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!

I’ve been showing my sister some of my favourite websites. She asked me to send her links, so I thought maybe I could just make one post with them all here and then just send her the link to this post! So here they are.

Animations

Xtranormal – If you can type, you can make an animation.
GoAnimate! – Make cartoon animations.

Flashcards

Quizlet – Make simple flashcards and learn your keywords
StudyStack – Make flashcards, and StudyStack will automatically make games out of them, eg hangman, catch the bug, unscramble words
FlashCardFlash – Search for flashcards on a number of different sites

Video

Fliggo – Host your own video site. Hopefully the school might not block this …

Visuals

CompFight – Click on “Creative Commons ONLY” to find images to use in school
SimplyBox – Choose your favourite images or videos then simply box them for use later.

And remember … I also have links to a wide range of Web 2.0 tools here. Have fun!

I have been using Twitter to try to find some new resources that could help my students revise. I’ll need to make a revision post on my school blog later, but let’s concentrate here first!

First of all, I could make – or ask my students to make – a video … perhaps a conversation between two people with different points of view discussing one of the evaluation statements that crop up all the time in their exam papers? But, videos so often seem to take so much time … Well, fear not, because my good friend Victoria on Geogtastic has pointed me in the direction of Xtranormal. Their tagline – if you can type, you can make movies. And it’s true. Check it out. (Although I have had some difficulties recently making movies. Not sure if it’s them or me. Hope it fixes itself soon. It is in Beta, so maybe I ought to drop them a line.)

On the other hand, some of our students really like revision cards, and some enjoy trading cards. So how about they make their own trading revision cards? BigHugeLabs have such a trading card maker. And results can then be shared on Flickr, or elsewhere, or printed out to be used as revision cards.

Finally, for now, a new YouTube type site, where you can make your own school based site. The privacy levels on Fliggo can, I think, be made stronger than those on YouTube – for example, you can moderate comments before they are posted. You can visit my new STM RE Fliggo site here. I presume I can upload any relevant video here, not only my own? Would be a good place to store all the useful and relevant videos I find in such places as TrueTube and GodTube. I think. If that’s allowed. Any advice?

And now, over to you. What one piece of advice would you give a GCSE student that would help them with their revision? Thank you!

Strange, the YouTube “post to blog” option doesn’t seem to be working, so here is my “More Clouds” video! This time, I took photos at (fairly random) intervals throughout the day, using (of course!) my tripod, then put them altogether using iMovie (8, I think), with some freeplaymusic that I quite like.

I’ve uploaded it to Google Video … hope it all works okay!

I was inspired by Tre Greer’s blog to try out GoAnimate. So here is my first attempt …

It’s not really that realistic! (I hope it plays … so far I have not been able to see an animation on any other blogs, I’ve always had to go to the Go Animate site … Hope this gets fixed soon!)

NOTE (6 Aug): I’ve just made my second animation. This time it’s for school!