Robin’s Technology Tips

This blog has moved.  My new address is:  www.robinstechtips.com.  Hope to see ya’ll in my new space.

Something I wish I had when I was teaching was a way to get instant feedback from students to see if they were “getting” what I was teaching, besides the look on their faces.  It would have been nice to know where I needed to stop and reexplain before the test came around.  New technology allows that to happen.  Student Response System translate those stares into answers.

 Student Response Systems are very useful in getting instant feedback about what students know and don’t know.  You can reteach concepts right then and there instead of waiting until the papers have been graded and analyzing the results.

Turning Points 2008 is a student response system that partners with PowerPoint in creating interactive slides.  So if you know PowerPoint, getting started with Turning Points is a relatively smooth transition.

I have created 3 video tutorials on the program, as well as a 2 page quick start guide for those who would like to get started or need a refreshers with the new upgrade.

Turning Points 2008 Quick Start Guide - word document

Turning Points – Part 1 – Setting Up a Template - Step one in getting set-up correctly is creating the template for your presentation. 

Turning Points – Part 2 – Creating Question Slides - Turning Points gives you various chart options and has some pre-made slides to choose from.

Turning Points – Part 3 – Users Lists and Session Data - Users lists let the program know who responded which answer to each question. 

The EduAide software – “Acces” has been upgraded to a much friendlier format.  You no longer have to have the manual and enter codes, you can browse the questions through the program itself.  This updated program was recently added on all the math teacher computers on campus.   Look for this icon on your desktop to access the program.

Instead of trying to schedule a time with everyone to show how it works, I created  a short video tutorial to help get you started.   

Math Acces Video Tutorial

 For more information and tutorials please see: http://www.educaide.com/support/howto.html

Graphic Organizers are a long time tool of teachers.  They are a great tool to be used in any subject area, fit a variety of learning styles and are well researched as to their effectiveness.  Robert Marzano talks about the effectiveness of using Advance Organizers in his book, Classroom Instruction that Works and A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works.   

When the information you are presenting is unfamiliar to students, and when the relationships among pieces of information are complex, you might want to present students with graphic organizers that have much, if not all, of the information already filled in.  Using this tool, students can develop a familiarity with both the information and the relationships among the pieces of information before the initial process begins.  (pg 285)

If you feel students will be able to understand new information on their own, you can provide them with blank organizers.  A blank organizer provides conceptual “hooks” on which students can hang ideas that might seem disconnected without the organizer. (pg 286)

I also like to use them as a note-taking sheet while researching online.  It is so much harder to plaguerize when students have to take short concise notes about what they are reading.

How to make Graphic Organizers? 

Inspiration is a great tool to create graphic organizers.  It has premade templates and can easily be modified to fit the situation needed.  Teachers could even create(or modify) a template and post it in a shared location for students to begin using as a starting point. Inspiration is a great brainstorming tool as a class or as an individual and can be switched from graphic format to an outline form with the click of a button.  I have included a quick start guide for Inspiration 8:   Getting Started Guide to Inspiration 8

 Publisher is another tool to use, but it has to be manipulated more than using Inspiration. Publisher 2002 User Guide

Why do or don’t you use graphic organizers in the classroom? 

On a side note: Listen to an interview with Robert Marzano about his new book The Art and Science of Teaching: http://shop.ascd.org/mp3/talk_with_robert_marzano.mp3

In my recent blog readings, I have come across the prevailing thought that the importance of blogging is not just to make your voice heard, but it is the ongoing conversation that happens after a blog/piece of writing has put out there and others comment back to extend the conversation.  It is not just the writing workshop process happening in the classroom, but it is taking it to the world.   When you have to clarify and defend what you say, you improve your ability to write with a clear focus on your audience and purpose in expressing yourself. 

Students who blog have a great opportunity to see their writing read by others and even get feedback on their thoughts and insights from “real-world” people and not just their teacher.   How powerful is it to know that anyone in the world can read what you wrote and make comments.  Remember – Comments can be moderated so that the not so helpful ones are not made public.  

What are some examples of student created blogs?  Here is a list taken from Will Richardson’s Book  Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom.

• learn how to blog – nothing better than a hands on experience for learning
• class writing assignments/ ongoing portfolio of writings - blogs would keep all the writing organized and students can look back over time and see how their writing has changed over the year.  This could also be a showcase of their best work.
• express opinions or insights about class topics – Blogging is not just for LA classes, students can give insight on:
  • history topics
  • pieces of music
  • what makes learning a new language hard
  • how science and math can be found in everyday life
  • write editorial pieces about current events
  • discuss class activities

Any other ideas? 

Once you have read a few blogs you may decide you want to start one of your own.   This technology tip is for teachers who want to begin a blogs.

Check out these blogs from math teacher Karen McLinden.  Students are asked to respond to a post during a specified amount of time.  Some are math topics and some are topics about recent events in the lives of the students.

What are other kinds of blogs that teacher’s have started?  Here is a list taken from Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom.

• Reflective Journal that focuses on:
  • Your teaching experiences – The good, the bad, the ugly.
  • Your own learning – Professional development – What do you do with those ideas?  Did they work?  What would you do again?  What would you never do again?  Have you seen a good teacher in action?  Advice that you need to remember.
  • Share your experiences – Give how-to’s for another teacher, Describe lessons that you taught and how they went, share technology integration that you have attempted.
• Class Blogs:
  • Literature Circles or online book clubs
  • Class related info – i.e. calendars, events, homework, supplies, wish-lists
  • Post questions on class topics for students to respond to – can focus on literature or skills
  • Post writing prompts and have students expand on them as part of their comments to you
  • Showcase student work  or provide example of good classroom work
  • Gather internet resources for class assignments
  • Link your class to another class in the world for a joint project or just an ongoing conversation

Any other ideas?  Please add your ideas in the comments section.

 This tech tip is not earth shattering and for many people it will be an “Of course, doesn’t everyone know that.” type of post, but believe me, not everyone does!  And anything that makes life easier is worth sharing!

Did you know that you can copy a graphic from a pdf files and paste it into any other type of document that you wanted?  This was something that I recently figured out.  I had been spending all my time taking paper copies of pdf files and scanning them into my computer so I could grab the graphics from various presentations.  This can get old very quickly and I knew there had to be a better way, and there is.

 I was working with some teachers who were capturing the images in adobe and pasting them into their PowerPoint presentation.  They were using the “shapshot” tool.  Very easy to use, basically you select the tool, click and drag to highlight the area and it copies the info for you.  All that is left is to paste it in the new document.

I have created a short how-to video –  Snapshot Tool in Adobe  – to walk you through the steps of doing this.  I was very excited to know I no longer had to recreate all those diagrams, charts, maps and graphs or spend many hours at the scanner.   This is my new favorite shortcut. My only question is, “Why didn’t I know about this sooner?” 

This week my husband and I were watching American Idol and were wondering who orginally sung the song being preformed.  So I got online and googled the song.  Within seconds we were watching the original artists preform the song on YouTube.  We were also linked to other artists who had sung the song and were able to find the version and artist that we knew best.  No digging out old albums or cassette tapes, it’s all at your fingertips.

Finding video content online is a not difficult anymore.  With the advent of UnitedStreaming, YouTube,  and other streaming media you can find video of almost anything you want any time you want and are incorporating that into your teaching.  But what if you can’t find what you are looking for?  What if you have footage of something cool that you want to share with the world?  Maybe you want to get your students attention by posting the instructions in a way that is accessible to them anytime and anywhere.   

This week’s tech tip focuses on creating the video files, where to host the files online and how to make them easily accessible to your students.   To create the video I suggest PhotoStory if you are going to narrate pictures or a PowerPoint.  For video MovieMaker is easy to edit footage, add titles and add music.

Webcams now include software to turn yourself in to an avatar (think cartoon character) and you can record you voice and facial expressions to give directions to your students.  (See the example below.)   Something different to catch those middle school minds!

Once videos are created they can be embedded into a wiki, blog, or linked from your TeacherWeb page.  The advantage of being able to embed the video is the students never leave the page to view the content.

Here is a sample of a teaching video. 

Download Video: Posted by robiny at TeacherTube.com.

(The shark in the video was created with a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000.  Only certain Logitech Webcams will create the cartoon images of the narrator.  Check the back of the box if you are looking for this feature.  We have purchased one of these and it is available for use.)

Some Ideas for Teaching Videos:

• Science labs – capture the process for students to refer back to or for students who were absent
• Introduce a unit for your students that they can refer back to
• Explain hard to get concepts or problem solving skills step by step 
• Create a video to provide background info for a unit 

How can you see using this in your classroom?  Leave your ideas in the comments section.  Also leave your guesses as to who the voice of the shark is in the video. 

Get Students in on the Act:
Creating the videos can also be a task for the students.  When students create multimedia presentation they use their writing skills.  The key to a good presentation is writing a good script and storyboarding. Organization of ideas is essential because if the ideas are not organized, the presentation will also not be organized.  

What Multi Media Presentations Do Well:

• Gives voice to student work
• Creates visual interest in a subject
• Can be turned into a vodcast (more on this in future posts).

Ways MultiMedia Presentations are being Used in Education:

• Newscast about historical events
• Advertisements
• Reports about countries
• Teach a subject to another class
• Book reports

Free Software to create multi-media presentations:

• Movie Maker – edits video and add transitions, titles, etc.
• PhotoStory 3 – makes a slide show out of your pictures. – Add narration and pan and zoom effects. Good for student made documentaries, presentations.  

Once you have your video created, you need a place to keep that video that students, parents, etc can access easily.  I suggest www.teachertube.com. Why use TeacherTube to host your videos?  It’s free!  The storage space is unlimited.  It’s free.  The purpose of the site is to host and share educational videos.  Links to other videos should not be inappropriate for your students. Did I mention it’s free with unlimited space?  YouTube and Google Video contain videos clips that may nto be appropriate for our kiddos to see.  So please don’t tempt them by hosting your video there!  So choose wisely!

For the step by step how to’s on uploading to teacherTube and embedding videos into wikis and blogs – got to TeachWiki.

If you have an idea of what you might want to do, but need help getting there, let me know and we can make it happen! 

Let’s start  with the difference between a blog and your TeacherWeb page.  A blog allows for users to comment and keeps all posts stored in chronological order.  Blogs are also searchable and can be “tagged” with keywords for easy access to previous information.  For instance, in a few months from now you think, “Oh yeah – Robin emailed us something about blogs.”  You can come to this blog and search using the word “blog” and this post will come up.  Users can also subscribe to your blog and get notified every time something new is posted without you having to send out the info.

 In education blogs are great at :

• easy publishing
• self-expression
• personality
• forces writer to think about the audience
• peer feedback
• chronology
• community of learners

Examples of use in education:

• Teacher’s Web Page
• Learning Journals – reflect on one’s own learning
• Create historical diaries – each day’s post equals day in character’s life
• Create fictional diaries – choose a character from the book and write a diary from that person’s point of view – respond to events in the book
• Publish Book – a chapter a day
• Collaborate with different classrooms
• Role Plays – Students are assigned various roles and post blogs from their view point.

So where do you begin?  Start by reading some blogs.   Technorati is a blog search engine that tracks millions of blogs on all sorts of topics.  Check out your favorite websites, see if any of them have links to blogs.   Comment on the blog and see what happens.  Being part of this community is to not only read or consume the information, but to also add back to the knowledge base of other reader’s.  You are more than welcome to comment back on this blog at any time!

Next, subscribe to a few blogs to begin being a member of the blogging community.  Blogs can be subscribed to through a number of free online readers, and sometimes you can get notification through email.  If you are interested in setting up a reader, let me know and we will get you started.   Here are some suggested educational blogs to subscribe to:

You are now well on your way to becoming a blogger yourself.  Setting up your own blog is easier than ever and is completely free!  If you are ready for this step, let me know and I can come get you started.  I currently recommend edublogs as it is free, easily customizable, made for educators and contains no ads.

Happy blogging!

Further Reading:

• http://www.edutopia.org/blogging-history – article about a class blog project
• Recent article that shows writing improves with blogging: “Learning with Weblogs” by Helen S. Du, Christian Wagner at City University in Hong Kong.

I have been trying to send out various podcasts in hopes of inspiring you to become listeners of what is happening online.  Ridgeview will be launching it’s own podcast forum in the next few weeks (look for it before Spring Break).

 In getting away for a few moments from education I thought this week I’d show you how the presidential candidates are using this new technology by making their speeches and stances on issues available through the internet and podcasts. You can subscribe to these so you can be up to date on all the latest in the political arena. As always, be careful when looking for resources to check out the spin that might be there and see who is hosting the files.

If you would like to learn how to subscribe to podcasts or blogs of any sort, please email me and we can maybe set up a class (before or after school) to teach you how to do this. There are some great education ones, current events, technology, sports, basically anything you can think of!

Campaigns and Candidates

• Presidential Candidates Audio and Video Resource
• Candidate netcasts

Specific Candidate Audio/Video Resources:

• Obama  – http://www.digg.com/podcasts/U_S_Senator_Barack_Obama_Podcast_2
• Clinton – http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/index.cfm
• McCain  – http://instapundit.com/archives2/012988.php
• Huckabee  – http://instapundit.com/archives2/010016.php

To find more, just type in the candidates name and podcasts into Google.  Remember – please don’t send students to do this as they aren’t great yet in discerning good info from bad.

Disclaimer: By sending these out I am in no way endorsing any candidate, just trying to show you what the possibilities are in finding resources on line for your personal and professional development.