m thinking it would make a neat background for my class website. What a cool way for kids to create a very visual rendering of their thoughts, interests, etc. Fun!
It’s always great to have completed a technology conference. I leave feeling satisfied and inspired. This year’s iSummit was no different. Of course it didn’t hurt that everyone who attended from my school walked away with a fantastic door prize (an iPod Touch, 2 Higher Ground laptop cases, and Laptop Lojack)! As I looked back through my notes and the projects I started in Nashville, I thought it might be nice to do a quick post about the top three things I learned and plan to use in my classroom as a result of iSummit:
One of the coolest tips that I took away from The Coalition of Lighthouse Schools iSummit this year came from Lucy Gray in a session about all the educational tools that Google offers teachers. Lucy’s class “Enhancing Your Digital Workflow” taught me all about Google Earth, Google Apps for Educators, Google Reads, and Google Sky (the latter two were new to me). In Google Docs and Spreadsheets, there is a function available that allows users to find the answers to questions such as “What is the population of Atlanta?” or “Where was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. born?” simply by entering an “entity” and an “attribute” into a cell in Google spreadsheets. Check it out! Here is a complete list of what Google offers.
Dr. Carl Owens from Tennessee Tech taught us all about “Cool Tools for Classroom Use. Along with various devices and assistive technologies that teachers can use in the classroom, he told us about “Cable in the Classroom,” a Web resource with educational online video, a list of classroom-friendly recordings, parent tips, podcasts, lesson plans, etc. You’ll be impressed by all the information under the Cable Resources for Learninglink.
Julene Reed showed us how students can use Photo Booth to superimpose personalized backdrops behind photos and videos. By the way, did you know you can take video through Photo Booth?! In Julene’s session on iMovie ‘08, we were using Photo Booth version 2.0.2 to capture our video, and with it we could drag photos from iPhoto into Photo Booth and apply them as our video backdrops. Be sure you have advanced to the fourth page of the Photo Booth effects if you want to try it; once there, you will see empty cells into which you can drag your own photos. I think it’s awesome–so simple!
Thank you to all the Apple Distinguished Educators who gave of their time to teach us: Julene Reed, Lucy Gray, Ty Richardson, Cathleen Richardson, Joe Morris, Carl Owens, Larry Anderson, etc. We enjoyed every minute, and we’ll see you next year!
