Adventures in Teaching and Learning

This post will hopefully cover straightforward video sites as well as more interactive audiovisual sites. Once again, I have asked my PLN (Personal Learning Network) of other “educationalists” and “edtech” folk at Twitter to share their favourite sites, which I will hopefully share with you here. I’ll start with a few of my own:

YouTube – Probably one of the most well known Web 2.0 sites. There is a lot of inappropriate content, as there is anywhere, but don’t be put off – there is a vast amount of fantastic content as well. If you are an RE teacher, then from my skattp profile, you can find links to a group for RE teachers and to some other accounts that I find helpful. I am sure there are similar groups for other subjects.

TrueTube – There some excellent (British based) videos on here that would make great debate starters. TrueTube hopes that young people will make more equally provoking videos and share them on the site. I have written about TrueTube before, here.

Teachers’ TV – An excellent resource for CPD; the site also contains videos that can be used in class. There are also groups and forums that you can take part in.

TeacherTube – Videos by and for teachers.

Animoto – Upload photos, choose from a selection of Creative Commons music, and Animoto will produce an audiovisual presentation for you.

Xtranormal – If you can type, you can make movies. An easy way for a teacher to make a starter video, or for a student to produce an ICT-based piece of homework.

VoiceThread – You could add this as a way to introduce a topic, by uploading a picture or video, then recording a commentary while using pens to highlight key points. Or, you could upload students’ work, and other students can then comment on each others’ work, as a form of peer assessment.

GoAnimate – A fairly easy way to produce short animations. These can then be hosted on a video site, such as YouTube or TeacherTube.

Voki – This is an easy way for you, or a student, to animate a message without having to record your face as well as your voice. You normally need a blog to host it on.

Audacity – An excellent tool that can be downloaded for free. Easy to use to record and to transform voices as well. The voice can then be added to vokis or other videos.

There are some good primary examples on this Demo Primary School site, based in Falkirk. Thanks to @mvass for producing it, and to @johnmclear for drawing it to my attention!

I will add more later, as I receive more suggestions!

Get a Voki now!

The new TTP group meet on Tuesday; I have the privilege of hosting a session on Web 2.0, involving pedagogy and practical application. So today I have been trying to think of uses for a variety of Web 2.0 applications, hence the large number of posts! I think it’s about time to pull some of those ideas together.

Voki
I enjoy adding vokis onto my blogs to liven them up a bit and add sound. It’s a humorous way of engaging the students as well, and for students who find reading a bit more difficult, then Voki instructions may be a bit easier to follow. If students have access to computers, then I think Vokis work well especially in MFL, where students can record short paragraphs in the target language: this could then be used for peer and self assessment purposes. The main difficulty I have with Voki is that they are not downloadable, so they can only be shown when hosted on a browser somewhere and cannot be inserted into powerpoint presentations. (If they can, and I’m missing something, please let me know!) Of course, CrazyTalk can be used to similar effect, but with a little more effort.

If you have used Voki successfully as a teaching and learning tool, please drop me a line to let me know!

VoiceThread
This seems like a good way to encourage students to listen to one another and to respond to one another. A VoiceThread can be used to gather a variety of opinions and ideas, which can be shared or kept private (In this case, you would need to make accounts for all students, and add them all as your friends on the VoiceThread that you wanted them to watch/listen/comment on. They can also be moderated.) I have seen some good examples, eg “This picture makes me think …”, Students reading out poems that they have written in response to a visual stimulus, students using the doodle tool to demonstrate what they think will happen next in an experiment (actually, I haven’t seen that, but I think it could be a good idea … if you moderate the comments, then keep them all hidden until you have received everyone’s comments) … I’m sure there are many more.

What ideas do you have for how you could use VoiceThread in your subject? If you have already used it, could you add a link in the comments box so we can see it and be inspired?

Slideshare
An easy way to share presentations. I have made a very basic one with the most basic key points for my GCSE students to support their last minute revision, and another one with pictures to illustrate Pentecost, which I will use in my lessons next week. The other side, of course, is that there are many interesting presentations out there, that can either inform us as educators, or can be used by us in the classroom.

Have you a favourite presentation that you found on SlideShare? Or have you uploaded a presentation made by your students that could inspire us?

YouTube, TeacherTube, GodTube, TED, GoogleVideo, Teachers’ TV
I am sure there are other video sharing websites out there, these are just some of the most common, or ones that I have found recently. Videos can be a great starter for lessons, and there are some great educational clips out there, as well as lots of funny clips that can begin discussion. Just be careful though – I showed a clip of Mel Brookes as Moses, dropping one of the tablets on which were written the Fifteen – well, now Ten – Commandments in order to start thinking about the Decalogue with my class, and quite a few of them assumed that there really were originally fifteen … ! I have also used the Honda Cogs clip to illustrate the concept of causation. Of course, the next stage is then making your own videos to upload and share with others. For a trial, I made a video using OneTrueMedia, and uploaded that to YouTube. It’s not great, but at least it shows it can be done! I am also a member of the RE Group on YouTube.

How have you used YouTube or another video site during a lesson? Why do you think showing short video clips can be such a good learning tool?

Well, there are hundreds of other sites, and it’s getting late and I have other things to do, so that will have to do for now. I do hope that some of you who read this will leave a comment suggesting ways in which these, and other Web 2.0 applications, can be used effectively in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning.

Not just for those in Haringey of course! But I think over the next few weeks we’ll be seeing some interesting work being shared on some of the following sites. (Some were begun a year ago and have not been updated recently – hopefully that will change, and it would be great if you add your comments!)

National Year of Reading 2008 – A blog where pupils will be able to send their book reviews.

Education ideas for using CrazyTalk – A blog where you can share your good ideas about using CrazyTalk in teaching. There are already links to examples here, and links to sites where you can create interesting characters, eg make your own Mr Potato Head.

AppleMacs in Education

Assessment for Learning and Blogging

DigiMemo Blog

Judy, if I am missing any, it would be great if you could let me know so I can add them here!

A Blog about AfL and Blogging – This was linked to the AfL blog … might be useful for my research!

I’ve decided to add some more links below … with thanks, once again, to Ewan McIntosh, and this time his del.icio.us page! I suspect there will be a few more as I have time to search for useful blogs. Our group were a bit underwhelmed by some of the blogs and websites that we looked at on Monday, and I think some people still need a bit of convincing that blogs can be helpful in supporting T&L … I hope some of these links can be persuasive!

St Mary’s Bannockburn Blog – the key here is that comments are not moderated until after pupils have all completed their answers, so they can’t copy each other’s ideas. However, once the comments have been moderated, they can obviously add more ideas and comments on each other’s comments!

A Student’s Blog – A great example of a very organised pupil using a blog to support her own learning.

Outside the Cave – a New York based blog, reflecting on pupil blogging to support co-operative group work.

Well, I eventually had to come up with one, and I think this is it …

“An investigation into the effectiveness of using blended media, in particular blogging, in supporting AfL with a KS3 (probably Year 7) RE class.”

Any comments appreciated!

I am loving blogging, but most people on the course are not blogging that much, and most people I have spoken to over the past couple of days have been quite sceptical about the benefits of blogging. It’s difficult to find blogs that really seem to support Assessment for Learning, although I have been impressed by the Nodehill Middle School RE blog. I therefore plan on seeing if I can use it in an effective way that supports pupil learning, and in order to do that I will set up a Year 7 blog and try to get time in an ICT room once a week for two or three weeks at the start of term. Might be a bit hard to get it all done and written up before 1 October though!