learning – Page 9 – iLearn Technology

Video Search in 3D and Create Playlists in 1 Click!

April 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3548 views

What it is: Video Search in 3D is a neat way to search for, and find, videos. Search videos by keyword and instantly get a 3D “globe” of video results. With the click of a button you can create a playlist of videos to be watched.

How to integrate Video Search in 3D into the classroom: Video Search in 3D would be a great way to search for and create playlists of videos for students and teachers. Create playlists for students to access on classroom computers as a digital-media learning center. These can be videos centered around a science concept, phonics rules, a period of history, math, foreign language or anything else that students are studying. For example, for language arts you might search “School House Rock”. During your writing block, students can visit the media learning center (your classroom computers) to learn more about grammar and parts of speech.

You can also use Video Search in 3D to create play lists for professional development opportunities. There are SO many outstanding educational videos available. Search videos by keyword or speaker and create an instant playlist. I started a Webspiration Wednesday lunch group at my school where I played inspirational videos in the library during lunch. I invited all the staff to bring their lunches to the library where we would watch and discuss inspirational educational videos. Mid-week video inspiration is just what the doctor ordered to put some pep back into your step!

Tips: Because this is a search engine, I wouldn’t let young students loose to search whatever they want until a teacher has previewed it.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Video Search in 3D in your classroom!

Virtual book club: Readicide

April 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4238 views

What: The Michigan Reading Association is hosting an interactive virtual book club for anyone to join via Facebook. This is an opportunity to network with educators around the world and take charge of your own professional development. The first book is Readicide by Kelly Gallagher (who will be hosting the book club with the Michigan Reading Association). If you aren’t familiar with this book, you can read a post I wrote when the book was first released here. The idea behind the virtual book club is to give educators a place to connect with others, share ideas, reflect and improve your classroom.

Where: It is easy to join just click to view the Facebook invitation and select “I’m Attending.”

When: The book club will meet during the month of May. Login whenever you are available to browse posts and conversations and add your own thoughts. Each week there will be a post that outlines a general road map that chunks chapters so we are reading and reflecting at a similar pace.

How: Purchase Readicide, view Kelly’s website and follow him on Twitter, “attend” the facebook invitation, let the fun begin!

I really enjoyed reading Readicide and look forward to reading it again-this time with friends to reflect with! Who else will be joining us?

Thank you to Erin for inviting me!

Students Rebuild: Paper Cranes for Japan

March 30, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3547 views

What it is: As news of Japan’s tsunami and earthquake(s) continues to roll in, students may be feeling overwhelmed by the devastation of it all. Following natural disaster current events can give students (and adults) a real sense of helplessness. As adults, we often ease this by donating money or time. What do students do to make an impact? Today I learned of a truly wonderful site called Students Rebuild from a tweet from my friend @MZimmer557. Students Rebuild is a site that helps students around the world connect, learn, and take action on critical global issues. There are a few projects that students can get involved in currently:

1. Haiti- building stronger, permanent schools in Haiti. This is a call to action for middle and high school students to rebuild strong, permanent schools in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Students and educators create a team to raise money. Any money raised is matched dollar-for-dollar up to $2,500 per team.

2. Japan-folding cranes to support rebuilding in Sendai. This is a way for young students to take action. “Through a simple, powerful gesture of making and mailing in a paper crane, students worldwide are promoting hope, healing, and triggering dollars for reconstruction ($2 for each crane received).”

Students Rebuild gives students the opportunity to connect to a global community, learn about the challenges of a natural disaster, and do something real to make a difference.

In addition to the Rebuild challenges, educators can use Student Rebuild to connect students with others around the world. The site helps build that global learning community Interactive video conferencing encourages two-way dialogue and emotional connections. Webcasts between Haiti and multiple schools around the world engage, and inspire. (Learn more on the “Educators” page)

How to integrate Students Rebuild into the classroom: Register your class to take part in one of the Students Rebuild activities. The newest way to take part is through the Paper Cranes for Japan project. Students Rebuild partnered with DoSomething.org to give students worldwide a way to support their Japanese peers. Start by watching the video of how to make paper cranes on the Students Rebuild website. Take a photo and upload it with a message to the Paper Cranes for Japan Facebook Page. Mail the finished paper cranes to Students Rebuild to turn those cranes into dollars for reconstruction and an art installation. This would be a great project to take on as a class. Don’t stop there, encourage your students to make more paper cranes. They can have a paper crane party, or encourage their families to join in on the paper crane creation. Download the one-page flier to send home with students.

Using Students Rebuild projects in your classroom is a great way to teach students about our global community, empathy, current events, and give students a way to make a difference.

Tips: Be sure to check out the comprehensive toolkit on the Students Rebuild site. In the toolkit you will find photos, videos, posters, fact sheets, logos, media coverage, and fundraising tips.

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

Class Blogs: Blogging, virtual classroom, LMS, and more!

March 28, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4815 views

What it is: Class Blogs is a fabulous new way for you to easily create and manage FREE classroom blogs! What makes Class Blogs so wonderful are all the extras that are built in. For example, with Class Blogs you can create a virtual classroom space. With just a few simple steps, you can create an online meeting space for your students to learn and discuss in. Blogs can be used to post assignments; when you post an assignment to your teacher blog, students can submit the assignment and a pingback will be sent to your blog. Class Blogs even has features that utilize SMS so that you can send a text message to students and the ability to host lesson plans complete with supporting resources! Class blogs really offers more than just a blogging platform, it offers many Learning Management System (LMS) solutions making it a great all-in-one tool! Here are just a few of the ways you can use Class Blogs:

Class Blogs – Teachers and students can create blogs to help facilitate classroom learning or the blog can be an extension of the classroom conversation.

Learning Logs – Learning logs are sites created by teachers for the purpose of creating online assignments for students. Students can then answer the questions and submit the assignments once they are completed.

Learning Management System (LMS) – Teachers can create a blog and use it as a learning management system. Teachers can post online courses and students can submit their assignments (through blog posts) for the course online as well. These assignments can be viewed by the instructor, the instructor can submit feedback, and the instructor can grade the student’s assignment online. Both the teacher and his/her students must have blogs in order to create a successful LMS.

Electronic Portfolio (E-Portfolio) – An e-portfolio is a valuable learning and assessment tool which includes but is not limited to a collection of resources and accomplishments that represent the individual. Moreover, it is the author’s personal reflection on the work included in the e-portfolio that creates a meaningful learning experience.

Web Conferencing/Virtual Classroom – Teachers/professors have the ability to create meeting rooms or virtual classrooms from the backend of their site. You can upload your presentations, chat with students, public/private chat, webcam, and even share your desktop.

How to integrate Class Blogs into the classroom: Class Blogs has features that make it wonderfully useful for any classroom. Blogging gives your students a place to write where they have an authentic audience. An audience of one (the teacher) is SO 1995. To limit your students to that audience is a disservice. I find that when my students write in blog form, the enthusiasm to write increases, the richness of language increases, and the ideas are communicated clearly. Obviously that is a bit of a generalization, I have also had students who don’t want to post for an audience, it makes them nervous to reveal themselves to their classmates in that way. I let those students blog about topics they are “experts” on as they are building confidence in their learning process. Students can blog to reflect on learning; write creatively; write as if they were a historical character, famous inventor, or a favorite literary figure; to chronicle learning (e-portfolio style); or to invite others on a journey of inquiry with them.

Using this type of social media in the classroom is important. It helps students learn digital citizenship, Internet safety, and netiquette in an authentic environment that goes beyond the rules and actually lets them practice it.

The additional features of Class Blog make it the perfect place to organize your classroom. Post assignments in Class Blogs as a learning log, as students respond, your original post will get a pingback making it easy to track students progress. Class Blog also makes it easy to extend learning beyond the four walls of your classroom using the virtual classroom features. Create meeting rooms to extend classroom discussions, offer additional learning support, or as a place to prepare students for learning. Class Blogs makes it easy to include podcasts, videos, webcams, private chat areas, desktop sharing in your virtual classroom.

Tips: Class Blogs does not have an age requirement, this means that it is available to k-12 (and beyond) education. Registration does require an email address. If your students do not have email addresses, you can create accounts on their behalf. With Class Blogs you can create unlimited class and student blogs, unlimited free classes/courses, and unlimited free virtual classrooms. Be sure to check out the feature page for a comprehensive list of the awesome features on Class Blogs, you won’t believe what all is included!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Class Blogs in your classroom!

Diipo and Edmodo: A Social Network for Classrooms

March 24, 2011Kelly Tenkely13 Comments5058 views

What it is: If you’re like me, you can think of hundreds of ways that social networks could be used positively in the classroom. The problem: most of us can’t access said networks in our classrooms-blocked by over zealous filtering! Not to worry, there are some great classroom alternatives including Diipo and Edmodo.

Diipo is a social network created specially for education. I learned about this particular tool from @nottil, a high school student in Virginia (thanks @nottil!). Diipo makes it easy to communicate with your students, connect with other educators, and other classes. The interface is similar in feel to a Facebook or Twitter making it easy for students and teachers to pick up and start using right away. We are talking LOW learning curve here. Diipo has dashboards and apps that keep students up-to-date, help them get questions answered, and let them collaborate on blogs and group projects. Workpages keep students organized from project to project. Direct messaging features let students start a private conversation with classmates and teachers. Online project notebooks let students work together and share the information they collect in one, centralized location. An educator community lets teachers share best practices, educational content, brainstorm for collaborative projects, and pen pal programs between classes. A class roster makes it easy for teachers and students to communicate with each other. A built in microblogging platform lets students start a conversation, ask questions, and actively participate in class discussions. Students can build blogs directly in Diipo to share thoughts, reflect on learning, and write collaboratively. Teachers and students can upload and share documents, links, and resources with classmates or the entire class. Every conversation and post is archived and searchable making it easy to catch up or find something later. Students can also tag messages, content, and workpages to make it easier to organize and find content. The Diipo platform is wonderfully all-inclusive! Diipo is intended for students 13 years and older.

Edmodo is a social networking platform for classrooms that has been around longer. Edmodo is a free, secure social network for teachers, students, and schools. It provides classrooms with a safe way to connect and collaborate by offering them place to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. Edmodo is accessible in any browser and from any mobile device. Like Diipo, Edmodo allows teachers to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade classwork, share resources and materials, and network and exchange ideas with peers. Edmodo does not have an age limit, students under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian read the terms of service prior to use. To learn more about how Edmodo came to be, take a min to watch the video below:

While Diipo is in beta, Edmodo has stood the test of time and is used in classrooms around the world.

How to integrate Diipo and Edmodo into the classroom: Social networking is a wonderful way to support your students in their learning. It is also a way for students to take charge and support their own learning by collaborating with classmates. Use Diipo or Edmodo to organize your class, support students, connect students in a collaborative study group, and to share materials with your students. This is a great one-stop-shop for classroom communication and resources. Upload lessons and handouts, websites and links used in class, videos, and any other materials students may find useful to Diipo or Edmodo. Use the Diipo blogging platform to encourage your students to write for an audience, reflect on learning, continue class discussion, and write collaboratively.

Both Diipo and Edmodo promote anytime, anyplace learning-reinforcing once again that learning happens outside of the four walls of the classroom.

Using social networks in the classroom provides you with the opportunity to model proper use of social networking, digital citizenship, and teach Internet safety in an authentic environment.

Tips: Edmodo has excellent support and training, be sure to sign up for their free webinars!

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

Teacher Tuesday: Sir Ken Robinson, Learning Without Frontiers

March 22, 2011March 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment12531 views

Sometimes it is important to just take a minute for yourself. I know as teachers we aren’t very good at doing that, so today I am giving you an excuse…after all, it is #teachertuesday! Last week Sir Ken Robinson spoke at Learning Without Frontiers, the resulting video is a must watch. Go grab yourself a snack, put your feet up and prepare to be inspired and challenged!

I am currently working on a platform (Learning Genome) that will make it possible to personalize learning for every student, so as soon as Robinson went there I was all ears. Here is a break down of that portion:

Education must be personal because children are individuals. All children have different aptitudes, interests, and passions. It is our duty to connect children with their own sense of possibility.
Human resources are like natural resources, they are often buried deep and have to be exposed.
We don’t know what we are capable until we have the opportunity to find out.
A narrow (boxed) curriculum cuts off opportunities because talents have been segregated off from the curriculum.
Students conclude that they aren’t good at anything because they don’t find success in the narrow scope of what is required of them.
Personalized education puts children in touch with their real capabilities, gives children a sense of creativity, and gives students a sense of confidence.
Education must be personal, economic, and cultural.

What challenges do you find in personalizing learning for your students? Do you believe personalizing learning is important enough to take on that challenge?

Sophia: learning made social

March 18, 2011March 18, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4417 views

What it is: Sophia is a site that I have been playing around with for the past few months in their invitation only, beta space. Now that the beta has been released to everyone, I’m excited to share it! Sophia is a platform that connects teachers, learners, experts, and parents. This is an academic community that supports and enriches the traditional classroom. Sophia is a social network of sorts that connects everyone in meaningful ways so that knowledge, help, instruction, standards-aligned content, and experts are available for learners everywhere. As an educator, Sophia will help you to share your knowledge and make it available to anyone, anywhere. Sophia can help students by offering them support in areas of weakness, opportunities for deeper learning, and the ability to follow areas of interest that aren’t being met in the classroom. Currently the Sophia subjects include the arts, business, English/language arts, learning strategies, mathematics, science, and social studies. Each of those subject contain several sub categories as well. Packets of learning can contain text documents, slide shows, videos, and useful links. In addition the packets are rated by users as to how academically sound the resource is. Individual users of Sophia get scores based on how well they contribute to the community.

How to integrate Sophia into the classroom: As a teacher, Sophia can be used to supplement instruction, for blended learning opportunities, for “flip” learning (remember that Fisch flip I mentioned earlier in the week?), and for private personal learning networks (PLN). Students can use Sophia for additional classroom support, homework help, to participate in study groups, and to help others in their learning. Use Sophia to facilitate study groups between students, to create an online learning community for your team to create and share resources, and to create groups that include other classrooms for collaborative learning opportunities.

Tips: Sophia is best for middle, high school, and college right now. I hope that they will scale this down for elementary students as well!

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

Fakebook and Twister- Create custom social media pages for learning

March 14, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments12036 views

What it is: I don’t know if you all noticed, but I have been on a serious social media kick lately. 🙂 There is just SO much for students to learn from the social media sphere. Last week (or was it the week before?) I shared that I had created a Facebook Template that could be used with students for creating a fake Facebook profile. Since then I have come across Fakebook created by teacher, @russeltarr. I have one word: Brilliant. Seriously this is the BEST Fakebook tool I have seen. It is simple to use. Just click and type. The profile pictures get pulled automatically based on the name that students type in. Especially good for literary and historical characters! The focus here really is on the learning that it enables, there are NO advertisements (unlike Myfakewall which I have deemed unusable because of all of the ads).

The other fake social networking tool I want to feature is called Twister. This is a fake Twitter wall that students can create just by filling in a few key bits of information like a username, the real name (this is what the photo pulls from), a status update, and a date. When students click submit, they have their very own fictional status update. Very cool!

These tools are fantastic for the classroom because they don’t rely on actual social network sites (which are often blocked by filters), they are not limited by age to use them, and they provide a fun way for students to reflect on learning. So neat!

How to integrate Fakebook and Twister into the classroom: These two teacher created tools are fantastic. They produce results that look like the real deal and were obviously created by teachers who understand that the focus should be learning and not the tool (or advertisements surrounding the tool). These fake profile/status creators are a wonderful way for students to learn about historical and literary figures in a manner that they can personally connect to. Students can create profiles or updates from the perspective of historical figures, literary characters, government, artists, composers, etc. Students can also use these tools to help them develop characters for their own writing.

Take a page out of the Grammaropolis book and have students personify things they are learning about like parts of speech. Students can create a profile for each part of speech. How about creating a profile page for math functions like Number Gossip does? Students could even practice dialogue in a foreign language using either tool.

Teaching your students netiquette? Let students create two versions of a Fakebook page, one with appropriate online interaction and another that “breaks the rules” to compare/contrast.

The Twister site only lets you create one status update at a time. This makes it really nice for memorializing famous or favorite quotes. These would be fun to print out and display on a bulletin board.

Tips: Students can save or print out their Fakebook page. To save, they will create a password and need to write down the unique URL for their page to access it at a later date.

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

We Choose the Moon

February 18, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4086 views

What it is: This site has been around for a few years, I am constantly using it with students and assumed (wrongly) that I had shared it on iLearn Technology. I think sometimes I use a site so often that I think that it is common knowledge or that I have already posted about it. I’m redeeming myself today and sharing the truly INCREDIBLE site, We Choose the Moon. The site drops students right into history where they get to witness, and take part in the Apollo 11 launch and mission. Time travel might not exist yet, but I’m telling you, this site is the next best thing. Students actually hear all of the chatter from Mission Control, control the launch, view all 11 stages of the mission, read mission transmission, and follow the mission in “real-time”. I cannot say enough about how truly awesome this experience is for students. At each stage, students can explore more in-depth by looking through actual pictures from the mission, videos (including JFK’s We Choose the Moon speech), and a “map” of the stages Apollo 11 took to get to the moon. I wasn’t alive to witness this piece of history first hand, but I can tell you that this interactive gives me goosebumps, makes me appreciate the giant leap that our country took, and makes me swell with pride. Not something a textbook can deliver.

How to integrate We Choose the Moon into the classroom: We Choose the Moon plops students right in the middle of the action. Students can experience this solo in a one-to-one computer lab setting where each has access to their own computer. Students can explore at their own pace and “rabbit trail” for more information as needed. My favorite use of this site is as a whole class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. The site has such a sense of nostalgia and it gives the opportunity to remember how the nation stopped and focused on the monumental moment in time. Children everywhere were riveted to their TV sets watching men being launched into space to travel to the moon. Students born after the era of the space race have a hard time recognizing just what an event this was. Viewing the site as a class gives students the opportunity to discuss the fashion, technology, and viewpoints of the day. It gives students the opportunity to “witness” history first hand as if they have traveled back in time. Take time to look through the photos, watch the videos, and reflect with students. Turn the interactive into a creative writing opportunity where students choose a view-point (of JFK, a child, an astronaut, someone in mission control, etc.) and write about their reflections and thoughts as they witness and are a part of this history.

Don’t be afraid to let your students “rabbit trail”, click here to see where students I worked with took the learning.

If you have students who are still crazy for more “moon” experience, check out Google Moon and NASA’s Moon virtual tour. I cannot get over how amazing technology is! Do you ever just stop and marvel at what we have at our finger tips? Wow.

Tips: Do you have parents or teachers who fail to see the brilliance of technology in the classroom? I defy any parent or educator to experience a site like this and not have their minds changed. This is one of those sites that upon stumbling on, I immediately sent to my dad. He LOVED it.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using We Choose the Moon in your classroom

YouTube saves the day: Busting Conspiracy Theories

February 18, 2011February 18, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4639 views

As you may remember, I am currently working to bring a school from zero technology integration to full technology integration in a one to one laptop setting. I am working alongside a WONDERFUL teacher who is eager to learn with her students. The school initially asked me if I would just teach this group of middle school students technology as a separate subject. I explained why I would rather work alongside the teacher so that both students and teacher could learn technology together and we could integrate it into the learning that was already happening in the classroom. They agreed and I am now working with the teacher to weave technology into the learning that is already happening in the classroom. On Fridays, I model how to use technology within the learning they are doing. Today the learning focus was astronomy. I had the students start out in Capzles where they are building an interactive timeline of the astronomy events that they are learning. Each time they learn about a new discovery, historical figure, or space mission, they add images, reflections, and information to their timeline. I have to say, the Capzles interface is turning out to be the perfect place for them to collect all of their learning and creations in one place!

Throughout the week, students are keeping a night sky observation journal on Capzles. Not only are they studying about historical figures who made astronomical discoveries, they are adding their own discoveries to the timeline. Capzles lets students add blog posts right within the timeline. Students are taking pictures, and writing about their observations, reflections, and questions as a nightly blog post. In addition to adding their pictures to Capzles, students will also be uploading their photos to Planet FOSS where they have the opportunity to view other students night sky observations and add their own.

Today I taught the students how to add a YouTube video to their timeline. I have to admit, this isn’t the one-step process I would hope for (either the ability to use the YouTube embed code or just copy/paste the link to embed). Students first searched for videos about the moon using NeoK12. Then they click on the YouTube link within the video so that they can view the video in YouTube. In front of the YouTube URL the students typed “kick” so that they could download the video to their computers. From here, they can upload the video to their Capzles. You can view my step-by-step instructions for that process here. Even though it isn’t a simple one-step process, it still isn’t difficult and it gave students the opportunity to practice downloading and uploading files- bonus tech skills that are built-in is always a good thing!

After students learned how to embed video, we headed over to the site We Choose the Moon. If you haven’t seen this site, it is a MUST. It has been around for a few years and is absolutely incredible. It drops students right into the Apollo 11 mission and gives them the chance to “re-live” that experience. The students were totally engaged and excited to look through the pictures, video, comment on the fashion of the day, how much technology has changed, etc. The dialogue as they explored and completed the interactive was incredible. This interactive let students travel back in time and made them feel as if they were witnessing history first hand. Incredible. Reading a text-account just can’t do an event like this justice. During the interactive one of the students casually mentioned that he didn’t believe that we had ever really been to the moon, he thought it was a conspiracy theory and started pulling up websites supporting his claim. This led to a lively class debate.

I remembered seeing a Myth Busters episode where they busted those moon landing conspiracy theories. I pulled up the YouTube video on my iPad for students and we watched as the Myth Busters busted each one of the conspiracies that the boy had found online support for. It was an AWESOME learning experience for all of the students as they learned about perspective, atmosphere, vacuums, and light.

You know what I love about technology? It spurs and enables learning experiences. Without technology in that classroom today, the conspiracy theory student might have mentioned the theories he had heard. Kids would have chuckled and rolled their eyes and that would have been the end of it. Because we had access to technology, the conspiracy theorist was immediately able to pull up evidence to support his claim. He even had some students who were initially rolling their eyes believing that the theories might be true. Other students immediately jumped in to support the opposing view, that Americans had indeed landed on the moon. This is authentic learning at its best. Students practiced searching, taking a position, forming a persuasive argument, debating, and going through the scientific process of hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion. None of this was in our learning plans for the day… it was SO much better than anything I could have planned. We were able to immediately pull up a Myth Busters episode on YouTube (yet another example of why filtering policies need to be re-thought!). The class ended with students making plans to re-create some of the Myth Buster experiments so that they could see the outcomes first hand.

Today reminded me of why I am passionate about technology in education. It also reminded me of why I love learning.

Best quote of the day from a student: “This is cool, I thought we would just learn about technology, I didn’t know we were actually going to get to use it.”

What a novel thought, using technology as a tool to learn.