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Stormboard: Beautiful virtual brainstorming and collaboration

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014Kelly Tenkely5 Comments6824 views

What it is: Stormboard is a super beautiful virtual sticky note brainstorming and collaboration application that lets classrooms or teams share online whiteboard space. In addition to virtual sticky notes, Stormboard makes it simple to add quality and usefulness to your shared space with photos and video. Each idea that gets added to a Stormboard has a comment thread attached to it, this ensures that everyone’s voice gets heard and conversations about specific ideas don’t get lost. Users can also vote on ideas, this is a quick way to get feedback. Stormboard lets you instantly generate “innovation” reports so that all ideas can be easily captured and saved as a spreadsheet or pdf. Shared space is flexible, you can share both synchronously or asynchronously. Stormboard works on any internet connected device making it ideal for a BYOD (bring your own device) classroom, and seamless regardless of what platforms your school uses.

How to use Stormboard in your classroom: I’ve seen lots of sticky note type applications over the years. Stormboard is hands down the most flexible and the most aesthetically pleasing. It gets all of that without being difficult to learn, it has a really great intuitive interface. Stormboard is a great way to capture learning that happens. In an inquiry classroom, we are regularly brainstorming, asking questions, following bunny trails of important thoughts and ideas, and sharing photos and video. Stormboard would be such an ideal place to capture all of this thought during an inquiry unit. I love the way that it threads conversations so that everyone’s voice gets heard and captured as it relates to an idea.

At Anastasis, our kids are constantly discussing big ideas. Stormboard would be a great way for the students to take notes and capture those ideas all together. As they go through literature, research, current events, science experiments, etc. they can capture all of their ideas, quotes, related images and videos in one place. When it comes time to write a report, reflection, summary or do some design thinking with their learning, students will have all relevant information in one place that THEY created together. This could be huge! Our Jr. High has been going through a book chapter by chapter throughout the year. So many of the discussions they have should be captured, the deep thinking is truly awesome! Stormboard would be a great place for this to happen. Learning and thinking process recorded.

Stormboard would also be perfect when you are implementing design thinking in the classroom. It is the perfect place for the ideation and research phases of the project to be captured.

Students can use Stormboard to work collaboratively with others in their class or with other classes in their school. It would also be a great tool to use with a collaborating school. Because it has options for sharing synchronously or asynchronously, it can be used with schools in different time zones around the world for collaborative projects.

Teachers can use Stormboard to collaborate on units or lessons with other teachers, make plans for new team undertakings, or just as a place to share or capture ideas.

Classrooms can use Stormboard on classroom computers OR on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer to capture learning each day. This would make a cool living “textbook” where students could gather materials, resources, share ideas and conversations. Each day assign a different set of students to be in charge of the record. If you have a one to one device situation, each student can collaborate in this process together. At the end of the day, download the PDF or innovation report and save it. What a cool yearbook of learning and insight into your classroom.

As a school, plan new initiatives with your administrative team. We are currently dreaming of our own building (right now we lease space). This is the perfect place to share that dreaming with all stakeholders and capture conversations and thinking along the way.

I think it is awesome that Stormboard works on all devices, but also provides the option of downloading your work. This way you aren’t SO reliant on a tool that if it disappeared, all would be lost.

Tips: Stormboard is free to use. However, the free account is limited to 5 collaborators at a time. I’ve got my fingers crossed that when they see the awesome way that educators are using Stormboard, they will consider offering a free education account with enough for a class or two to collaborate. For $5/month/user you can add as many as you want. For $10/user/month you get unlimited users and unlimited administrators.

Popcorn Maker: Mashup video with images, articles, text, maps, etc.

January 23, 2013Kelly Tenkely2 Comments5202 views

What it is: Popcorn Maker is a super cool site that I learned about from Michael Zimmer’s blog, The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. Popcorn Maker is an online video mashup tool that makes it easy to integrate several different forms of online media into a video. A clip from YouTube can be enhanced with article clips, images, text, audio, maps, other live feeds and social media content. Add some “bling” to any video clip…interactive is better! Videos can be mashed without logging in. Creating a user profile let’s you save and share the finished project.

How to integrate Popcorn Maker into the classroom: Popcorn Maker is a great way to enhance videos. Teachers can use Popcorn Maker to mashup media for students to engage with. This could be adding a map to an historical video so that students can better visualize where an event is taking place, adding a wikipedia article to expand on an idea that a video touches on, adding a live social media feed with student comments as a “backchannel” video, etc. This type of use is great for expanding on Kahn academy type instructional videos (which can be a bit boring/dry), educational videos, etc. Wouldn’t it be great to have a real-life example pop up during a Kahn academy instructional video? Students can connect number sense and computation. (What a novel concept!) For young students, create a video with embedded directions (audio or text) and next steps for learning. This would make for a great learning center for completing a science experiment, multi-step directions, or next steps of learning.

Students can use Popcorn Maker to enhance videos that they have created, to further expand on an idea, to help explain a researched topic to the rest of the class, or to share reflections on a video with others. Because students can add text, it is easy for them to add their “blogged” reflections directly in a video to be shared with others. So often our students start their research with a video search. Ask them to create a mashup of all of their research using Popcorn Maker. This will help them to dig beyond the video for other relevant content that adds to their understanding.

In the “flipped” classroom, Popcorn Maker takes the videos to the next level. Popcorn Maker could be a great way to help apprentice students in the art of learning. Students can see the way that connections are made among different media types and are led through how to think and expand on an interesting topic. After students have viewed a few mashups, ask them to create their own. This could be really helpful in discovering misunderstandings in learning, gaps in the way research is being completed, or difficulties in making connections.

Tips: The tutorial on the first page is really useful. I recommend it before beginning a project!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Popcorn Maker in your classroom.

Widbook: Online Collaborative ebook Creation

June 15, 2012June 15, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3445 views

Widbook – Write, read and share! from Widbook on Vimeo.

What it is: Widbook is a new publishing platform for ebooks. What makes this publishing platform so neat is the social aspect, it allows authors to collaborate and make suggestions. Each user also gets their own bookshelf where they can subscribe to other author’s work.

When students start a new ebook, they can choose who can see the book when it is published, choose whether they will accept collaboration for the book, and choose if they want to accept comments for the book. Actually writing the book is fabulously simple. All of the onscreen tools are easy to use and intuitive as to their function. The book can have a table of contents, multiple chapters, and pictures and video embedded right into the book. When students are finished, they simply save the book and publish it. The finished book gets a unique url that can be shared.

How to integrate Widbook into the classroom: Widbook is a fantastic, simple tool for secondary students to use to create ebooks. Students can create individual published works that can be commented on by other students and the teacher. Students can receive relevant-real time feedback not only from their teacher, but also from other students. Students not only get practice writing their own works, they also get practice evaluating writing of their peers.

Students can use Widbook to write final drafts of any piece of writing be it an essay or creative writing assignment. The ability to add video and images easily is wonderful.

Widbook would also be a great place for students to collaboratively create books about their learning. Each student can add a chapter, or groups of students can create chapters together. Instead of assigning students a textbook to read for the semester, include them in the creation of a collaborative textbook. Provide students with a table of contents and put them to work creating a chapter for each topic/unit throughout the year. At the end of the year, each student will have a book of their learning that they helped to create. Much more useful than a textbook that one of the Big Six wrote that gets opened only before tests!

Are you having trouble finding a book that matches your classroom learning needs? Create an ebook that perfectly meets your students right where they are. Include videos and images relevant to learning.

***For younger students be sure to check out BoomWriter!

Tips: Older students who have Facebook accounts can choose to link their Facebook account for easy login (make sure you know your school’s policy on social networking sites being accessed at school, even if it is just to login with).

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

You Are Your Words

March 27, 2012Kelly Tenkely24 Comments16610 views

What it is: The American Heritage Dictionary has a new webtool that lets students create a self-portrait using their words. Students can link to places where they have already written (Facebook or Twitter) or write something unique specifically for their portrait. The unique image can be shared, saved and printed. You Are Your Words works best in Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari Internet browsers. I’ve found that pictures with high contrast work better than pictures with similar coloring and low contrast. After you create you image, you can adjust the colors, contrast and font.

How to integrate You Are Your Words into the classroom: You Are Your Words would be a great getting-to-know-you activity. It would give students a neat way to share who they are with the class. At the beginning of the year, a You Are Your Words bulletin board or classroom display would be a fun way for everyone to get to know each other. This site could lead to really interesting discussions about the power that our words have, what they reveal about us, and how they impact people’s perception of us.

You Are Your Words would also be a great way for students to create a mini biography about a hero, person of interest, historical figure, etc. Students could upload a picture and include famous quotes or words that describe the person. These could be used as part of a larger project, or as an independent research project. The site asks where the eyes and mouth of the picture are, so uploading another image or diagram to describe might not work.

Students can create character description cards with words, quotes and phrases that describe fictional characters in the reading they are doing. If you have a class or small group that is reading the same book, each student can choose a character to do this for. Create “trading cards” of the characters that students can create and share with each other so that each student has a card for each character in the book. If students are doing an author study, they could create a “You Are Your Words” about the author.

As students are learning about different roles within government, they could create a You Are Your Words image about each position using a picture of the person who holds that position in government. The writing could be related to the job description of the position.

The picture above is an example of a You Are Your Words image that I created with the words from this post!

Tips: If you have an iDevice, the Word Foto app works very similarly and lets you use ANY picture. This allows students to define vocabulary words with pictures.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using You Are Your Words in your classroom!

Aviary Education

June 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4161 views

Great news! Aviary has come out with a special education edition! In the Education version, teachers can create private student accounts, manage assignments and projects, use the image editor, vector editor, audio editor, and music creator. All content and images will be 100% school safe! Right now the Education site is in Beta, you can request an invitation to test the site with your students. If you aren’t familiar with the Aviary tools, check out my previous posts HERE. Aviary is a fabulous online alternative to those expensive Adobe creativity suites.

National Geographic Image Collection

December 11, 2009December 11, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2786 views

What it is: National Geographic is known for their poignant images. Now, those images can be viewed online in the National Geographic Image Collection. There are more than 11 million images that chronicle the world from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Students can also view the history of photography from daguerreotypes to digital through an interactive time line. The image collection includes images related to exploration, wild life, people and cultures, and science and climate change.

How to integrate National Geographic Image Collection into the classroom: The National Geographic Image Collection is an impressive set of images from around the world. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” proves to be true. These images are indeed worth a thousand words or more. Use these images to help you tell the story of our world as you teach students about history, science, wild life, and world culture. These images will help to connect your students with learning in ways that a textbook can’t. Use the Image Collection for creative writing prompts. Allow your students to choose an image from the collection to tell a story about. The interactive time line can be used to teach students about the history of photography.

Tips: I learned about this site from a Tweet by @McTeach a few weeks ago on Twitter, thanks Karen!

Leave a comment and share how you are using National Geographic Image Collection in your classroom.

Aviary

December 18, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2309 views

What it is: Aviary is a website on a mission to make creativity more accessible. They do this by making powerful image software available online (no download required) and with free versions of the online software. Aviary has four different offerings: Peacock, Phoenix, Toucan, and Raven. Because each tool does something different, I am going to break it down into four posts. Phoenix is an image editor and the first Aviary tool I will review. Phoenix is an image editor that allows for basic image editing or complex effects, it has many of the same features as that expensive software suite (Adobe) but has the benefit of being based online and free! 🙂 There is a rich tool set with features familiar to graphics and image programs like brushes, and blend modes. Just like the more expensive software, Aviary allows students to work on projects in layers with an intuative, easy-to-use, drag and drop interface. Images can be imported from other popular sites like Flickr, Facebooks, and Picasa. Any creation in Phoenix can be imported and used in other Aviary tools.

How to integrate Aviary into the classroom: Aviary Phoenix is an awesome tool for classroom image editing. This is a great alternative to expensive image editors, but looks and works enough like the ‘big dogs’ that students who learn how to use Aviary will be able to easily transfer the knowledge if and when they need to. Aviary currently has 62 Phoenix tutorials. Students can work through the tutorials and teach themselves the program. I like this method of self discovery and teaching, it is an important skill for students to learn that we don’t teach enough in the classroom. Ask students to create brochures, advertisements, or other graphic media to illustrate concepts in the classroom using digital art. Aviary is a nice introduction into graphic arts and digital media.

Tips: It is fun to look through creations that others have made and try to figure out how they used Aviary Phoenix to create.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Aviary Phoenix in your classroom.