As a teacher I'm always looking for new and interesting ways to teach lessons. I'm looking for lessons where students do the work and I'm merely the guide helping them along the way. Using iMovie is a great way to increase student achievement and knowledge.
iMovie is a free video editing program for Mac OS. If your school has access to Mac laptops or iMacs, then you already have it. Normally, you'd need a video camera to go along with it but luckily Macs have a built in camera that you can use. Here is a quick overview of iMovie:
If you're really lucky and your school has access to a set of iPad 2s, iMovie has its own app. The iPad app is amazingly easy to work with and is perfect for younger grades.
Below is an example of something you could do in the classroom. Even though it's being done by a teacher, students could easily accomplish this project.
I'm attempting to use this program this week in my 7th grade history class. The assignment I gave my students is to pretend they are a television reporter. They are going to be sent on location to a battle site from the Texas revolution. They have to pretend that I know nothing about the battle and that it just happened. They have to tell me everything I need to know about the event. Immediately students got really interested. They want to do costumes and conduct interviews. The question that I'll be answering is, does this really improve retention and knowledge of a subject or is it merely something they'll forget in a couple of weeks.
YouTube (2008). iMovie Tutorial. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EXanBq68mI
YouTube (2011). Apple - iPad 2 - App - iMovie. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hdaG2mwYWU
YouTube (2011). How To Use iMovie In The Classroom. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ntRD7Menhg
When I began teaching ten years ago, most families had at least one cell phone and a few students had them as well.School policy was that they were not allowed at school.In the intervening time, the number of students with cell phones has grown exponentially.Now you'd be hard pressed to find a student that doesn't carry a cell phone with them.Most districts, in the wake of events like Columbine, have accepted that it is okay for students to carry cell phones as long as they are off or don't cause a distraction.However, a new monster has reared its head and has some administrators fuming; the smart phone.
Smart phones are a hybrid computer and phone.They allow students to access websites and content like never before.Students can also take pictures, record video, and upload them onto Facebook or YouTube.This creates many potential problems for schools.For example, my school went into lockdown one day.No one knew why, but a girl pulled her phone out and posted it to Facebook.This caused a panic among parents who spread the news.Things got worse when these panicked parents arrived to pull their kids out of school and had to be told they couldn't because we were in lockdown.
But, can cell phones or smart phones be used to help bring new technology and new methods of teaching to schools?Even with regular phones, it is extremely easy for teachers to set up atwitter feed to make announcements and reminders.Students can subscribe with their cell phones.Now if the teacher wants to send out a reminder about homework, all he or she has to do is tweet about it and students will get a text.Our grade book automatically emails parents when their kids have missing work.Why not email the students too or send the emails as texts to their phones?Poll Everywhere is a site that lets you create polls and you vote using text messages.These are just a few of the examples.Here are a couple of great videos that illustrate some positives and negatives about the use of cell phones in schools:
Some of the big questions are:
When are they okay to use?
What do you do for the students who don't have a cell phone?
What happens if they cause too much of a distraction?
Are there any possible legal issues related to cell phone use?
YouTube (2009). Cell Phones in the Classroom : Learning Tools for the 21st Century. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXt_de2-HBE
YouTube (2009). Students Use Smartphones in the Classroom. Available from: http://youtu.be/AxDHataguRE
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,600 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics and computer science.(Wikipedia 2011)
The Khan Academy got its start when Salman Khan began making tutoring videos for his relatives.He left the videos public and others began watching them.They became so popular that he quit his job to make videos full time and start the Khan Academy.He says that the reason for their success is that in a traditional classroom, you hear it once, and then move on.But with YouTube videos, you can watch them anytime, anywhere, and as many times as you need.If you have forgotten something from a previous lesson, no problem, just go rewatch the video.
Here's a video from TED 2011 of Khan giving a talk about the academy and his vision for education.
The process is pretty simple.Students watch a video on a subject they are going to learn.Then they take a test over the material.They are not allowed to move to the next lesson until they have obtained mastery.That's getting ten questions correct.If they get a question wrong the software models the process to them.Teachers can chart their success and intercede where necessary or send a student to help their peer.Khan's theory that he states in the video is that if you move on before you have attained mastery then you are left with gaps in your knowledge.These gaps will haunt you later on in your education.
He mentioned "flipping the classroom" several times in the video.Flipping the classroom is the idea that the students teach themselves and the teacher is more of a guide.This method was mentioned in the book The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner.In his book, Wagner examines why students in the US seem so far behind the students in other countries.His theory was that the traditional lecture based classrooms aren't preparing students for the 21st century world.He maintained that one of the most important skills teachers need to impart to their students is critical thinking.This can easily be achieved by flipping the classroom.This model forces students to think critically and places the burden of learning on them.He examined schools such as High Tech High where they practice this method and found that the students are learning and are actually excited to go to school.
The great thing about the Khan Academy is that they've made their videos available to everyone for free.So any teacher, anywhere, is free to use them in his or her classroom.I feel this completely embraces the idea of Web 2.0 and could be a great boon to classroom teachers and especially home schooled students.
Khan Academy. In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 4, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
Wagner, T. (2010). The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do. Basic Books. Kindle Edition
YouTube (2011). Finding Salman Khan talk at TED 2011. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk
While looking for a subject to write about in this weeks blog, I stumbled across this video:
In this video linguist James Gee makes several statements about education and games.
1. Learning is a pleasure.
People enjoy learning new things. The problem is that many teachers find it difficult to make everything "Fun"
2. Games today have figured out how to tap this pleasure and teach you how to play the game at the same time.
If you think about it, every game is based on a set of rules. If you were to give a person a printed copy of the rules, there would be very little retention. However, if you create a minigame inside the main game that teaches the rules in a fun, simple, and step by step way the retention will be much higher. People remember things if they have fun doing it. Think back to your favorite activity from school. I'm willing to bet it was some kind of game or similar activity that taught a lesson and you didn't even realize you were learning.
Anyone over the age of about twenty can probably remember playing Oregon Trail in school. I know I can. I can't remember most of my teachers names or much of what they taught us, but those days in the computer lab still stand out more than twenty years later. That game taught me many lessons about history, survival, planning, budgeting, good decision making, and working in a team with others. Lessons that I still remember today.
3. Low cost of failure. If the cost of failure is too high you won't explore, take risks, or try new things. You'll get uptight and you think in very narrow ways.
He goes on to say that there still has to be a cost, but it's got to be low enough that it still allows students to take risks. I can see this in myself. I've seen a lot of my friends complain that games are too easy today. When I think back to some of the games I used to play, I would rush through a lot of them. You couldn't save that often, the technology just wasn't there yet, and if you died you had to start over.
If students are constantly worried about failing, they won't take chances. When working on projects they focus simply on doing exactly what's needed to get a good grade. I wonder what would happen in those instances if the teacher tells everyone that the class will pass this project no matter what they do. Would the students take more risks? Would they find different ways of doing things? Would they put their stuff away and spend the rest of the period doing nothing?
4. Modern online games have taken this to the next level by doing so collaboratively. In some games players play in teams. Everyone has different skill sets and you have to work together to accomplish a goal.
Working collaboratively is one of the hardest things to teach. Stop me if you've heard this before, "I can't work with _____, we don't get along". Games can teach people that you don't have to like each other to work together. Eeach person brings their own skills to the project and the group that succeeds the most is the one that makes uses of each person's unique skill set.
But how can games teach things in say a history class?
Some games such as RPGs, role playing games, have a very complex back story. Game makers even publish series of books to go along with the game to flesh out the story. In these stories the game worlds will often have very complex political systems that must be navigated by the player. When players interact with certain sects, that can have repercussions throughout the world and hurt or help the players dealings with other groups.
One of the things I have to teach as a history teacher is how nations interact with each other and those past interactions affect the world today. This could be easily adapted to a game environment. Why couldn't a game developer take the history of the dispute between the Palestinians and the Jews in the Middle East, change the names, add some fantasy elements, but leave the facts the same. Students play the game and when they're done it's revealed they just simulated this conflict. Maybe then give the really history in short cut scenes. Students could then go to their history teacher with all kinds of background knowledge and questions waiting to be asked.
But what about concerns about less social interaction between students?
Gaming, if anything, promotes social interaction. Most people who play games prefer to play with groups of familiar people online. Thanks to services such as Xbox Live, you can play with people all over the world and talk to each other while you play. For example, my family lives about an hour away. My nephews and I will play online with each other in Xbox live and talk to each other while we do it. This way we're able to stay in touch and games are helping us do that. They'll even play together as a family.
The last thing I'll leave you with are these facts from the ESA, Electronic Software Association. They did a study in 2011 of gamers to find out who was playing and what they were playing. Below are some of the results of their study.
72 percent of American households play computer and video games.
The average gamer is 37 years old and has been playing for 12 years. Eighty-two percent of gamers are 18 years of age or older.
Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.
Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).
Twenty-nine percent of game players are over the age of 50, an increase from nine percent in 1999. This figure is sure to rise in coming years with nursing homes and senior centers across the nation now incorporating video games into their activities.
Sixty-five percent of gamers play games with other gamers in person.
Fifty-five percent of gamers play games on their phones or handheld device.
Parents also see several benefits of entertainment software. Sixty-eight percent of parents believe that game play provides mental stimulation or education, 57 percent believe games encourage their family to spend to time together, and 54 percent believe that game play helps their children connect with their friends.
Electronic Software Association. (2011). Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry, 2011. Available at http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf
YouTube (2010). Finding Your Science: What video games can teach our schools. Available from: http://youtu.be/IMqA7PqHySk
There has been a big push recently education towards project based learning. Students are given a project to complete and are given near free reign to accomplish their goal. The can work individually or cooperatively and the teacher is there merely to guide them. The student becomes in charge of their own learning and education.
A piece of free software that I find meets this criteria perfectly is called a wiki. A wiki "is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor" (Wikipedia 2011). What this means simply is that a wiki is a webpage that users can edit easily. The wiki is usually divided into categories and is easily searchable. This could be applied in a number of ways in the classroom. Take history for example. The teacher divides the class into groups. He or she then assigns the students a project on one battle of the Texas Revolution. One their portion is done, they must visit the other groups page and check for errors. Any errors are corrected and the changes are tracked for the teacher to see. The students are teaching themselves. Below is a real world example of a wiki being used in the classroom.
If you'd like more information on building a wiki for your class, please watch this:
YouTube (2009). How to Build An Educational Wiki. Available from: http://youtu.be/7q90qzQnfsI
YouTube (2009). Using Wikis in the Classroom. Available from: http://youtu.be/1pR5yogCmkA
Wiki. In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
There's been a lot of talk recently about iPads and uses for it in schools. "The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content" (Wikipedia, 2011). The Apple iPad runs a custom operating system developed by Apple for touch screens. Almost immediately after its release schools looked toward the iPad as the new tool for use in classrooms.
"'The iPad weighs something like 700g and everyone knows how heavy a bag of school books can be,' Mr Finn said" (Top Marks for the iPad, 2011, p. 20). An iPad could hold thousands of textbooks, articles, encyclopedias and still weigh next to nothing. The battery in the iPad was nothing short of revolutionary. Most laptops will only run two to four hours between charges. This means that any classroom with laptops would have to provide expensive power stations. "The iPad can go for ten hours without a charge. That will ensure it can be used seamlessly in class" (Top Marks for the iPad, 2011, p. 20). Then there's the apps. The App Store has thousands of apps, many of which are perfect for the classroom. There are language translation, flash card apps, math, vocabulary, and spelling apps just to name a few. The only downside is the price. iPads start at $499. While that is still cheaper than most laptops, it adds up quickly when buying them for students.
Only certain apps on general one iPads will work with a projector
Some apps are pricey
No easy way to sync 25 iPads
If dropped, can break easily
So small, could easily be stolen
Unfortunately schools really don't have an alternative to the full featured iPad. However, in the last few weeks there have been some interesting events. When HP decided to discontinue the Touch Pad they dropped the price to $99. This created a huge demand. Within three days of the price drop, you couldn't find a Touch Pad anywhere. Another development in the last week was the new Kindle Fire. Which, priced at $199, is $300 less than the iPad and still has many of the same features. Most schools are under a budget crunch which makes it difficult to justify buying iPads. As a result many are still looking for a cheaper alternative to the iPad.
Top Marks for the iPad as It Replaces Textbooks in Mayo School. (2011, May 30). The Daily Mail (London, England), p. 20. Retrieved October 9, 2011, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5049123067
iPad. In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 9, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad
YouTube (2011). School trades paper for iPads . Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUl1m8lVjdU
This week I'll be looking at a cloud based presentation program called Prezi.Prezi is defined as "a cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for exploring and sharing ideas upon a virtual canvas. Prezi is distinguished by its Zooming User Interface (ZUI), which enables users to zoom in and out of their presentation media" (Wikipedia, 2011).
Here's a short explanation video showing how it works:
When PowerPoint was unveiled, the world cheered. Audiences finally had the benefit of visual images and text to help them follow along during presentations. Fast forward a number of decades and PowerPoint has become overused and often used improperly, leaving speakers and audience members drowning in text and praying for a reprieve. (de Lay, 2010)
Prezi is a welcome break from dull power point presentations.When you build a presentation in Power Point you think in individual slides.In Prezi, it's like you have a giant white board to put your ideas on as they come to you.You can "pin" pictures and even video into the presentation.The presentations are built through a web page, unless you pay for the service, and the tools are extremely simple and easy to use.The big draw to Prezi is the ability to zoom in and out of your presentations.Building a Prezi presentation seems to be closely related building a word web, and the lines flowing out from your ideas are the paths for zooming.That way you can make the big ideas large and as you zoom in you see more detailed data.What I enjoyed most about using Prezi was the ability to put ideas anywhere and in any order.When I prepare a presentation for class, I start with pen and paper and I take notes.I then organize the notes and then start building my power point.However with Prezi I was able to throw ideas up as they came to me.
Prezi is also great for students.It's simple interface is a lot less intimidating for kids than power point.Prezi also has a feature built in called Prezi Meeting which enables people to work collaboratively on presentations.This is perfect for group projects in the classroom.Here's a primary school classroom where students are using Prezi:
Prezi
www.prezi.com
Pricing:
Free - 100mb of storage, present online or offline
$60 per year - 500mb of storage, present online or offline
$160 per year - 2000mb of storage, present online or offline, design presentations online or offline
Special teacher and student pricing:
Free - 500mb of storage, present online or offline
$60 per year - 2000mb of storage, present online or offline, design presentations online or offline
Pros:
Free
Built in ability to work collaboratively
Kept online so no need to worry about hard drive failures
More entertaining than a slide show
So simple even little kids can use it
Discounts for teachers/students
Cons:
Have to pay in order to design presentations offline
iPad app is a player only
No way to skip ahead in a presentation, you must go through each step
Movies are streamed instead of embedded into the presentation
Controls can be too simple for advanced users
de Lay, A. M. (2010). Technology as a Differentiated Instruction Tool. The Agricultural Education Magazine, 83(3), 15+. Retrieved September 25, 2011, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5046692350
Prezi. In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 24, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prezi
YouTube (2010). Prezi Meeting. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK6gbn9Bx80
YouTube (2008). What is Prezi? - The Official Intro Video. Available from: http://youtu.be/TYPjJK6LZdM
