Storytelling for the YouTube Generation: The remixed culture

During the technology update portion for our district's opening day, I spoke with staff about viewing YouTube as a genre.  This genre is viral short-form film and is embedded in the lives of each and everyone one of our YouTube generation students.  Here are a few strategies and examples as discussed during the presentation that we didn't have time to go in depth with.  

When giving students "creative briefs" like this, remember that they don't necessarily need "training" on how to do this. Try to make experiences like this as organic as possible and avoid the traditional "how-to" step by step list of directions for them.  In the end, remember you are grading them on CONTENT - not on their video skills. It's how they communicate what they know that matters. 

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Active participation in literary experience enhances the development of comprehension, oral language, and sense of story structure." 

- LM Morrow

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Stop-motion via Vine (for smart phone or tablet)

• 6 second science fair (#6secondscience on Twitter and examples on Mashable created with Vine)
• Idiom Vines (with lesson plan): http://alessonplanaday.tumblr.com/post/57158019675/using-vine-videos-for-lessons-on-idioms-by

Google Doc stories via Google Storybuilder:

Story builder with math word problem example:

Swede Videos (example from Star Wars remixed and remade)

1-minute, 1-take videos (sum up anything - i.e. sum up all the rules of football in 1 minutes or sum up a story)

1 minute 1 take video summing up Forrest Gump movie

Remixed Music for Parody videos (aka any song "goat-edition") :)

 

Paper-slide video

How-to guide for creating the paper-slide video

Newsletter 2.0

Get the kids involved! 

Example via a Principal along with students sharing weekly updates from school.

Nonfiction video voice-overs (sum up anything)

ex: Planet Earth - narrated by kids

Directions on creating a video like the one above - Taking nonfiction video and having students remake it (i.e.: strip out voice and have the students read it)

• Save/download media from DiscoveryEd or YouYube, etc.
• get something that’s like 1 minute 14 seconds (short)
• You or the students import the video into the online video editor website WeVideo
• when ready to do a voice over...
• put volume down for the main video on WeVideo screen (not on device)
• record your own video with webcam directly on WeVideo
• drag it into the timeline editor and click “edit”
• drag the scroll bar to the left to make your own video small and drop into the corner of the screen

Doing this or K-2 is so possible! Just find the clips ahead of time, cut them down to the length you'd like on WeVideo or MovieMaker and have the kids do the self-webcam video reading portion.

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District 68 Twitter Talks

I had the incredible opportunity to spend an hour after school with the staff of Murphy Elementary School yesterday to talk about the benefits of using Twitter.  As I shared the benefits for using this incredible tech tool, it wasn't so much about "how" to use Twitter as opposed to "why" educators use it.  The presentation revolved around this essential question: "How many ways can I get connected and build community by using Twitter?" Instead of just going over the basics of Twitter, I used this question to let us go deeper in our understanding.  The great thing about this type of PHAT question (pretty hard and touch) is that it allows for our brains to give us exactly what we ask for.

Take a look at the presentation slides below for my notes:

In addition, here's a link to the spreadsheet containing weekly Twitter chat dates/times, d68 staff members Twitter handler names, and recommended edutweeps/gurus to follow!

http://goo.gl/UKDnLj

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Blubbr.tv: The edu-version of Scene It!

Growing up, I used to love to play the game Scene It with my friends and family.  It would usually be the common staple to bringing together my family with our family friends on a Saturday night back when I was in high school.  In fact, it became so common place that my dog would charge to the TV screen when the film reel sound played, and we also learned that about 80% of the time the answer to the question had something to do with Harrison Ford.  When I previously taught 8th grade language arts, I used to always wonder what it would be like to have students review information in a way that was similar to Scene It - a provider of immediate feedback that is game based, interactive, and media rich.  Insert: Blubbr.tv - a user-created, pop-culture savvy, and YouTube ready site for playing and creating video trivia with friends.

On Blubbr, users create Trivs, which is basically shorthand for Triva. Here's an example of a Triv I put together on Personification:





Users can sign up for free accounts (and as of right now there is no age restriction on the site - users just must agree to not place inappropriate content online).  Once you click to create your own Triv, Blubbr will ask you to title it and then search for the video (held via YouTube) that you'd like to search for and place on the Triv.  For example, I searched "personification".  You can search then for more content on the next screen.

On the editor page (as seen below), you can search for video content, crop the video with the sliders underneath it (to shorten to only the portion you need), include a question (with 4 possible multiple choice answers), and submit your work.  You need a minimum of 5 video clips to submit your Triv.

When someone goes to take your Triv, they can receive points getting questions right/wrong and answering them within a certain period of time (i.e.: the faster you answer correctly the more points you are awarded).  They can also send the Triv to their friends and "challenge" them to beat their top score. As the Triv progresses, the small circles above the video will turn either green for correct or red for incorrect.  If someone clicks on the incorrect answer, their response will turn red immediately and the correct answer will be highlighted in green.

Of course, you do not have to create content on there as there are plenty of searchable Trivs for you to use.  Just browse the categories or search directly for what you are looking for!

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Infusing High & Low Tech Strategies with Student Reflection and Feedback

In my previous post I discussed the beginning portion of my workshop with 2nd year teachers in our district (see the Tech Timeline post).  Here's a copy of the slides I put together via Haiku Deck (and then later hosted and tweaked on Google Presentation) on design thinking to help promote metacognition.  The ideas presented in the slides are from things I fused together from workshops done by Martin Moran on design thinking/project based learning (@martinmoran21) and Paul Solarz on Genius Hour/passion projects (@PaulSolarz).  Using what I gained from them, I co-taught a 4-day inquiry workshop for students in an 8th grade ELA intervention class.  Included in the slides are the steps the teacher and I took to deliver instruction that allowed for student inquiry and self-reflection and meaningful (and timely!) teacher feedback:

In a perfect world, it would be great to be able to do all of these steps.  However, you don't have to do all of this when it comes to just getting kids to stop and think. When I asked the teachers what strategy they can walk away with and implement immediately, the top-two take-aways for the 2nd year teachers seemed to be one low-tech reflection strategy and one high-tech: the "Where Was I, Where Am I, Where Am I Going" post-it activity and the "One Minute Video Reflection".   As I continue to share this information with teachers, I impress upon them that although this 4-day lesson went incredibly smooth, the format may not work for everyone.  Instead, I ask teachers to again consider any strategy that they can transfer into their instruction in a way that they see fit.  Here's a list of high and low tech related reflection strategies to use when students are completing mini-research/inquiry/PBL activities:

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From fire to Google Glass: a technology timeline

I was privileged to spend an hour after school with a group of 2nd year teachers in our district to talk to them about strategies to promote metacognition via the design thinking model.  Before we got into the nitty-gritty of it all, we had a conversation around what the word technology really means and how a new perspective on it can impact our understanding of how to infuse technology into our instruction.  By today's standpoint, we typically think of educational technology as an electronic, computerized, online tool that can be used to enhance and engage students during our instruction.  However, if you really think of the word in the context of the definition, technology really is just something designed/built/created for the purpose of making life better/faster/more efficient.  When you think about it this way, it really opens the doors for conversation on what exactly we are implementing into our instruction because...HINT... it can definitely go beyond computerized tools.  

When you think about the use of the word over time, it makes it seem that technology did not exist before the early 1900's, but that simply cannot be the case from our mindset of what the word really means today.  If technology is anything that has been created to make life and learning more efficient, what items can you think of that belong in the gap of time where the word was virtually non-existent? 

I put the 2nd year teachers to the test (this was an activity that I picked up on in grad school and tweaked a bit).  Their quest was to create a "history of technology"... a tech-timeline if you will... that had them use post-it notes to map out what technologies have improved and directly impacted life and learning over time starting from fire and going all the way to Google Glass.  Here is a snapshot of the task (if you'd like the full lesson I used with students in the past, check it out on Google Docs here).

With a timer of 2 minutes on the board (via eg.gtimer.com), the results were extremely creative and thoughtful as the activity pushed the teachers to think differently on how they viewed technology.  There were post-it's that included...

• slate
• hieroglyphics/development of language
• heater
• toilet
• shoes
• printing press
• ink
• wheel
• dry erase

...and the list went on - it was amazing to see all that could be conjured up within 2 minutes! We stopped our activity with the Tech Timeline there, but if you'd like to do this with students there are definitely numerous talking-points to tie into this to make it something larger (see earlier link for activity on Google Docs).

How can you use this in your classroom?  How can you use this with staff in your building to create a mindset shift on the purpose for integrating technology?

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My Brain on #ICE14

I've been at the 2014 ICE conference for the last three days... yeah, it's my first time here. I can seriously say that my brain has caught on fire at ICE.  I've had the privilege to surround myself with brilliant Illinois educators and listen to my techie, passionate, guru mentors delve deep into what it truly means to engage the learners of today. When I finally have a chance to decompress and dump my brain out on my colleagues, I'll post some ideas that I've gained over the last three days. For now I'll resort to a quick snapshot of my blog posts yet to come.  D68 educators be warned! You'll probably see another one of these appear on the wall in the PD Center!

Wed. @ ICE:  Do you have lessons you can sell tickets for?

I spent the day learning from #HashtagMan...the pirate himself, Dave Burgess (author of Teach Like a Pirate, @burgessdave).  I use Twitter, but I've never taken part in a Twitter chat and I'll say that the #tlap one will be the first one I try out!  This is my first year out of the classroom, and as an instructional coach I have the power to impact the lives of all of our students.  Yet, I couldn't help but feel that my heartstrings were being tugged on (or completely torn out of my body at some points) as Dave Burgess reminded us all to teach with a fiery passion.  Three remarks of his resonated with me...

If the students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty room?

Do you have lessons you can sell tickets for?

It's not supposed to be easy.  It's supposed to be worth it! 

A few take-aways...

• Twitter filters out all of the energy vampires
• It's okay to create a superhero or supervillain to teach your content
• Three words... the mullet ratio
• Wedding photographer resilience
• Can I... How can I.... How many ways can I....?
• Creative alchemy: Zombies vs. humans vs. pirates vs. ninjas
• It's hard to be passionate about... railroads
• Pulling a red bra out of a bag may get you fired, but the kids will never forget that learning experience!

Thurs. @ ICE: Aren't you glad that we benefit from people who can't stand to be bored?

Thursday kicked off with a brilliant keynote by Mike Muir (@mmuir) followed by a mishmosh of workshops.  Although some workshops highlighted very different tools or learning experiences, they all held a common thread: giving students and teachers access to plugged-in power to amplify their voice, choice, and empowered leadership.

A few take-aways...

• Scout-like badges for adults: Digital Badges for PD
• Feed-forward instead of feedback
• Oooh... that question was P.H.A.T!
• Genius hour will seriously blow your mind
• So long KWL... Hello KWHLAQ!
• The most incredible tech tool on team common core: SubText
• 1:1 is about more than just giving all kids a device, and it is SO beyond just having phones aka "pockets of excellence"

Fri. @ ICE: #BeMoreDog!

I've followed George Couros (@gcouros) on Twitter for awhile, read his blog posts, and have viewed his TEDtalk, but this was the first time I've gotten to hear him speak in public when he did Friday's keynote speech.  I told my boss, Greg Wolcott (@TeachLearn68), that this was the best keynote I've ever seen, but then was quickly reminded that I say that for just about every keynote I see, haha. Here's a re-cap of his best points:

A few take-aways...

• Transform yourself... aka: #BeMoreDog (you've got to watch the video above).
• Embrace connectivity... and take selfies with the Pope
• I'd take a video-gram on YouTube than receive a card any day
• Newsletter 4.0... we were ALL engaged in a NEWSLETTER! Wow!
• Disrupt your routine.  We can learn a lot from Taylor Swift "Trouble" remixes
• "The need to create never goes away," says our 12-year-old self
• Kids are sick of the cyber bully talk. We’re just saying “don’t be horrible” and instead we should be saying “hey kids you have the world at your fingertips - go do something amazing!"
• A Must-Do: the Innovation Day
• insert Justin Bieber joke here.

So how can I possibly wrap-up the last three days?  Learning... it's messy, and success is equally as messy. It’s all over the place. The biggest game changer in education has NOTHING to do with technology.  Rather, it all comes down to the educator's mindset. Think differently and grow.

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Overcoming the Digital Divide Part 1: The Google Search

I attended a Google mini conference over the weekend up in Waukegan, IL, and although I learned a wealth of information there was something very specific that stuck with me.  During a session on Design Thinking to encourage metacognition, presenter Martin Moran (on Twitter @martinmoran21) said that he hated the term digital native and that educators can't assume that our students all fit into that category.  The room fell silent when Martin said "Just because a teenager knows how to use social media, knows how to type with emoticons, and knows how to bully someone online does not make them a digital native," but we were silent because of our delayed and collective agreement on the statement.  

Kids come to school with with an arsenal of knowledge on how to retrieve information off of the internet, and now they can do it as fast as asking "Siri, when was the Declaration of Independence signed?" to "Okay Google, how fast an a cheetah run?"  When it comes to conducting inquiry studies in the classroom, a students first rule of thumb to ask the internet a question does not always provide them with the best, most reliable sources.  

Here are 3 tips to get students to "get more out of Google".

Utilize the Omnibox 
*also see "8 Chrome Extensions to Supercharge Your Omnibox Searches")

Discover advanced search techniques. You can use keyboard shortcuts and other advanced operators to get specific results as you search (i.e.: use key words, truncation, limit phrasing, file-type search, etc.)  See the presentation slideshow below! Infographic originally from an article on Mashable.

I'd also recommend taking a look at these two blog posts:
5 steps to more accurate and efficient Google search

10 (more) awesome things Google Search can do for you

Practice on "A Google A Day" 
*note: do not have students sign in with Google+**

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Feedback 2.0: Voice Comments w/Kaizena

The idea of immediate feedback seems to be all the rage when it comes to providing 21st century on-demand instruction these days.  Just as with technology, the ways educators can learn to provide feedback to students is constantly changing.  A great tool for providing feedback inside of Google Docs that I've heard a few others talk about is Kaizena: a voice commenting tool that is integrated with Google Drive.  Kaizenia allows for feedback to be fast, personal, and actionable.

To find/connect Kaizena to your Google Drive, simply click on "Create" and then "Connect more apps".

After installing Kaizena and linking it to your Drive (aka... no new logins/passwords), you'll be able to launch the application directly from the document you need to provide feedback on.  Here are two great videos for getting to know Kaizena that I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND watching before you implement:

Teacher Directions for Utilizing Kaizena Voice Comments in Google Drive from cmarcotte on Vimeo.

Student Directions for Connecting Kaizena to Google Drive from cmarcotte on Vimeo.

Another really cool thing about this voice comments app is that it allows you to really provide students with not only feedback but directions on the next steps they could take in their learning process.

Try it out! I'm eager to hear how your students react to this feedback versus using the usual text-comment mode in Docs.

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Communicating Visually with ThingLink and Lucidchart

I had a great time yesterday chatting with two teachers, Melissa Barron and Leslie Loboda, and we were mustering around ideas on better tools for annotating texts and images online. With Diigo already something many teachers and students are accustomed to (see my previous post on Diigo here), we talked instead about ThingLink and LucidChart for visual communication tools. In addition, due to the fact that we decided not to renew our district subscription to Glogster for this year, these are great free tools that can supplement similar experiences for our students.

ThingLink allows users to add media-rich content and text to image files. It's somewhat like Facebook tagged-images meets storytelling and annotating as images come alive with music, text, video, images, hyperlinks, etc. It is extremely intuitive to use. Students can create and explore advertisements, time periods, vocabulary, authors and other topics by creating media bundles on one collective image. Here is a brief intro to ThingLink as well as 26+ strategies on how to use it in the classroom.
Note: If you're a teacher or student, you can upgrade your account to Education; it’s FREE. If a student is under the age of 13, a teacher, parent or legal guardian must provide consent for the child to use ThingLink.

A Brief Look at ThingLink

26+ Ways to use ThingLink (by Donna Baumbach)

Here's a sample

Lucidcharts is a common tool that Melissa uses with her 7th and 8th grade science classes as a shareable and interactive brainstorming, annotating, diagramming/flowchart tool.  Lucidcharts integrates instantly with Google Drive, and for students and teachers that are already accustomed to the sharing/editing aspect that goes on within Google Drive, using Lucidcharts will seem very familiar.  Simply sign up for a free account with your Google (D68 teachers - your email is a Gmail account) and then head on over to the Chrome Web Store and download the Chrome App, also free.  Once you have an account, be sure to do the free K-12 education upgrade!

Link: 10 ways to use Lucidcharts in the classroom

A Brief Look at Lucidcharts integration with Google (disregard the portion on Visio docs)

Here's a sample of a Lucidchart that D68 new teachers worked on together

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Google Drive and the Paperless Classroom

Are you a teacher that is currently using the Chromebook/Google Apps for education and are looking to go paperless?  Or, are you already going the paperless route but looking for better ways to manage documents you share online? With Google Drive, it is possible to create a paperless classroom environment where the teacher and students can create and share documents digitally.  Here are four simple tips for teachers and students to manage this online strategy:

Click here to see in-depth steps for each of the tips below.

Teachers

1. Create 2 Google Forms.  One for collecting all student names and emails and one to collect student Inbox information (click on links to see samples).
2. Create an Outbox folder in your Google Drive for your class.  Set it to View Only. Share it with your students/audience.
• Note: all documents that now go into this folder will always take on these privileges (i.e.: it will stay View Only and send out to the people the folder is shared with).
3. Create and place templates (a new document) in the class' Outbox folder for students/audience to receive and work on.
4. Student shared Inboxes can be located in the "Shared with Me" section on your Google Drive.  Locate these and drag them to My Drive.

Students

1. Enter name/email in 1st Google Form created by teacher.
2. Find the Outbox folder in "Shared With Me" area on Google Drive.  Drag/move folder to My Drive.
• Note: all documents in this folder are set to "view only"
3. Create an Inbox Folder.  Title the folder "Class - [Your Name]" i.e.: Science - Tarah Tesmer. Set the folder to "Edit" mode and share with the teacher.
4. Copy and paste the link to the folder into the 2nd Google Form created by the teacher.

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Web Tool of the Week: Google Forms

Each week, I will highlight a website or web 2.0 edtech tool based on our initial needs within FOCUS, and Google Forms may be the tool that hits every single part of the acronym!  This application through Google Drive can be used in so many different ways, but teachers can use it daily as an entry or exit slip, or a quick assessment/survey tool.

A great way to take Google Forms a step further is to use a FormEmailer - this allows you to send individual results AND your feedback to student email addresses - or even parents! Click on the video below to view my screencast video on how to use Google Forms.  It's about 15 minutes long, so if you'd like to skip ahead to view the tutorial on FormEmailer within Google Forms, skip ahead to the 8:12 minute mark - BE SURE TO WATCH IT IN HD on the Vimeo Site otherwise it may be pretty blurry. 

GoogleFormsScreencast from Tarah Tesmer on Vimeo.

Click through this slideshow to view 80 interesting ways to use Google Forms in the classroom!

79 interesting ways_to_use_google_forms_in_the from GrahamAttwell

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