12 Days of Dreaming #12DOD

December 3, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3186 views

I love this time of year. Everything seems so full of possibility and optimism. @Mr_Brett_Clark took hold of that feeling and started Education Dreamer: 12 Days of Dreaming. Today was the big launch! From Brett: “There is no greater time than now to share our dreams for education. Everything great that has ever happened, started as a dream.
Education Dreamer will post a new post on Monday through Thursday the first three weeks of December beginning December 3rd.
You can support this project by sharing out the post using #12DOD, adding a badge to your website, and leaving comments.”

I fully support this 12 days of dreaming and added my own dreams which were posted on day number one. Lucky me!

Follow along, dream with your fellow educators and be inspired to make those dreams a reality!

My contribution is called: Dreaming of a Better Education. Click the link to have a read.

Thank you for including me Brett! Happy Everything 🙂

The Making of the Learning Genome Project

October 28, 2012October 28, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment16096 views

So many of you have offered tremendous support, donations and a megaphone to spread the word about the Learning Genome Project. I am so grateful! Today I thought I would lift the curtain just a bit and share a behind the scenes look at the Learning Genome Project. My plan was to do this in video form using Screenium or Screeny. Those plans were foiled when NEITHER worked even with updates. #sigh Instead, I’ll write out my story and take you on a picture journey of how it all took place. If you haven’t had a chance to lend a helping hand, it is not too late. Honestly, even $1 makes such a BIG difference! If everyone of my readers gave just $1, this would be taken care of tonight and we would be able to start the next phase of development. Click here to help out now!

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. If it doesn’t exist or it can be done better, that is what you do. This mind-set can be a bit of a curse…once I get an idea in my head, it is like a broken record that plays over and over until I do something about it. My dad is prime example of this, he started Koostik with a styrofoam cup and an iPhone. Once the idea was there, it stayed until he saw it realized…in this case that means a growing company and product in Restoration Hardware and Red Envelope. He is awesome.

For me this process started as I dug through curriculum and worked to supplement it with technology tools. The idea was to “fill” the gaps with technology tools that would make the curriculum work better for students. As I went through publisher after publisher, I started realizing that the problem wasn’t a lack of technology (if you have read this blog for any amount of time, you know that is a BIG realization for me). The real problem was that we were trying to address the needs of an incredibly diverse population of kids with a one-size-fits-all curriculum. The troubling thing for me was that I sat on the committees that made the curriculum decisions. I was sold (just like everyone else) on the premise that these curricula had “differentiated” instruction. I have come to hate that term. You know what it means? It means that curriculum companies can sell more curriculum because they add in a highlighted section that says “differentiation!” and gives a one-size bigger or one-size smaller approach to the exact same problem. As I went through all of this curriculum, I couldn’t shake the feeling that adding in a bit of technology wasn’t going to solve the problem.

As a computer teacher, I taught 435 students every week. I taught the same 435 kids for 6 years. I saw them grow up, learned what made them tick, watched the frustration grow when they didn’t understand a learning objective. These kids were amazing. They were brilliant. They all had strengths and weaknesses that made them special. They all have a different understanding and approach to the world. We were stripping all of that uniqueness away and making them learn everything the same. We were expecting that they would learn the same things, the same way, and at the same time. Ludicrous! Nothing in life or growth and development happens this way, and yet that is what our education system is built on? This was really troubling for me. I couldn’t shake that it shouldn’t be that way.

In 2010 I took a year away from teaching for health reasons. During that year, I acted as an educational consultant for many area schools. This period of time re-emphasized those stirrings that I was having about education. This curriculum wasn’t working because it assumed too much sameness. I saw brilliant, gifted kids losing their passions because it wouldn’t get them into the swanky private high school (that looked just like every other school). How sad that we ask kids to give up their areas of gifting to get to the next level of learning. Something is wrong! One day I was working my way through curriculum, supplementing the holes with technology tools. I was listening to Pandora Internet radio. A song came on that I had never heard before, by an artist that was also new to me. I frantically searched for something to write on so that I could remember this new find. I remember thinking, “how amazing that we have come to a place in history where we can use technology to predict something as personal as music.” I was truly amazed that I could put in one piece of information and through a series of algorithms, Pandora could predict other music I would like. If it can work with music, surely it could work with curriculum.

This was the birth of that niggling thought that wouldn’t go away. This was the beginning of the Learning Genome Project. I had recently been introduced to a programmer (@ianchia) through @Doremigirl on Twitter. Ian and I had shared many conversations about what education apps could look like. This time it was my turn to ask a question. I wanted to know if it was possible to program what was in my head. “Well of course.” Ian introduced me to some wireframing tools and I was off and running. Over the next months, I dreamed up how the Learning Genome would work. I thought about the students that I wanted something better for. I thought about the frustrations I had as a teacher. I dreamed about a tool that would make the whole process easier.

Teachers share something in common: we all want the very best for our students. There are a few problems with this. First, we don’t always get to choose what we will teach. Many times our school or district hands us the curriculum and says, “go.” This is not conducive to doing the best we know how for every child. Second, we don’t always know that their is a tool/lesson/resource out there that could make all the difference for each student. Third, we have a limited time to search for that perfect tool/lesson/resource. A lot of system problems to overcome. If Pandora can do this for music, I can do it for education.

I started researching how Pandora works, what happens in the background that makes my experience possible? Pandora is called the Music Genome Project because it used the Human Genome Project as its inspiration. In the Human Genome Project, genes are mapped out. In the Music Genome Project, the “genes” of music are mapped out. I called my version the Learning Genome Project. Together, we will map the genes of education, those attributes that help us find commonalities that match the right content to each student at the right time.

First, we need to collect information about the learner. If we don’t know the learner, we can’t know what content best fits their needs. This is, in short, the best student information system ever.

Next, we have to know enough about the school and the classroom to make recommendations. It does us no good to recommend an iDevice app if the school has no access to that device.

We also have to know something about the lead learner (the teacher).

After we have the profile information, it is critical to know where students are in their learning. What needs to be learned? This is the individualized learning plan…each student has one.

From within the ILP, teachers, students and parents can create and have input on the learning goals. These learning goals inform what happens in the hub of the genome.

When the learning goal has been identified, the genome “hub” comes into play. This is where resources (lessons, videos, apps, experiments, activities, etc.) are matched and recommended for the student. Much like Pandora, a learning channel is created.

Teachers (and students) can expand the results to view more information about the recommendation. From here it can be added to teacher and student planners, and materials for the curriculum can be selected.

Teachers can see all student assignments within their planner. Here they can create groups for overlaps of student learning. They can also create whole-class events.

After a student completes an activity, they record it within their ePortfolio. This is all completely integrated. Within the portfolio they can keep notes, documents, pictures, video and badges. Badges help students have a bread trail of where they have been in their learning. Portfolio’s are forever associated with a student, from year to year it travels and grows with them. Students can also have the option of downloading their portfolio for offline viewing.

In addition to portfolios and planners, the Learning Genome Project includes wiki, blog and photo tools.

Community tools keep students, teachers and parents in collaboration.

My brother and I had many of the same teachers growing up. We are very different people with 5 years separating us. My favorite teachers were not his. We had very similar experiences, the same outstanding teachers. But some teachers connected better with me than him. How do we help every child have influence of a “favorite” teacher? I created Twitacad. Even if that teacher isn’t in the child’s school, there is a blended learning component that makes that connection possible.

Twitacad offers teachers and students a platform for sharing, communicating, and learning. It is all tied in to the Learning Genome. Everything works together. Virtual teachers are listed as teachers for parents, students and other teachers to interact with.

The Learning Genome Project has assessment tools built in. Assessment is based on mastery of a skill or concept. This is directly related to what is happening in the student portfolio so that students, teachers and parents can view evidences of the learning.

How does content, resources, tools, lessons, apps, videos, etc. get into the genome? It gets tagged with its learning attributes by incredible teachers around the world like you. We all contribute to this project and we all benefit from it.

The hub (resource aggregation) portion of the Genome is free to everyone. Every child deserves an education tailored to them. Additional portions of the Learning Genome Project (planners, ePortfolios, blogs, wikis, Twitacad) will be a subscription based service.

The Learning Genome Project is not curriculum. It is a sorting tool that pulls the best options for every child. Teachers will be able to sort results based on price, Bloom’s Taxonomy level, standard, subject, and type of resource. This will tell you what curricular resources will best meet every child’s needs. Every time a resource is used, it gets rated by both student and teacher. Resources that are highest rated will be recommended first.

This is truly a quick overview of the Learning Genome project. There are so many intricacies and features that will make it revolutionary to education. The one hang up? I need help funding it! Sure, I could go and get some venture capitalists to fund it. The problem: I want the force that drives what happens to the Learning Genome Project to be what is best for kids…not what best impacts the bottom line. I believe that if we all put a little into this project, that we can create something revolutionary. We can all have a part in transforming education for the world.

I hope you will join me. I hope that you will realize that $1 and a few minutes is a small price to pay for a resource that has the potential to reach every child in the world. This is a small price to pay for our future. We can do this. Please click here and donate now…then spread the word to everyone you know and encourage them to do the same.

Internet panhandling to change education

October 4, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2885 views

Okay, here is the thing, we (the collective we) have exactly 25 days to raise $83,570. This number represents change. This number represents personalized learning for our kids. This number represents revolution.

$83,570.

It is big. But not that big. Not that impossible. We can do this. One dollar at a time. When you view this campaign you will see suggested donation levels beginning at $5 and going all the way to $5,000. Those are merely suggestions. If we all take a minute out of our day, chip in one dollar, spread the word to one other person, this project is completed in no time. Are we willing to give up a cup of coffee (and a cheap one at that!) to make education better for all?

We often wax poetic about changing education. This, right here, is your opportunity to really do it. I wish I had a trust fund hiding out somewhere that could make this happen. That just isn’t the case. So here I am, shamelessly asking you for a dollar. Kind of like an internet panhandler.

We have 25 days to do this. Make the choice right now to chip in click here: The Learning Genome Project

On Building Culture: Anastasis Academy Teacher Handbook

September 27, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3154 views

Schools often talk about professional development as if it is the key to a successful school. I’m not convinced more professional development is the answer. I think it’s all about culture. When you have people who come together around passion, who enjoy each other, who have a common mission: that changes everything.

Our teacher handbook doesn’t look like most. It was inspired by creative companies like Valve and Apple. We are a group of rebels here. Our handbook had to reflect that.

Open publication – Free publishing – More anastasis

We are on a mission to humanize learning. We are on a mission to make personalized learning available to EVERY child in the world. Please help us spread the word. Donate, tweet, blog, and email others about the Learning Genome Project.

Transforming Education in 40 Days: A Call to Action

September 19, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3238 views

*** If you need the cliff notes version of this post, skip down to the Call to Action section!

Last year I had a “hunch” about learning…specifically about curriculum. That hunch turned into a full fledged idea and a mission to do better for kids. Everywhere. Along the line I met some truly incredible people who taught me things I didn’t know how to do before. Like wire framing (thanks @ianchia), and pitching ideas (thanks @houseofgenius), and how to go about picking up programmers (thanks @toma_bedolla). Now I’m ready to share the culmination of all this work with you.

This isn’t just a post to tell you about what I’m doing, it is a call to action for everyone (yes, even you). It is a request for you to join me in this mission in whatever form that may take.

I have a vision: to make personalized learning a reality for EVERY child.

I know, it is big. It is also doable.

For those who are new to following me, here was my original “hunch” written on my other blog, Dreams of Education:

“The problem with curriculum and textbooks is that they complete thoughts. Curriculum and textbooks give the impression that learning has an end. That when you have made it from cover to cover, the job is done. I know in my own schooling this was true, I thought that school was teaching me what was important and that anything outside of the curriculum wasn’t important or relevant to my life…wouldn’t they have included it otherwise? How did curriculum get this way? Well, people realized that there was no possible way to cover every facet of learning, so they stripped it down to what they thought was important. The problem? What is important to you may not be what is important to me. What’s more, something that is very important to me may have been cut all together so I don’t even get the chance to know that it is important to me. Humans tend to like things that are definable, we like things that we can put into a neat, orderly box and carry out in a predictable way. It feels safe and manageable. This is what led me to the following hunch:

What if curriculum was more flexible? What if curriculum/schools/learning looked more like Pandora. If you aren’t familiar with Pandora, it is an online radio station that plays the music that it thinks you will like. You type in an artist or song and it creates a customized radio station just for you. It is remarkably accurate. Pandora almost never gets it wrong for me. It is like they have a direct line to my brain and can predict what song I would like to hear next. When it is wrong, I can give the song a thumbs down and it apologizes profusely for the error and promises never to play that song again on my station. The other thing I love about Pandora: I can have multiple radio stations. Because sometimes I really couldn’t think of anything in the world better than Frank, Dean, and Sammy; but other times I also want a little Timberlake, Whitestripes, or Bangles. What if curriculum looked like that? What if learning happened as a result of typing in one subject or topic that a student was enamored with and a completely personalize learning journey began playing out for them? What if students were led through a journey that was completely customized? What if they had several stations mapped out for them?”

I believe this is possible. I believe it is within our reach to create a completely personalized learning experience to every unique child. I believe that we can honor humanity instead of treating our kids like widgets in a factory. I believe that teachers should be teachers, focused on the needs and development of the child instead of teaching the masses through scripted curriculum.

This is The Learning Genome Project.

The Learning Genome Project will empower teachers and parents to become engineers of learning by providing each individual student the exact content they need, at the exact moment they need it. The Learning Genome will enable students to explore the process of inquiry, experimentation, discovery and problem solving. Instead of learning how to pass the next test, we will enable students to construct meaning and learn how to transfer that meaning to new life context. At the hub, the Learning Genome is a platform that aggregates resources and, using a series of algorithms, provide recommendations of the BEST resources to meet the individual learning needs of a specific child. The Learning Genome creates those serendipitous moments of finding just the right learning tool to meet the needs of children at the right time.

Much like Pandora finds that perfect piece of music, the Learning Genome will find the perfect piece of learning material to aid the student in learning. The key to the Learning Genome’s success is crowd sourcing. I will be drawing on educators around the world (that’s you!) to help me tag curriculum, books, lessons, videos, apps, websites and other educational content. This collection of tagged content lives in the centralized “cloud” and wil allow users around the world to find and access materials that best suit student needs. By gathering information about the individual student’s learning style preferences, multiple intelligence strengths, social/emotional levels, interests and passion, the Learning Genome can help teachers to create customized learning maps for each individual. This portion will be free. Every child deserves a unique learning experience.

In addition to the Learning Genome Hub (the aggregate), the site will include a complete Student Information System, planning tools, e-portfolios, e-learning, individual learning plans, assessment and blogging tools. All of these will work seamlessly together for you go-to for learning and planning.

Changing the world here.

Call to Action

So…how can you help? I’m glad you asked!

1. Learn more about the Learning Genome at indiegogo.

2. Please consider investing in this mission (see the awesome perks that includes below).

3. Blog about the Learning Genome with a link back to the indiegogo campaign (be sure to link to those posts you write in the comments below!)

4. Tweet about this project…a lot. Let’s completely take over the Internet with tweets about the Learning Genome and taking over education for kids! Please make sure to link back to the indiegogo campaign so that others can learn about it! Use the hashtag #standagain (because after all, we are helping children “stand again” in their learning)

5. Offer your time as a Learning Genome Content tagger or beta tester

6. Mention us on Facebook and like us on Facebook!

7. Did I mention spread the word? Seriously, that is SO helpful! You never know who might see that tweet and drop a couple thousand (or more) to make this project go!

8. Time is of the essence. I have 40 days starting NOW to make this happen. eeek! I need your help!

So, what are the perks to helping with this project?

$5 gets your name on the Learning Genome Change Makers page. You are changing education. That makes you a big deal. I want everyone to know what a big deal you are! I know many of you don’t think that your $5 can do anything. Wrong. According to my cluster map, I have hundreds of thousands of visits to this blog. If each of you pitches in…we all win fast!

$10 Remember all those cool Bloom’s Taxonomy posters I made? This campaign is now the ONLY place you can get them. These are 8.5″ x 11″ versions of the poster.

$30 Learning Genome beta tester. You get the inside scoop and ability to play before ANYONE else. I know, pretty cool.

$60 EXCLUSIVE A full size large-format print of my Bloomin’ Peacock mailed to you. That awesome little Peacock looks even better large. Did I mention this is the ONLY place you will get a big version of this?

$500 Even more EXCLUSIVE you get all of my Bloom’s re-imagine posters in the large format. Perfect for your classroom, library or as a gift to your favorite teachers.

$1000 My Searching for daVinci webinar for your school. What better way to spend your professional development dollars than learning how to create a daVinci like culture of learning at your school? Worth it!

$5000 For my corporate friends who want to see their logo in lights as a company that supports education and changing the world. If you have an education company, The Learning Genome Project will be the place to be seen.

We have $85,000 to raise. It sounds like a big number. We can do it together. I figured if I am going to lean on crowdsourcing to transform education, the funding should be crowdsourced too. How awesome will it be to join together as an education community to say, together we transformed the way learning is done. We changed things for every child in the world. Yeah, it’s big.

Evernote as an ePortfolio in a 1-to-1 iPad setting

August 11, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment6755 views

Open publication – Free publishing – More 1to1

Above is the information sheet I created for using Evernote as an ePortfolio.

At Anastasis, we use a combination of Evernote, Edu 2.0, and Edublogs to keep and share our work. Evernote has been a fantastic app for our students. Students can record text, images, and audio directly in Evernote. Each note can be emailed to teachers and parents. Evernote notes can also be posted on blogs through the email-to-blog feature. Better yet? There are SO many apps that have the ability to share with Evernote. Very handy. Students do quite a bit of writing directly in Evernote. This is a good place for all of student writing (even those pieces they don’t want to, or aren’t ready to, share). Evernote makes it easy to organize all of their notes into notebooks (the learning curve here is teaching students to use some organization). This year we are keeping learning logs (we call them Tracks) as a table of contents for what is in Evernote. Everything is tracked by a number as part of the Evernote title so it is easy to find and search.

The ability to record audio and take pictures of their work in Evernote is great. This means that students can capture learning that isn’t natively digital-digitally. All of those awesome inquiry projects that they construct and build can be captured and reflected on in Evernote. Another HUGE benefit to the Evernote/iPad combo: it goes with them everywhere. Recording learning on a field trip? Check. Recording learning at home? Check. Recording learning on the fly? Check. Teachers often send students a PDF instructions for an assignment or a picture to the student’s Evernote account. Parents can login to their child’s Evernote account from any computer or iDevice to see what they are working on.

Edu 2.0 is our education portal. In Edu 2.0 we can share things as a school community. Edu 2.0 has a built in e-portfolio (we don’t often use this), a blog, a post feed, calendar, and message system. Edu 2.0 makes it easy for us to stay connected as a school community. Because we teach young students, this “walled” community is a safe place for students to share any, and all, of their work and thoughts with others. Students often write blog posts in Edu 2.0 about their learning. Other students, parents and teachers can comment on the Edu 2.0 blog posts. Teachers use Edu 2.0 to send students assignments, make class announcements and communicate quickly with parents in their classroom. Students can link any content from their Evernote account to their blog in Edu 2.0 to share it with other students, parents or teachers. The school calendar is updated with all birthdays, learning excursions and school events so that students, parents and teachers are always up-to-date. The live post feed makes it easy for teachers and administration to make school-wide announcements. This feed shows up on the home page of every student, parent and teacher.

Each of our teachers has a class Edublog. This is where the teachers write blog posts about the happenings in their classrooms. Students can also contribute to the class blogs to get input and comments from a global audience. Some of our students also have Edublog accounts where they can share their work from Evernote more publicly. The Edublog is the place for interaction and collaboration with the world.

We have a school YouTube account where students can upload videos and stop motion animations. The school account has become a nice central place for students to share their work with the world. I act as administrator on the YouTube channel so that I can moderate comments and videos. Students can easily link to, or embed, videos they have created in Evernote, on their Edu 2.0 blog or on Edublogs.

This combination of tools has worked well as an ePortfolio for student work. I love that at the end of the school year students have ALL of their work with them. Because they own their iPads, the Evernote content goes with them. Even without the iPad, students can access their Evernote account from anywhere and continue using it. Parents can also easily access and view student ePortfolios using Evernote.

Gooru: Fantastic new education search engine

July 12, 2012July 12, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5791 views

What it is: Gooru is a education search engine for learning that helps teachers find standards aligned content and study guides. 5th-12th grade math and science topics are covered and include resources like digital textbooks, animations and instructor videos. Gooru provides a place to connect with your worldwide personal learning network to share and ask questions. Gooru is not just for teachers, students can use the study guides and self assessments to guide learning. Based on the topics studied and the performance on self-assessments, Gooru begins to suggest resources and study guides to help gain mastery.

Gooru takes advantage of OER (Open Educational Resources) so that all content delivered can be accessed free of charge.

You can explore Gooru through resources, collections, quizzes, a standards library or a search engine.

How to integrate Gooru into the classroom: Gooru is a great step toward helping you personalize the learning experience for your students. Use Gooru to find resources for your classroom and for individual students. Invite students to create their own logins so that they can setup Gooru to be tailored to their specific needs. As they study and take quizzes, Gooru gets “smarter” and begins to recommend content for them.

Gooru is ideal in a 1 to 1 classroom set up. If you don’t have 1 to 1 access, much of the content can be shared using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Because of the nature of Gooru, it could be a great addition to the flipped classroom model.

Tips: Gooru is currently in beta, sign up to help them test it out and make it better today!

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

Project PLN Call for Articles! #projectPLN #edchat

July 10, 2012July 13, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4066 views

It’s that time again! Project PLN is ramping up for another year of sharing. We took a little time off for the summer to re-charge our batteries (and let you recharge yours).

What is Project PLN? A collection of articles written by members of our PLN (Personal Learning Network-that’s you), on a common theme, all in one place. Project PLN is an opportunity to get to know more passionate educators, and hear new voices. It is a chance for us to connect and think and dream together. We are excited to begin another year of Project PLN in August.

The focus of our August issue is Back to School Tips. Over the years we have all discovered tips and tricks that help us make the start of the year a little easier. I am often learning new tips from others and always have the same reaction: duh, why didn’t I think of that?! This is our chance to share and get some new ideas. We are looking for articles (this could be a blog post you’ve already written) from anyone involved in education. You can be a teacher, classroom assistant, principal, hall monitor, superintendent, coach, or Sir Ken Robinson. We want you to share your best ideas with the rest of us!

We publish everything we receive that follow these guidelines:

Email the article, or link to the article to ProjectPLN10@gmail.com
Please include a small bio that includes any links to your blog, Twitter handle, and other information you would like to share. A picture is encouraged (we like seeing you!) but not required.
You can send us a new piece or a blog post you wrote ages ago. A good idea is a good idea!
All posts need to be submitted by Friday, August 17, 2012. We are hoping to make the issue live on August 21, 2012.
If you work for an online degree program…no need to submit anything. This isn’t an opportunity to advertise. We won’t post your stuff, so don’t bother!

That’s everything, we look forward to seeing your best tips and tricks for starting a school year.

Thanks!

Kelly and Nick (@ktenkely and @thenerdyteacher)

ProjectPLN Editors

10 ways to eliminate the distractions around YouTube videos

June 13, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments5177 views

What it is: YouTube is a truly wonderful learning resource. What isn’t so great: all of the garbage that can come along with it (i.e. advertising, comments, related videos…in short-distractions). Luckily, schools have some great options for using YouTube differently. Some of these tools I have written about before and some are new additions…hence the new post! 🙂

YouTube for Schools- This is a YouTube that has been created just for schools. Network administrators must be involved so that they can add this option for YouTube into your filtering system. This is a completely customizable option that lets teachers and administrators add videos to a playlist that you have predetermined you want students to watch. Teachers can find videos by Common Core Standard, subject or grade. Students can watch videos that teachers and administrators have approved or any YouTube Edu video (think Kahn Academy, PBS, TED, Stanford, etc.).
SafeShare TV- This site lets students watch YouTube videos without ads, links, comments and related videos. You also have the option to crop videos and share videos with a unique URL.
YouTubeXL- This is a service that YouTube provides that lets you watch videos on large screens without the ads and comments. Neat tip: if you time “quiet” before the YouTube url, it takes you to a safe page where you can watch a YouTube video. WAY cool and easy to do on the fly!
Clean VideoSearch- This site lets students search through YouTube videos without the comments, ads and busy sidebar. It has additional features like the ability to choose how many videos you want to see on each page in your search.
Clea.nr– This service (a browser plugin) deletes all of the obnoxious extras that hang around videos (ads, comments, related videos). You can also search YouTube without all of the extras showing up.
ViewPure– This site cleans out all the clutter and gives you just a video. Bonus: There is a quick button that you can add to your browser so that you can go to a video, click on “Pure” in your bookmark bar and instantly have a clean video.
Dragontape– This service lets you drag videos into a timeline and share them easily with students. This is great for mashing up several videos, or cropping multiple videos into one.
Movavi– This is a video conversion service. Wonderful for teachers who can’t or don’t want to access a video directly from YouTube. Copy/paste the url you want to convert, choose a file type, done!
Zamzar– This is another great video conversion service. Works quickly and easily!
SaveYouTube- This site used to be called KickYouTube. Here you can enter the url and download it to your computer to play offline.

How to integrate less distracting YouTube videos into the classroom: This one is really a no brainer: want to use YouTube? Clean it up! I find great content I find on YouTube (as do my students). All of the “extras” around the videos can be SO distracting as a searcher and viewer. These options are outstanding for making videos less distracting so that your students can focus on the learning happening.

I find that students head to YouTube (even before Google) when they want to learn something new. They are generally pretty successful at finding a video that will teach them how to do what they want to do. Very handy for self guided learning!

Tips: Always try these tools out at school BEFORE using with students. Some of them won’t work depending on your school’s filters and policies.

Leave a comment and share how less distracting YouTube videos are rocking your classroom.

Google World Wonders Project

June 4, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4552 views

What it is: Google has a way-cool new project called the World Wonders Project. Thanks to Google, you can now wander the Earth with your students virtually to discover some of the most famous sites on earth. The site makes a great addition to the history and geography classroom and opens your classroom to the wider world. Not only are wonders of the modern world available, students can also explore wonders of the ancient world. Using the street-view technology from Google maps, Google has made wonders of the world available to all of us at any time. Themes include archaeological sites, architecture, cities and towns, historic sites, monuments and memorials, palaces and castles, parks and gardens, places of worship, regions and landscapes, and wonders of nature. When you explore a site, you get Google’s street view of the site, information about the site, YouTube videos related to the site and Getty images of the site. The result is a truly rich experience that will make your students feel like they have jet-setted around the world.

How to integrate Google World Wonders Project into the classroom: Google World Wonders Project is a fantastic way to help make your students more globally aware. The World Wonders Project lets students really explore and discover the world from the comfort of their classroom. Aside from actually getting to visit these places in person with your students, this is the next best thing! Understanding the world and features of the world that we live in is the first step in becoming more globally minded. Seeing different architecture and landmarks from around the world helps students to better understand the cultures and people who call those places home.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Google World Wonders Project is worth a hundred times more. Students can envision geography and history because they have a picture (that they can interact with), video, a story and a slideshow of Getty images. History comes to life when students can “put themselves” in the shoes of those who lived it. Geography is so much more tangible when it isn’t just a label on a map.

Building up global citizens is crucial. Below are three steps that can’t be skipped if students are truly to be globally minded:

Step 1: Encourage students to be global minded

Educational globe trotting is impossible without this important step. Students have to understand the overlaps in humanity. They have to be willing and open to learn not only about their own cultures, but also the perspectives, values, traditions and cultures of others.
Being global minded means that students know how to show empathy and compassion for others. It means that they know how to respect others ideas. Building global mindedness can feel like a chicken and egg scenario. Connecting your students with others globally is a great way to build global mindedness.Global mindedness truly begins in your classroom. Build a culture of caring, compassion, empathy and respect and it is easier to transfer to the wider world. Reflect often with students about feelings and attitudes. When students recognized the shared humanity in their own classroom, it is easier to understand that shared humanity in light of a larger world.

Step 2: Encourage students to be inquirers

Students who are inquirers are curious, they are willing and open to discover new learning. Kids are naturally curious, unfortunately in school we tend to “undo” this natural curiosity. We allow students only one line of inquiry (the one they have been given). We keep kids from asking additional questions (we don’t have time for that). We teach kids that there is one right answer (the one the teacher has). Without an inquisitive nature, being global minded becomes just another assignment to do. Deep connections with others aren’t made.

Step 3: Teach students to communicate effectively

It baffles me that this isn’t a larger focus in our schools. Communication makes everything else we do in life possible. Students have to learn how to represent their ideas and learning clearly with confidence. They must learn how to work with others, pausing long enough to hear the ideas of others.
There are two extremes that I often see in communication: 1. The student doesn’t believe that their ideas are worthy of words. They are shy or afraid of how they will be received. 2. The student finally gets the floor and doesn’t want to give it up. They want to talk and will go around and around with their ideas without letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. There is a balance here.

Google World Wonders is one way to help students understand other cultures, ideas and times. It can be explored by students individually on classroom or computer lab computers, or explored as a class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. If you teach young students, make this an experience. Set up your classroom like an airplane. Take tickets, have students “pack”, serve an inflight meal, watch an inflight video about the place being visited, create a Flight Day. When you land in your destination, students can explore the Google World Wonder assigned.

Google has some great teacher guides and educational packages to use with the World Wonders project. Check them out on the Education page!

Tips: I am leading a session in Adams 12 tomorrow about Global education. You can see the website I created with links I am sharing here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google World Wonders Project in your classroom!