Here are a few video tools for YouTube all teachers should know about:
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/
TubeChop - http://www.tubechop.com/ – Ever had a video on Youtube that you only wanted to show part of? This website helps with that.
- Find a YouTube Video you want to clip
- Copy the URL – and go to http://www.tubechop.com/
- Paste in the url into the provided box on the webpage
- Select video and choose “Chop It.”
- Choose the portion of the video you want to keep by dragging the markers on the beginning and end of the clip and click on “Chop It”
- The website then provide you with a link to your chopped video as well as an embed code to place that clip on a webpage.
Kick You Tube - – Download YouTube videos for future use. You have options on what format you want to save the video and downloaded videos can be stored on Thumb drives or DVD’s for access when the network is down or you don’t want to rely on streaming. Basically you type in the work “kick” in the url before”youtube” and follow the instructions.
A great tutorial on how to do this can be found at Tammy Worcester Tip of the Week.
YouTube to Mp3 Converter - http://www.video2mp3.net/ – convert video clips into mp3 clips. Good when looking for sound bites for instruction.
Tags: streaming video, video, YouTube
Making a poster, creating a model, or drawing a picture all help increase activity in the brain by having students take information in one form and transform it into another. Classroom Instruction that Works indicates that using nonlinguistic representations achieved a 27 percentile gain As a history teacher I also found those assignments more enjoyable to grade than essays where they students copied information from books and online resources without ever thinking about what they were writing.
So how to make use of this technique using technology? One way is Glogster.
What is Glogster EDU?
Glogster EDU is the educational version of the Glogster site. Teachers and students can design interactive posters that incorporate artwork, videos, music, links to other websites, wordles, etc.
Sample Math Glog:
Teachers are given 100 free student accounts to allow students to create their own glogs under the teacher’s account. User names and passwords are automatically generated and sent to the teacher’s account.
Finished products can be embedded into wikis, webpages, or teacherweb sites using the provided html embed code. You can also link to the glog itself.
The site provides background templates and frames to get you started in all sorts of themes.
See this glog on Glogster EDU for more info: http://thilby.edu.glogster.com/glogsteredu/
(Warning – make sure you are using the EDU version for your students. Glogs found on the original site may not be suitable for all audiences.)
Getting Started:
If you are ready to try this resource out, go to http://edu.glogster.com/register/ and register for an account.
For a step by step tutorial check out – Glogster Tutorial Page – by Traci Blazosky
Uses in the Classroom:
- Create a glog as the homepage for a class project with all the info.
- Using a projector use the glog as a the home base for your lesson or discussion in class.
- replace traditional poster board projects with a glog
- group images together to set the tone for a historical unit or a novel’s setting
- gather all the notes together for a math concept so the formulas and examples are all in one place.
- Create a glog to replace a research paper. (If they are copying all the info from online anyway – why not show them how to link to those sources and write a summary that introduces the link?)
Sample Glog for To Kill a Mockingbird:
Resources:
- Hooked on Glogster by Brenda Dyck
Tags: Glogster, graphic organizers, resources, visual
How do you get your student’s attention? We used to call this the anticipatory set, the hook or now the popular term is the engagement piece.
Consider showing this video to introduce a unit on Sharecropping and Cotton Production in Texas:
Set the stage by asking students to describe the images and the faces. How are the the same or different from their lives today? What assumptions can you make about life during that time?
Images are powerful. In our digital age students are used to seeing the images to help them identify and connect with the events being talked about. Think about how fast images can be broadcast about any event that is occuring.
How to Make Videos:
Animoto helps present those images in a way that is easy and interesting to your students.
Animoto is a web tool that allows users to create videos using your own images, video clips (up to 10 seconds) and music. You can also choose from their collection of music that includes tracks from popular artists. Animoto then analyzes the media you have chosen to create a custom video. Transitions and videos are adjusted to fit the music chosen.
Finished videos can be played from the website, embedded into other webpages (think wikis, blogs and teacherWeb), emailed out or uploaded to YouTube.
The best part is that now Animoto is providing unlimited access to educators. This means you can create unlimited videos with various lengths and your students can too.
To create your own Animoto Account for Educators go to: http://animoto.com/education
How can You Use these Videos in Class:
- Commercials for upcoming Events
- Book Trailers
- Videos of Class Field Trips
- Summarize a Class Project
- Interpret a Topic you are studying with images.
Remember these videos could be student created or teacher created.
Other Examples:
Creating avatars in education can help get the creative juices flowing and create safe images to post of the students online. Here is a list of ideas for using avatars in classrooms:
- Create book trailers with the avatars representing the characters
- Teachers can put their avatar in their powerpoints to get the kids attention.
- Create a new character and create a story about it. (Great for the Build Your Wild Self website)
- Write instructions on how to create a character – swap descriptions to see if they can recreate it
- recreate characters from the novel. What do you picture that they look like.
- All about Mii poems with picture of the avatar attached
- Use the avatar to represent the student online.
- Put the avatars in famous places and points in history. Have student write about the place and or event from a first person point of view.
Here are three kid-safe resources for creating avatars:
Mii Avatars
If you are a Wii user you have created a Mii before, the avatar that represents you in playing the games. There is online option to create Miis that can be saved as jpgs or png files. Export the avatar as a transparent png file and put yourself in famous places. by placing the Mii on top of a photograph. I’ve used PowerPoint for this since you can group the two images and then save the group as a picture file.
Create your own Mii – http://www.myavatareditor.com/
Directions to create famous Miis: http://www.miicharacters.com/
Lego Avatars:
Allows users to create a Lego Avatar complete with accessories custom and backgrounds. To save the creation you have to do a Print Screen and then paste into another application like PowerPoint to crop the image and save it as an image file.
http://www.reasonablyclever.com/mm2/mini2.swf
Become an Animal
Build Your Wild Self – Start off designing yourself as a human then you can add animal parts and set a background. Final Products can be printed with information about the creature you created and a name for your creature. Another option is to save a version as a desktop backgrounds. You can right click on the print version and save the image as well as doing the print screen option as with the Lego character.
This was really my favorite one as the art work is beautiful and the ties into science are amazing. One idea: Have students create a creature for their habitat and explain how that creature lives.
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I’ll be adding to my avatar resources at: http://www.diigo.com/user/robiny/avatars
Any other ideas for using avatars in class?
Tags: avatar, history, Language Arts, powerpoint, science, writing
What did I learn today? I think I will let the word cloud speak for me.
This was created with wordle from my google docs notes taken during my workshop today with Tammy Worcester.
Want to make a difference in your classroom? Let your students know how they are doing!
The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback. [Hattie, 1992]
According to Robert Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works -providing feedback to students can be the single most important change you make in your classroom. Research shows that:
- Feedback should be corrective in nature – Let’s students’ know why what they are doing is right or wrong.
- Feedback should be timely – the more the delay the less effective it is
- Feedback should be specific to a criterion – Focus on how they are doing based on the skill and not in relation to other students.
- Students can effectively provide some of their own feedback – Students can track as their learning occurs – ex. accuracy and speed
Technology can provide new and innovative ways to provide this for students.
- Rubrics
- Rubistar – free online rubric tool – can copy and paste rubric into Word for further editing.
- Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators – Assessment and Rubric Information
- Online Publishing - Blogs
- Polls
- Turning Points – Clickers – RRISD created tutorials for Turning Points – https://rrisd-teacherguides.wikispaces.com/TurningPoint+2006
- Quia - free 30 day trial version is available
- Survey Monkey
- Google Forms – create online quizzes for free. Responses are stored in a spreadsheet for further analysis. Must have a Google account.
- Poll Everywhere - create polls that participants can respond to via, text, twitter, smartphone, or web.
Note about Cell Phones: We are a ways away in our district from asking students to pull out their cell phones to text in answers, but this is a technology worth watching. The polls on Poll Everywhere allow for web voting as well. Polls can be embedded into webpages and blogs to see instant results, as well as downloadable PowerPoint slides.
I built some sample text polls with Poll Everywhere to test it out:
With the upgrade on campus from Office XP to Office 07 there was a need to
rewrite the directions on embedding YouTube into PowerPoint.
Embedding a video allows for the presenter to stay within the PowerPoint environment and to filter out the ads and info that may surround the video on the internet.
Here is a powerpoint with the YouTube Video linked and the video embedded: embed
Directions to Embed in PowerPoint 2007
Note: Your computer must have internet connection when showing the PowerPoint in order for the video to work.
- Look to see if the “Developer” ribbon is available on your toolbar. If it is NOT:
- click on the Microsoft Orb (see red arrow)
- Click on “PowerPoint Options” on the bottom of the window.
- Under the “Popular” tab check S”Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”
- Click “OK”
- Open the Developer’s Ribbon and click on the “More Controls” option in the Controls box.
- Scroll down and select the option “Shockwave Flash Object” and click “OK.”
- On the PowerPoint slide click the mouse and draw a box where you want the video to be.
- Right click on the box you have just drawn and select “Properties.”
- Open Internet Explorer and find the video you want to embed in your presentation:
- Copy the URL in the address bar by highlighting the address and Ctrl + C
- Return to PowerPoint
- Paste the URL in the Properties Box in the “Movie” section.
- Change the URL by:
-
- Delete the “watch?” portion of the address
- Replace the “=” with a “/”
- Example
- From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSVfYwdGSsQ
- To: http://www.youtube.com/ v/aSVfYwdGSsQ
-
- Other items to change in the Properties Box:
- Loop – If you want the movie to play through once and stop select “False”
- Playing – If you want the movie to start automatically when the slide loads – “True” – Otherwise change to “False” if you want to click on the movie for it to start.
- Save your PowerPoint.
- Run the presentation and you should see the movie begin.
Here are the directions with screenshots in pdf Form: Embed a YouTube Video into PowerPoint 2007
Tags: directions, embed, powerpoint, YouTube
The Winter Olympics are 10 days away. Soon the TV airwaves will be full ofwinter sports, some of which we only get to see every 4 years. So how can you incorporate this historic event into your classroom? I’ve gone through several websites (listed at the bottom of this post) and grouped some ideas into different subject areas to get us started thinking about it.
History:
- Research the history of the Olympics
- Compare and contrast the ancient Olympics with the modern day ones
- Research the customs of different teams at the Olympics or of the Host Country
- Tie Black History month in with the Olympics by researching African American Athletes – such as Jesse Owen and Muhamed Ali
- Character Education lessons
Science:
- Explore the engineering of a sport and the equipment that is used in the sport.
- Anatomy of an Athlete – what makes some people “super” athletes? Scientists study the human body to understand how it works and how athletes can be better
- Weather – track the weather throughout the area. What influences the weather in that region? What about the weather in that area makes it ideal for the Winter Olympics to be held there?
- Check out – http://www.lessonopoly.org/svef/?q=node/9086
Math:
- Chart the results of the games
- Use statistics from the games to work math problems.
- Measurement – How far is it to travel to the games? How much would it cost?
Language Arts:
- Write biographies of Olympic Athletes (past and/or present)
- Summarize the events of the game or the results of an event.
- Research a sport and how it has developed over the years.
- Cover an Olympic Event as a sports reporter
Art -
- create posters to illustrate the history of the game.
- Design icons for each event
- Design a tickets to events to represent Canada and the sporting event.
Resources:
- Education World – Countdown to Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games – great collection of lessons and links to complete the lessons
- EdGate Summer Games Ideas – Ideas can be transferred the the Winter events very easily. Many of the resources are not specific to the summer time
- Collection of Lessons Compiled by the Saskatoon Public School Systems – http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/resources/olympics/
- TeacherVision – Olympic Games – Resources for Teachers
- teAchnology – Winter Olympics Teaching Theme
More resources will be added here as I find them. Be sure to check this Diigo account as we get closer to the games for more ideas.
Diigo Account: http://www.diigo.com/user/robiny/olympics
Tags: history, Language Arts, lessons, math, Olympics, resources, science
I’ve found a few more resources/lessons that use the Super Bowl or football as the jumping point for the lessons and wanted to pass them on:
- Education World - http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson096.shtml – lessons for art, social studies, math and science based on football and the SuperBowl
- Lesson Planet – http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?media=lesson&keywords=football&commit=Search&grade=All+Grades&rating=3&gclid=CIGYpP73tZ8CFQUhDQodKC2r4Q - Football lesson plans
- Football Math – http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3150