iLearn Technology

What it is: I have long been a TED talk fan, so much so that I started a lunch group at my previous school called TED Talk Tuesdays where teachers could gather over lunch, watch TED Talks and discuss it’s implication on education.  TED has a brand new education site that I am excited about.  TED-ed is a collection of educational video lessons that have been animated.  These lessons can be used as a supplement in any classroom.  Each video on the TED-ed site has an associated lesson, a Quick Quiz with multiple choice comprehension questions, Think which asks questions to help students think more critically about what they have watched, and Dig Deeper which helps students to explore the topic further.  In addition to the videos, TED-ed gives educators the ability to “flip” videos.  You can use, tweak, or completely re-do any lesson that is featured on TED-Ed, or even create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube.  You can re-title a lesson to fit your classroom, add context, questions and follow-up suggestions, and create a custom URL for your video lesson.  You can even track your student’s progress to see who has viewed the assigned video, the number of questions they attempted, the answers they provided, and the answers they got correct.

How to integrate TED-Ed into the classroom:  TED-Ed is a fantastic new resource for the classroom.  The videos can be used for flip teaching.  Flip teaching changes up the classroom model.  Normally students come to school to get instruction and do their practice work at home as homework.  In a flipped teaching model, the instruction is watched at home as “homework” and the practice happens in the classroom where students can receive teacher support.  This means that the focus in the classroom is on higher-order thinking and learning skills instead of on instruction.  How novel. Student can come to class ready for deeper inquiry, critical thinking, discussion with classmates, collaboration and get more personalized attention from the teacher.  You maximize classroom time by “going home” with the students.

Video is a great medium for learning because it allows students to learn at their own pace and gives them the ability to replay as many times as they need to.  Visuals are always useful when learning something new, video is a great medium because of the way that it helps enhance understanding through the use of visuals. 

Videos are searchable by those that have been featured, those that are part of a series or by subject.  Students can learn about the arts, business/economics, design/engineering/technology, health, literature/language, math, psychology, science/technology, and social studies.  The library will continue to grow as teachers flip the videos and TED-ed adds content from educators around the world.

The videos are great in a flipped classroom model but can also be used within the classroom.  Videos can be watched and discussed as a whole-class or put on classroom computers as a learning center.  When I taught second grade, I made sure that I had time individually with my students each week.  In the mornings, my students worked on groups with “tub work” to make this time possible with individual students.  These videos would make a great “second teacher” in a blended learning classroom where students could continue their learning while you work with students individually. 

Tips: Remember, if you don’t find a video that meets your classroom needs, you can always flip any video you find on YouTube!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using TED-ed in  your classroom!

What it is:  What makes technology SO great is the way that it can make life (and teaching) more productive and fun.  Over the years, I have found so many ways that technology can make reading more rewarding for both kids who love to read, and kids who dread reading.  Today, I created an “Extreme Speed Booking” website for @michellek107′s class at Anastasis.  I created the site quickly using Weebly, an awesome WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website editor.  Drag and drop website building is where it is at!  The idea behind the site is to introduce students to a variety of books and form classroom book groups.  How does Extreme Speed Booking work?  A whole lot like speed dating.     Students spend a little time with each book and then rate them accordingly with “I want to read more”,  “Interesting”, “Not for me”, or “I’ve already read”.  Students can also make a note of how interested they are in reading the book (maybe a 1-10 scale)?  This process introduces students to a variety of books, genres and authors.  Students may come across titles and authors they wouldn’t otherwise find.  It also helps teachers form classroom book groups that are of high-interest and investment to students because they had input.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Extreme Speed Booking in  your classroom!

Today was the first day of school.  Ever.  It was pretty epic.  Since the students didn’t know where things were located in the building yet, I thought we would have some fun locating them with a QR code scavenger hunt.  It was SO easy to do, I thought I would share the process here.

1.  First I made a new website where each page of the website contained a clue.  I made my site with Weebly.com because it is SO easy to use.  I made the entire site in under 10 minutes.

2. Next I used goo.gl URL shortener to shorten the URL of each webpage and generate a QR code.  Just copy and paste the long Weebly URL into the goo.gl shortener and voila. A short Googlefied (that is a technical term) URL.  Click on “Details” next to the shortened URL to view your QR code.  I just dragged and dropped these QR codes into a Pages document so that they were all in one place for easy printing/copying.

3.  Print out QR code sheet and make enough copies for each classroom.  Because we have a 10-1 student-teacher ratio, I made up 10 clues to find.  Each student was in charge of one clue.  I cut up the QR code sheet so that each student had a little QR code clue card.

4.  Set students out on their mission.  Each student takes a turn using the Scan app to uncover the clue.  They read the clue out loud to their group and brainstorm what the answer could be.  When they thought they had the answer, they went to that place and took a picture of it using the camera app.  For example, one of our clues was: “The Grub Hub”, students went down to the kitchen and took a picture.

5.  When all pictures have been collected, students gather and add up the points they won.

*Below is my example of the QR code and website they were connected to.

This was a really easy activity to prepare for from a teacher perspective.  The impact was huge with the students.  They had a great time with this!

We used this hunt as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the layout of the new school but it would also be a great activity for a math scavenger hunt “Find an item that represents three times four”, or colors in art “This is the color you get when you mix yellow and blue”, or literature “find an object that represents this character in our novel”.  The list could go on and on if you use your imagination!  The QR codes are so easy to generate, students could use these for almost anything!

What it is: Literature Map is a neat little web tool that I learned about from Samantha, an iLearn Technology reader. Thanks Samantha!  Literature Map makes it simple to discover new authors.  Student’s can type in the name of a favorite author and instantly get a cloud of related authors.  The closer two writers are together on the map, the more likely someone will like both of them.  Any of the authors in the cloud can be selected to see the authors related to them.

How to integrate Literature Map into the classroom: Isn’t it wonderful to find an author that you can’t get enough of?  Literature Map helps students in the discovery of new authors based on authors they know they like.  Tools like Literature Map can act as a catalyst in uncovering the love for reading.  Literature Map would be a great site to bookmark on classroom computers or in the library.  Students won’t be stuck in the “I don’t know what to read” or the “I can’t find anything to read” rut.

In the intermediate classroom or middle/high school classroom, ask students to choose two authors from the Literature Map to compare and contrast.  Students can dig into writing style, genre and author study as they compare/contrast.

Tips: If you don’t find an author listed, you can contribute to Literature Map so that others can benefit from your recommendations.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Literature Map  in your classroom!

What it is: Tiki-Toki is an absolutely GORGEOUS multimedia timeline creator.  The results are truly a work of art-no joke!  Tiki-Toki is very easy to use, after registering for an account, students are guided step-by-step through creating an interactive timeline.  Students can add text, images (Flickr) and video (YouTube or Vimeo) to a timeline.  Images can be uploaded from a student computer or found through a search on Flickr.  Throughout the creation process, tool tips pop-up to guide students through creation.  Students can share saved timelines with a unique URL.

How to integrate Tiki-Toki into the classroom: Tiki-Toki is a fabulous new way for your students to create and share online.  Timelines are an obvious choice for history projects but can be used throughout the year for a variety of subjects and learning focuses.  Students can reflect on and share learning using a Tiki-Toki timeline.  Students can begin a timeline at the beginning of the year sharing videos, links, pictures and reflections each unit, week, month, or semester until the end of the school year.  This is a nice way to encourage students to reflect on learning while providing them with a record of what has been accomplished throughout the year.

Students can create timelines based on books or literature they are reading.  Young students can create a timeline with information about beginning, middle and end while older students can add supporting details, action, climax and concluding thoughts.  A timeline book report is a welcome change for your logical/analytical thinkers- seriously, offer it as an option!

Timelines can also be used as KWL charts (Know, Want to Know, Learned).  At the beginning of any learning, students can list the facts that they know about the topic. Next, they can brainstorm and write about what they want to know about a topic.  At the end of the unit or semester, students can detail what they have learned including any relevant videos or images.

In science, students can use Tiki-Toki to detail an experiment or scientific method process they go through in a lab.

Tiki-Toki is probably too advanced a tool for primary elementary to use independently, but it can be used with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer to create a timeline as a class.  This is a good way to teach students about timelines while recording learning.

Create an account on Tiki-Toki and record a few pictures of your classroom along with a description of the learning that happened each day.  At the end of the week the timeline can be sent to parents and administration to share what you are working on in your classroom.  This is a fun change from the traditional newsletter and, because it is added to a little at a time, it will give you a break from the Thursday mad-dash-to-finish-Friday-newsletter thing you have going (oh, is that just me?).

Tips: The basic Tiki-Toki account is completely free and contains enough features to keep kids creating with no problem.  The paid accounts include features like shared timeline creation which would also be useful in the classroom.  I’m hoping that Tiki-Toki catches on to the uses for education and comes up with an education version just for us!

A minimum age for use of Tiki-Toki is not specified in the terms of service.  If you work with students who do not have an email address to share, consider using a tempinbox account or mailinator.

A BIG THANK YOU to @anderscj for mentioning Tiki-Toki on Twitter, I have a new favorite timeline creator!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tiki-Toki  in your classroom!

What it is: Class Blogs is a fabulous new way for you to easily create and manage FREE classroom blogs!  What makes Class Blogs so wonderful are all the extras that are built in.  For example, with Class Blogs you can create a virtual classroom space.  With just a few simple steps, you can create an online meeting space for your students to learn and discuss in.  Blogs can be used to post assignments; when you post an assignment to your teacher blog, students can submit the assignment and a pingback will be sent to your blog.  Class Blogs even has features that utilize SMS so that you can send a text message to students and the ability to host lesson plans complete with supporting resources!  Class blogs really offers more than just a blogging platform, it offers many Learning Management System (LMS) solutions making it a great all-in-one tool!  Here are just a few of the ways you can use Class Blogs:

• Class Blogs – Teachers and students can create blogs to help facilitate classroom learning or the blog can be an extension of the classroom conversation.
• Learning Logs – Learning logs are sites created by teachers for the purpose of creating online assignments for students. Students can then answer the questions and submit the assignments once they are completed.
• Learning Management System (LMS) – Teachers can create a blog and use it as a learning management system. Teachers can post online courses and students can submit their assignments (through blog posts) for the course online as well. These assignments can be viewed by the instructor, the instructor can submit feedback, and the instructor can grade the student’s assignment online. Both the teacher and his/her students must have blogs in order to create a successful LMS.
• Electronic Portfolio (E-Portfolio) – An e-portfolio is a valuable learning and assessment tool which includes but is not limited to a collection of resources and accomplishments that represent the individual. Moreover, it is the author’s personal reflection on the work included in the e-portfolio that creates a meaningful learning experience.
• Web Conferencing/Virtual Classroom – Teachers/professors have the ability to create meeting rooms or virtual classrooms from the backend of their site. You can upload your presentations, chat with students, public/private chat, webcam, and even share your desktop.

How to integrate Class Blogs into the classroom: Class Blogs has features that make it wonderfully useful for any classroom.  Blogging gives your students a place to write where they have an authentic audience.  An audience of one (the teacher) is SO 1995.  To limit your students to that audience is a disservice.  I find that when my students write in blog form, the enthusiasm to write increases, the richness of language increases, and the ideas are communicated clearly.  Obviously that is a bit of a generalization, I have also had students who don’t want to post for an audience, it makes them nervous to reveal themselves to their classmates in that way.  I let those students blog about topics they are “experts” on as they are building confidence in their learning process.   Students can blog to reflect on learning; write creatively; write as if they were a historical character, famous inventor, or a favorite literary figure; to chronicle learning (e-portfolio style); or to invite others on a journey of inquiry with them.

Using this type of social media in the classroom is important. It helps students learn digital citizenship, Internet safety, and netiquette in an authentic environment that goes beyond the rules and actually lets them practice it.

The additional features of Class Blog make it the perfect place to organize your classroom.  Post assignments in Class Blogs as a learning log, as students respond, your original post will get a pingback making it easy to track students progress. Class Blog also makes it easy to extend learning beyond the four walls of your classroom using the virtual classroom features.  Create meeting rooms to extend classroom discussions, offer additional learning support, or as a place to prepare students for learning.  Class Blogs makes it easy to include podcasts, videos, webcams, private chat areas, desktop sharing in your virtual classroom.

Tips: Class Blogs does not have an age requirement, this means that it is available to k-12 (and beyond) education.  Registration does require an email address.  If your students do not have email addresses, you can create accounts on their behalf.  With Class Blogs you can create unlimited class and student blogs, unlimited free classes/courses, and unlimited free virtual classrooms.  Be sure to check out the feature page for a comprehensive list of the awesome features on Class Blogs, you won’t believe what all is included!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Class Blogs in your classroom!

What it is: I don’t know if you all noticed, but I have been on a serious social media kick lately.   There is just SO much for students to learn from the social media sphere.  Last week (or was it the week before?) I shared that I had created a Facebook Template that could be used with students for creating a fake Facebook profile.  Since then I have come across Fakebook created by teacher, @russeltarr.  I have one word: Brilliant.  Seriously this is the BEST Fakebook tool I have seen.  It is simple to use.  Just click and type.  The profile pictures get pulled automatically based on the name that students type in.  Especially good for literary and historical characters!  The focus here really is on the learning that it enables, there are NO advertisements (unlike Myfakewall which I have deemed unusable because of all of the ads).

The other fake social networking tool I want to feature is called Twister.  This is a fake Twitter wall that students can create just by filling in a few key bits of information like a username, the real name (this is what the photo pulls from), a status update, and a date.  When students click submit, they have their very own fictional status update.  Very cool!

These tools are fantastic for the classroom because they don’t rely on actual social network sites (which are often blocked by filters), they are not limited by age to use them, and they provide a fun way for students to reflect on learning.  So neat!

How to integrate Fakebook and Twister into the classroom: These two teacher created tools are fantastic.  They produce results that look like the real deal and were obviously created by teachers who understand that the focus should be learning and not the tool (or advertisements surrounding the tool).  These fake profile/status creators are a wonderful way for students to learn about historical and literary figures in a manner that they can personally connect to. Students can create profiles or updates from the perspective of historical figures, literary characters, government, artists, composers, etc.  Students can also use these tools to help them develop characters for their own writing.

Take a page out of the Grammaropolis book and have students personify things they are learning about like parts of speech.  Students can create a profile for each part of speech.  How about creating a profile page for math functions like Number Gossip does? Students could even practice dialogue in a foreign language using either tool.

Teaching your students netiquette? Let students create two versions of a Fakebook page, one with appropriate online interaction and another that “breaks the rules” to compare/contrast.

The Twister site only lets you create one status update at a time.  This makes it really nice for memorializing famous or favorite quotes. These would be fun to print out and display on a bulletin board.

Tips: Students can save or print out their Fakebook page. To save, they will create a password and need to write down the unique URL for their page to access it at a later date.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Fakebook and Twister in your classroom!

Today I worked with a mixed seventh and eighth grade class who is reading To Kill a Mockingbird.  The teacher was looking for ways for the students to explore the characters more in-depth and think about how authors develop characters.  I thought having the students create a fake “Facebook” profile page would be a great way to accomplish all of those learning goals. As one of the students said, “It is totally fun!”.    The challenge with this particular classroom is that we are working within a mixed platform environment.  There are PC’s and Macs of all different operating systems and ages.  The one common we have going for us is an Internet connection.

Each student created an information page about one of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird that looked just like a Facebook information page.  This gave them the opportunity to think  about characteristics, interests, activities, quotes, and some creative license to flesh out the details.  I knew about My Fake Wall, but because of the HEAVY advertising, and request for an email address I wasn’t convinced it was the best place for students to create a character profile.  For the record I like the site a lot and the results are impressive but all of the advertisements are obnoxious and I wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t get hung up by a filter.  I needed a plan B.  I ended up creating a Facebook information page template using Pages.  The problem: not all of the students had Pages to use the template (that mixed environment thing).  So, I got creative and settled on exporting the Pages document as a PDF and uploading it to Crocodoc for students.  I uploaded it once for each student (so each would have a unique URL to edit).  It worked great! Students used Crocodoc to annotate over the template and then could download the finished pdf it to their computers.  Some students chose to find an online picture that they could use for the profile picture, other students created their own avatar type pictures of the character using the drawing tools in Crocodoc (they turned out great…such little artists).

When the students were finished, they headed over to see if they could get My Fake Wall to work.  Miracle of miracles it wasn’t blocked (I was surprised!).  My Fake Wall has the students create the profile page of a character where they can create posts and discussions between characters.  They used the information page they created as a starting place and created a conversation between several characters.  It was a big hit except they were disappointed that it didn’t actually work like Facebook. They were wanting to each create their character and actually interact as the character.  If they were older I would have considered letting them use Facebook this way.

The students really enjoyed thinking about characters this way and as we were wrapping up for the day they asked, “could we go on here and create some of these for historical characters?”  One wanted to take on Hitler and another Columbus.  I always consider a lesson successful when students aren’t ready to stop the learning…this one was a success!

If you are interested in using the template I created, you can do so by first downloading the original from here.  Next, upload the pdf template to your own Crocodoc page.  You will need to do this for each student or they will all be collaboratively working on the same document.  Give students their unique URL, and they are off.  If you don’t have access to computers but would still like to use my template, feel free to print it out and have students work on it the old school way.

Capzles is a site that I have written about and recommended many times (you can read one of my original posts about it below).  I am currently working with a school that has zero technology.  When I say zero, I mean they don’t even have over head projectors.  This is a NO tech school.  They recently enlisted my help in taking their eighth graders from no tech into a one-to-one environment.  Each of the students will be receiving a laptop to use during instruction.  The challenge: the computers aren’t all the same age, make, or model.  No problem, we will use web 2.0 tools!  The benefit of going from zero to fully immersed: no bad technology habits to break, we are staring from a clean slate!

Last week I met with the eighth grade teacher to talk about what learning is currently happening in the classroom and took a look at the scope and sequence of learning for the next semester.  I asked a LOT of questions and together we mapped out a plan for integrating technology that would support and enhance the learning that was already happening.  We decided to begin by adding technology into art, composer study, history, astronomy, poetry, and literature.  I thought about having the students create blogs or wikis to chart and reflect on learning, but in the end decided that Capzles was the best tool for this job.  Capzles lets students organize learning in the form of an interactive timeline.  Students can upload a variety of documents to the timeline including images, videos, documents, and slide shows.  They can also blog directly to the timeline (complete with comments!). The blog feature also provides a way for students to embed other web 2.0 creations.  For the learning that these students will be doing, the visual timeline makes the most sense.  Students can create multiple timelines or compile all of their learning into one timeline.  If students create these timelines based on actual historical dates, they will begin to see the overlap in history, astronomical discoveries, composers, and artists of the time.  This leads to a more complete understanding of how the world that they know has been shaped.

Students can also create a timeline based on their learning, each day adding learning to a virtual “journal” of events.

I have created weblists of the links these students will be using as a part of their learning over the next semester:

To Kill a Mockingbird

Poetry

Astronomy

Art

Composers

History

The tutorial above is a brief introduction to using Capzles, you will have to forgive the drowned rat look…that is what happens when you shovel snow in a blizzard

Original post from July 22, 2008:

What it is: Capzles is another interactive timeline maker. I really love all the little extras that Capzleshas! With Capzles teachers and students can add photos, videos, audio, and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles also provides options when sharing your Capzle, it can be private with a specific list of who can view the Capzle or made public for the world to see.

How to integrate Capzles into the classroom: Obviously Capzles is a great way for students to create timelines about any subject. The web 2.0 collaborative aspect of Capzles makes it very appealing to students. I think Capzles could also be very valuable in the primary classroom. Students probably won’t be creating their own timelines in Capzles at this age, parent helpers paired with students to create simple timelines would be appropriate. Because Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast,Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Throughout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump-start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines. Cool huh?!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Capzles in your classroom.

What it is: Amazing really doesn’t do this site justice.  No really, this might be my favorite site of the month…that is saying something!  Regardless of if you teach about color or art, Color in Motion is a must see just for the creativity and brilliance of the site.  Color in motion is a wonderfully animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism.  Have you ever looked at an art website and thought, “really, this is the best they could do? It is a site about art for crying out loud!”  No? Just me? Color in Motion is not one of those sites. The minute you begin exploring you know that this isn’t just a site about color, it is a work of art.  There are three activities on  Color in Motion.  The Stars introduces students to the color stars (primary and secondary colors personified).  When students click on a color stars profile they learn about their blood (the color(s) that make them up), what the star is hired to represent (the feelings the color gives), the positive and negative traits, and what the color represents around the world.  In the movies, students can sit back and enjoy the show as they learn about the symbolism of each color in a fun animation.  In the Lab, students have the opportunity to interact with the different stars. Students can direct a scene acting as a movie director based on a word that represents the color choice.  In project 2, students are a color star manager. It is up to them to decide which production their star is going to participate in based on what they learned about color symbolism.  Project 3 is a kaleidoscope where students can just have fun and “play” with color in a virtual kaleidoscope.

How to integrate Color in Motion into the classroom: Color in Motion is a fantastic place for students to learn more about color in a highly interactive, engaging, and fun way.  Students learn about color through story.  They meet each of the colors as a different character being cast for a production.  The site is great for any art or design class but could be equally wonderful for a creative writing project.  After your students have had some time to explore the site and interact with the different characters, ask them to choose a character to write a story about.  Students should write the story based on the character traits they know about the color.

As a getting-to-know-you activity, students could choose a color that they feel best represents them personally.  Students can list all of the color attributes that they feel describe them.  Are they a mix of colors? Have students write down what the mix is and why.

Looking for a way to spice up spelling/vocabulary practice? Have students assign each word a color based on the word meaning and the color character traits that match.  Students can compare and contrast the colors they chose for the words with the colors other students chose for a light persuasive argument.

As students study historical and literary figures, they can assign each a color based on the matching character traits.  It would make a really neat bulletin board to have a color wheel with pictures of historical/literary characters on each color based on the similar character traits.  These types of activities help students draw parallels and think about history and literature in new ways.

Younger students can think about what color an animal would be if it was the color of its color character traits.  The creative possibilities with Color in Motion are endless.

Oh yeah, in addition to all of those “spin-off” ideas, there are great creative activities right on the site many of which would be great for whole class with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, for small groups in a center activity, or individually in a one to one computer situation.

Tips: Color in Motion can be viewed in both English and Spanish.  If you have students learning English or Spanish as a second language, the colors and adjectives on this site are wonderful!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Color in Motion in your classroom.