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Soo Meta: Digital Storytelling Tool

April 10, 2013April 15, 2013Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3079 views

What it is: Soo Meta is an awesome new site that lets students build mixed media stories. Students can use this storytelling tool to collect, sort, edit and publish web content easily.

There are two options for login, with name/email/password or through Facebook. For students who don’t have their own email accounts, you can have them login using a temporary inbox like Tempinbox (just type in a word or words followed by @tempinbox.com and you are in business!).

After students have logged in, they will be asked to enter a title for their new story. Then, they can search for videos, pictures, sounds and text or copy and paste their links into a new story. Videos can be trimmed and edited, pictures resized and text edited.

Soo Meta is incredibly simple to use. Just search the web, choose content to remix and off you go! You can also simply drag and drop content from your computers desktop to create something new.

When finished, just publish the story and you can share it via link on Facebook or Twitter or you can embed the story like I did above. (I literally spent a grand total of 2 min creating this story!)

How to integrate Soo Meta into the classroom: Soo Meta is a fantastic online tool for digital storytelling. It makes the process incredibly easy and the possibilities are limited only to your student’s imagination.

With Soo Meta, students can compile research on any topic or subject and create their own digital “textbook” of the learning to share with other classmates or students around the world. I love that Soo Meta combines the research component with the creation piece. So often students want to skip right to creation…with Soo Meta the two are so interdependent, it would be impossible to do one without the other!

Teachers can use Soo Meta to create learning stories for their students. Pull together various videos, pictures and articles and mash them up for your students. Embed finished video stories on a classroom website or blog.

Older students can create interactive video stories for younger “buddy” students. They can solidify their own learning of history, math, science, geography, etc. by putting together learning opportunities for younger students.

The storytelling aspect of Soo Meta is fantastic! Students can do story re-tells, current event mashups, historical documentaries, political commentary, science discoveries, etc.

Tips: Don’t be discouraged if your students are too young to create their own Soo Meta stories, create your own mashups for them to enjoy!

I’ve been nominated for a Bammy Award for Educational Blogger. I’d appreciate your vote to help spread the word about iLearn Technology. Vote here. Thank you for your continued support!!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Soo Meta in your classroom.

Magnoto: Online blog, photo, video, creation space

February 17, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3601 views

What it is: Magnoto reminds me of a mashup of a Tumblr blog, Wallwisher, Glogster, and Stixy. Essentially Magnoto gives you a “magnetic” display where you can post and share text, audio, video, and pictures. My favorite feature of Magnoto: content can be added to the page via email. You can set up your Magnoto so that anything you send to your special Magnoto email address, automatically gets uploaded and placed on your online page. With a few minutes of setup when you create your account, you can create an online space that is updated from your email. This is great for teachers who aren’t as comfortable with technology or don’t have the time to manage an online space. I find the Magnoto online interface to be a little bit cumbersome (I expected everything to be drag and drop onto the page but it is much more “analogue” and you have to click “place on page” from the preview. Certainly not difficult but also not as clean as I would like…guess I’m spoiled!) On the upside, Magnoto provides a lot of room for customization in frames around the pictures (click on the “M” on the picture), “magnets”, and the ability to free drag items anywhere on the screen. The online page can be easily shared with a unique url that you choose, and updated on the fly. Magnoto also has the benefit of allowing up to 4 users to contribute to and create one online space.

How to integrate Magnoto into the classroom: For students with an email address, Magnoto can be used to create a flexible online space where students can create virtual posters, brainstorming boards, virtual project portfolios, and share learning with others. Students can work together on the same Magnoto space for group projects.

Teachers can use Magnoto to create a quick class homepage for students and parents to access. Because Magnoto is so easy to update via email, it makes for a really fast build with impressive results. Update daily with links, assignments, and resources for your students; pictures you snapped of learning; or to reference class information. Create a new Magnoto page for every subject, semester, or special project. Invite a few parents to join as users of your account and encourage those room moms (or dads) to email pictures they snap of class parties, field trips, or special events on the class Magnoto board- the pictures can be emailed to the special Magnoto address and will be instantly uploaded. Pretty cool! Magnoto would make for a great online weekly newsletter space. Parent’s will always be in the loop for classroom happenings and everything will be easy to access in one place.

Because you can add up to 4 collaborators, Magnoto would be a good space for grade level teams to collect and share resources for students. This keeps all of you from having to create and update a separate page; instead, you can all upload and share from the same space. Again, the email feature is really nice for this type of use!

To change your account settings to allow emailed content to be directly uploaded:

1. Click on the “Page Admin” tab on the right side of the screen.

2. Click on “Options”

3. Choose either “Classic” or “Floating” options

4. Click “Publish New Entries” via email at once

Tips: Magnoto is in Beta, I found that it works better in Firefox and Chrome than in Safari. Don’t forget that students can use a @tempinbox.com account or @mailinator.com account for sign up if they don’t want to use a personal email address. No email confirmation is necessary to begin using Magnoto.

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

Planet Foss: Investigating Science by Taking Pictures

February 9, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments5230 views

What it is: Planet Foss is a science photo sharing website for students. Students are enlisted to help capture science in the real world through pictures and share them with other students around the world. Students choose a science course to investigate, see what photo challenges exist within the course, and then take a picture of science as it happens. Each course comes with several challenges; the challenges are all based around themes that tie into the FOSS investigations. When students have taken their photos, they can upload them, tag them, and record observations about the science they captured in their picture. Students can also head over to Planet FOSS just to check out the photos taken by other students, they can search by the date that the picture was uploaded, by tag, keyword, or search by location using a Google map. Courses on Planet FOSS include Chemical Interactions, Diversity of Life, Earth History, Electronics, Forces and Motion, Human Brain and Senses, Planetary Science, Populations and Ecosystems, and Weather and Water.

How to integrate Planet FOSS into the classroom: Planet FOSS is an excellent way to involve students in science exploration and discovery in the real world. The great thing about the site is that it helps students discover the science that it all around them. Through the photo challenges and investigations, students learn to view the world through a new lens and begin to understand that life is science. That isn’t a concept I understood until I was out of school (for me science usually meant filling out a worksheet or memorizing science vocabulary-sad). Don’t have access to digital cameras at school? Students can still use Planet FOSS by exploring other student photos. The photos are a great way to introduce science concepts and illustrate concepts in a way that is more authentic than the textbook offerings. As students view others photos, they can leave feedback about the photo, observation, or comment on the similarities or difference to where they live using a set of virtual “stickers”.

Tips: To protect student privacy, Planet FOSS does not accept any photos that includes pictures of students. Planet FOSS has a great introductory video that will have even the novice computer user uploading photos in no time!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Planet FOSS in your classroom

Photovisi- Make a free online photo collage

November 10, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3332 views

What it is: Photovisi is an online photo collage creation tool. Students can use saved photos or a webcam to add pictures to their collage. The finished result can be downloaded and printed out. Photovisi is exceptionally easy to use and requires absolutely NO sign in or registration! This makes it the ideal online tool in my book. Students can get right in and quickly create a photo collage, add text, and download it. There are several collage templates to choose from, and each template is highly customizable.

How to integrate Photovisi into your curriculum: Photvisi is a great online creation tool. It doesn’t require any sign up or registration making it ideal for using in any classroom. Students can make collages to document learning, a science experiment, field trip, or special project. Students can upload pictures from their computer to add to the Photovisi. Students can add text labels and titles to document learning. Collages can be used for getting to know you activities. Students can create a collage of pictures that represent themselves and their interests. Use text to create an auto bio poem over the collage of pictures. Students could also create collages as a place to visually document their learning. Students could create “time capsule” collages that represent a period in history. Students can add pictures, key dates, people, and places to their time capsule collage. Collages are a great way to visually group items, younger students could create their own class alphabet display. Each student could create a collage of a different letter, all finished collages could be printed to create a class created bulletin board. The same could be done for phonics or word study. In math class, collages could be used to create a visual representation of shapes found in buildings or nature, angles, or scale. In art, students could create a collage of artists, a style of art, or of their own art.

Photovisi would be ideal in a computer lab setting where each student has their own computer. Photovisi could also be set up as a creative center on classroom computers. Students can rotate through the center for a specific project, or visit any time as a creative center.

You can see an example of a Photovisi collage above, I created this World War 2 collage in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Tips: Photovisi does have Google Adwords on the site. These are not obtrusive at all and are all related to photos and collage creation. You may want to teach younger students how to spot these advertisements so that they don’t inadvertently click on them.

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

Kerpoof: Update

January 29, 2010February 8, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3892 views

What it is: Kerpoof is one of my favorite creation tools for elementary students, it allows them to draw, create pictures, cards, books, and even movies. My original post about Kerpoof can be found here. Kerpoof has added some new features that make it worthy of another post. Students can now save their pictures, cards, stories and drawings locally (on their computers). On each canvas is a JPEG icon that will allow any picture to be saved to the computer locally. They are working on making it possible to download the movies locally soon. Kerpoof also introduced info bubbles. In the Make a Picture object library, students can drag out a picture onto the canvas. Now there is a new question mark button that shows up on an object. When students click on the question mark, a little bubble of information pops up. Students will gain all kinds of information from these little fact bubbles. They can learn everything from: who wrote Treasure Island, to learning the national animal of Australia.

How to integrate Kerpoof into the classroom: Kerpoof is an outstanding creativity program for the classroom. With there education accounts and these new features, it is even more useful in the classroom setting. Now that students can save their pictures created on Kerpoof locally, they can use their Kerpoof creations in new ways. Upload the saved JPEG to the class website, blog, or wiki, or add illustrations to a word processing program.

Use the new information bubbles to start a Kerpoof scavenger hunt. Ask students specific questions ahead of time or instruct students to research broader topics like “dinosaurs” or “Mexico”. After students have found answers to their assigned questions, they can do more in-depth research using library or Internet resources. After research is completed, students can come back to Kerpoof to create a picture, story, essay, or movie including information that they learned.

Tips: Be sure to check out Kerpoof’s lesson plans, they have just added a new lesson called “Programming Wizards” designed to teach students about how computers work and how to build, design, and test a program. Very cool.

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

Kids Interactive-Whales

January 25, 2010January 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments3115 views

What it is: The stories in our 3rd grade reading curriculum are all about whales this week. I found this great interactive about Whales put together by the Australian Government Department of the Environment for the students to explore. In the Kids Interactive-Whales, students board the Discovery where they can explore 5 different rooms including the science lab, the research center, the office, the library, and the bridge. Each room has an “expert” that will help the students as they explore the room. As students explore each room, they can take notes by saving text to a clipboard. In the research center, students learn about whale migration, the effects of whale hunting, watch video footage of whales, take an up close view of whale pictures, learn about whale sounds, and even report a whale sighting. On the bridge, students will learn about the rules for viewing whales from land, listen to sounds that different whales make, learn about sonar, steer the boat, learn about the whales that live in Australian waters, learn the rules about watching whales from a boat, and learn the best time to go whale watching. In the underwater library, students will use the database to look up facts about whales (they can take notes on their clipboard), use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar terms, learn about the history of whaling, see how whale populations have suffered, and see pictures of whales that can be used in a research project. In the office, students can watch whales through a portal, read about Australian whale preservation, read a brochure, and view a timeline of how whaling activities have changed throughout the years. The science lab is the last room on the Discovery. Here, students can learn about what whales eat, take a closer look at the anatomy of whales, play a game to practice identifying whales, find out how whales are important to the ecosystem, learn about the difference between whales and dolphins, learn about the research that scientists do, and take a closer look at whale statistics.

How to integrate Kids Interactive- Whales into the classroom: Our 3rd grade students study whales every year in both reading and science. This is an excellent interactive to send kids through to help them build background knowledge about whales for future reading or study. This is also a great place for students to begin a research project about whales. Students can save notes to a virtual clipboard as they learn and explore each room. The clipboard can be printed out and used as research notes. The interactive is packed full of good information and activities. Set up your room so that as students file into the room, they feel like they are boarding the Discovery ship. Choose students to act as tour guides for each of the 5 rooms. Using a projector or interactive whiteboard, have the tour guides lead the class through each room. Students who are at their seats can take notes about whales and ask the tour guides questions. If you have access to a computer lab setting, students can explore the site individually. Create a guide of things to search for as they complete their tour, make it a scavenger hunt for information.

Tips: As an extension activity, encourage students to learn about whaling practices and preservation in their own country.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Kids Interactive-Whales in your classroom.

Free 1 year subscription to Smilebox (Teacher Box)

September 12, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2342 views

What it is: I first blogged about Smilebox September of 2008. Smilebox is offering a free 1 year subscription to educators! Smilebox is a fun, easy way to send photos, videos, and information to students and parents securely. Smilebox lets you create very impressive looking multimedia presentations quickly and easily. The free subscription (a $39.99 value) gives you unlimited access to more than 900 Smilebox designs and lets you choose from thousands of music options (or upload your own). Finished Smilebox creations can be emailed, blogged, printed, burned to a DVD, or saved as jpeg images.

How to integrate Smilebox (Teacher Box) into the classroom: Smilebox is a great way for you to communicate with parents. Smilebox is perfect for newsletters, overviews of teaching units, performance and field trip recaps, classroom activities, school memory books, and more. Smilebox will make you look like a superstar, the results are SO impressive!

Tips: Be sure to sign up for Smile Box (Teacher Box) today, space in this program is limited!

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

My English Images

August 26, 2009August 30, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3337 views

What it is: My English images is a great site that I learned about from @larryferlazzo. This site was designed for English teachers and English teachers working with ESL and EFL students but it is a great site for any literacy classroom. The site has images and worksheets that are available for download that can be used to catch student’s attention, spice up lessons, and illustrate difficult language concepts. My English Images provides pictures that illustrate conversation, grammar, basic English, pronunciation, and vocabulary concepts. New content is added to the collection monthly.

How to integrate My English Images into the classroom: This site is ideal for the ESL/EFL classroom. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and that is definitely the case with this site. Students will be able to look at the pictures and understand the language concepts with the help of visuals. The pictures can be downloaded and used in PowerPoint presentations, interactive whiteboard lessons, and any lesson that you are teaching that would benefit from visuals. Visuals are the first thing that people associate with a concept. They help students recall more quickly, and the concepts get stored in permanent memory because students have an easier time making connections with things they already know. My English Images has some fantastic offline games that can be played with English language learners. You can download and print rules and a certificate of excellence as students complete the games. Grammar concepts are often difficult for any student learning them for the first time. My English Images makes it easier for students to understand how the English language works. This site should be used in any English speaking/learning literacy classroom!

Tips: Take a little time to explore My English images, it is a treasure trove of resources! My English Images was created by English language teacher F. Michael Kloran based on what he uses with his students.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using My English Images in your classroom.

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

August 23, 2009September 8, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments1489 views

Couldn’t resist the title 🙂 I’m starting to collect pictures of classrooms from around the world. If you haven’t shared your classroom yet, send me a picture tweet @ktenkely and I will add it to the collection. I always get such great ideas and inspiration from other teachers, with the start of school I thought it would be fun to see what you all are doing in your classrooms.

@sciencelabman also put his classroom into Photosynth for a 3D view

Angela Nix "Technology it's mmm mmm good!"

I also received pictures via blog post…because there are SO many good pictures/ideas and I couldn’t choose, I am going to direct you to the collections of class pictures.

@bknSimilarity shares classroom pictures here: Broken Similarities

@marynabadenhors shares classroom/school pictures here: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age and here and here

Traci Blazosky shares her class pictures in the form of a Glog, they are awesome! Check them out here

Thank you to all who participated and if you haven’t yet…jump on in!

Classroom Pictures 2009-2010 School Year

August 20, 2009August 20, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2227 views

In my last post I requested pictures of everyone’s classroom for the 2009-2010 school year. I’ll be honest, so far only three of you have participated. I know the beginning of the school year is busy so I am going to be patient and wait a few more days. If you want to submit your classroom picture, send it to me via Twitter @ktenkely. To get the ball rolling, here are pictures of my classroom this year: