VoiceThread

VoiceThread Course Reflection

a. I learned a lot about what being a connected educator really means from this course. Specifically speaking, I learned how powerful these connections can be. Acquiring power for my students and myself is made so simple through the many tools I have at my fingertips. I can instantly connect with other educators via Twitter, listen to new ideas from professionals with podcasts and YouTube videos, and make my own voice heard through these same tools as well as blogging. I aim to be an educator who is always moving forward and trying new things and the tools and knowledge I am able to take away from this course will aid in that mission. I have already been able to introduce my students to new types of video projects in my classroom!

b. I am most excited about Blogger and iMovie and the many resources I have been able to take away about how to incorporate them both into my classroom. My students are familiar with Google tools and resources so the fact that I can expand on that knowledge with the Blogger is great for me. I am not sure exactly how I want to approach the concept of student blogging in the classroom, but I know that it is a concept we will explore for next year. Right now I'm thinking making it the place for our "bell ringers" where students will be asked to write about certain topics, but then given some creative freedom as well. I cannot wait to see the impact this has on their writing. 

Using iMovie to plan, record, publish, and edit videos for this course was eye-opening. I am not scared or too intimidated by the process now to tackle it with my students. There are so many possibilities for student projects with iMovie and I look forward to discovering some of them right away.

c. I intend to continue using multimedia tools in my classroom by revamping and supplementing the curriculum I already incorporate with tools such as iMovie, Animoto, Screencasts, VoiceThread, and Blogging for both instruction and student projects. I am excited to both experiment and create with these tools in the near future! 

Curriculum Video

This video, all about Literature Circles and what goes into the process of making them in my classroom, was both challenging and rewarding. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different angles of pictures and video (and possibly stored some of these strategies in my mental rolodex for future Instagram posts.) The process of planning, recording, editing, and publishing videos is fun and doing so for this project has made this process less intimidating. This is great news for me as an educator because I want to assign my students video projects. Using iMovie, creating a storyboard, and becoming familiar with what makes an attractive video has brought that goal closer to a successful reality.

Free Technology for Teachers

Richard Byrne's blog, Free Technology for Teachers, is absolutely worth saving as a resource for the connected educator! He posts a plethora of really great blogs, websites, and apps for teachers to use in the classroom. His posts are not content specific as a whole, but vary in topic and subject.

It was certainly not difficult to get lost in my explorations of Mr. Byrne's blog, but one really fascinating post for me was the one on the Gauging Your Distraction Game; a game to show students the dangers of texting while driving. Recently, students in my Oral Communications class engaged in a debate about just this while composing their persuasive speeches. I'm excited to show this to my students and will introduce it as a resource they can use for their speeches. The fact that it is a game speaks for its appeal. Not only will it serve as a great resource in the classroom, but it could serve as a caution against a real danger that many of my students, who are also new drivers, are engaging in.

I'm also excited about Byrne's post, Three Tips for Planning Video Projects, because I have been looking for a way to do so in my classroom and this post gives some really great insight into how to go about this. I have only tried to assign a video project once and it did not go as hot as I would have liked. Since then, I have sort of shied away from the whole process. I would like to create this project again and with much less hesitation than before. I think Byrne's tips, which include keeping it short and sweet, having students create a draft, and identifying what you're going to assess, will allow me to do just that.

There is so much more where these resources came from. Richard Byrne's blog is a real treasure trove for teachers of all grades and content areas. After discovering his blog, I think that I could create a blog for my students to access for resources. This would be an incredible way to encourage their educational technology use while improving my own. In a blog for my students, I could include resources for them to choose from for particular projects which would also be a move in the right direction of becoming more student-centered, which is always a goal of mine. It could also be a place where I could share suggested resources for particular class discussions and assignments, instruction for homework, and/or my own or previous student examples of projects and assignments for students to explore. There are really so many possibilities for a blog in the classroom!

Screencast

I love watching screencasts that other people have created when I am lost and trying to do one thing or another on the internet! For this reason, I am beyond excited to have just created my own with the Google Chrome Extension Screencastify. With this tool, I can connect with my students from anywhere and give details on assignments via learning management systems and even social media. Not only that, but I can create screencasts with directions for how to access certain educational settings for the benefit of my students and their parents. These screencasts will give students the power over their own learning, and right at their fingertips!

PowToon

Besides Animoto, I had the opportunity to create with PowToon this week. I made a movie for my freshmen to use to study this week's vocabulary words. There are really a lot of possibilities for PowToon in the classroom. Students could use to create their own illustrations for vocabulary, animated book trailers, or even to publish and animate their own written work. I also really like the idea of students narrating or recording over their creations. I can see using PowToon for research projects as well, where students will create informational presentations and will be forced to apply themselves as they could be asked to read and record the information they collect and include that in the project. PowToon is a great alternative to PowerPoint presentations and could either replace or supplement student writing for many assignments in the classroom.

To create with PowToon, you must sign up for an account, but it is free. It also syncs with Google, so I was able to simply click the Google button in order to create my account. I would advise students to do the same as our school accounts are through gmail and it is the most simple way to go about logging in. Upon logging in, PowToon walked me through a quick and easy tutorial for how to navigate the different tools in the software, which was very helpful.

I think this particular multimedia tool is appropriate for the high schoolers that I teach. It may be a little complicated for students in younger grades, but I have learned not to underestimate students and technology in the classroom. So, as an educator, I think it is whatever you are comfortable with using in your classroom.

After I added all the content I wanted into my presentation, I went in and added an audio file from PowToon and it worked out great since I was not needing specific timing for this particular project. However, a suggestion I would make to future users is to decide on an audio file beforehand so that it is simple to match slides as they are created. This is especially true if the the user is wanting to record his or her own audio.

 Happy creating!

Animoto

Of Mice and Men Book Trailer

 I have only ever used Animoto outside of the classroom, but I have always been impressed with how

simple and efficient it is to create a video using this tool. I think this is something my students could navigate easily and really enjoy using to create original projects. I like the idea of having students use Animoto to create book trailers, like the one I put together here for the novel, Of Mice and Men. I could also use Animoto at the beginning of a unit when I ask students to find anticipatory information about a novel, author, or setting, etc. Another great use could involve student's vocabulary words. Students could create videos to illustrate their vocabulary words and possibly use as a study tool. For my oral communications classes, students could create brief videos that would supplement their speeches. Really, there are so many possibilities and I look forward to implementing Animoto and exploring some of those possibilities in my curriculum and with my students. 

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