And We're Live...

I haven't blogged for 9 months.  I've been busy.  And (with the help of @heza and others) now we have a 1:1 Laptop Program at SAS Middle School - and from here forward, plenty of amazing learning to blog about.  Below is the story of the last two days.

 

Reflections on a Year of YouTube and Flipping the Classroom

This past summer, I was fortunate to be selected to participate in a full day of training in screencasting and flipped teaching at the YouTube Teacher Studio at the Google offices in Kirkland.  It was a fantastic day of learning and connecting with other educators doing great things to improve learning.  Many thanks go to Will Houghtelling, Jim Sill, James Sanders and Ramsey Musallam for the fantastic professional development they offered.  And also to excellent new colleagues like Karen Mensing who contributed heavily to my personal learning network.

Often times when we go back to the realities of our regular jobs, the excitement of our new learnings fade, and we don't follow through with those big plans we had.  I was determined to really make an effort to incorporate YouTube and Flipped teaching into my work with teachers this year.   Each month I contributed playlists to YouTube/teachers - and about half the time I teamed up with a content specialist to on this partly because I don't have any specific classes of my own, and partly to promote the use of YouTube.  Additionally I teamed up with a fantastic Physics teacher and co-led two 45 minute Flipped Teaching Salons (designed to spark interest amongst other teachers) during a Professional Development day.  The sessions were well received by the 25 attendees.  These salons were the spark for many 1 on 1 follow up sessions where I worked with teachers to be able to use the tools on their Mac to record instruction then post to YouTube.  Two teachers I work with have really gotten into the method.  The Physics teacher I mentioned with YouTube channel "druceisp" (although it is still private) has uploaded 294 videos to date, and is completely restructuring how he organizes his courses.  Our guitar teacher is getting started on recording EVERY lesson for his beginning guitar classes (tonyackermanguitar). He only has about 10 public at this time, but will be "releasing" them as appropriate, timed with his classes next year. I've really enjoyed the thoughtful conversations that have come about while supporting teachers in this methodology.


Wanting to use YouTube to host some excellent, creative, student content, I helped the European Student Film Festival design a channel and get all of their student submissions and "24 Hour Challenge Films" online for viewing by a larger audience.

I also made a commitment to do more screencasting myself.  When ever I was asked a question that was best answered by showing, I tried to take the time to do it with a video so that I would have it to use again the next time I was asked.  Similarly, when working with teachers on longer projects, such as an interview project in Psychology where the final product was a podcast, I used video to record instruction that could be accessed at anytime, making the instruction so much more meaningful to the various groups of students.  My screencasting skills have improved over the year, and I'm much quicker now (although it is still difficult to listen/watch my own videos).

Looking back, I'm so grateful for the training I received at the YouTube Teacher Studio, and thankful for the connections and friendships made.  YouTube is an extremely flexible and relevant tool that is easily adapted for use in the educational realm.  Screencasting and YouTube are now just part of my daily work flow.

Stop Motion on iPhone

One of our Apple Certified technicians was having some fun testing iMotion on his phone to make a stop motion video.  He showed me the video and I asked him if iMotion does all the transitions and text as well.  "No," he said, "that was done in iMovie".  I assumed he put the footage onto his Mac and then made the movie in iMovie.  But, no.  He did the whole thing on iMovie on his phone.  And if you can do this quickly on an iPhone, I'm sure it is an even better experience on an iPad.  Maybe iPads/iPhones are more of a creative tool than I thought.  Hmmmm....

 

iPad and Apple TV

ISP is hosting the Czech Teacher's IT Summit this weekend, which will focus mainly on using iPads in the classroom.  Our network manager connected an Apple TV to the projector in our theater so that the speakers can present using AirPlay on their iPads.  This required a little bit of troubleshooting since the projector did not match the outputs of the Apple TV.

Here is what our setup eventually looked like:

• Apple TV connected via ethernet cable to a wireless router.


• HDMI output through a HDMI to DVI cable connected to projector.


• Optical output connected to digital/analogue converter connected to theater sound system.


• iPad2 connected through AirPlay to Apple TV

Thoughts:

• Wow.  This set up has some serious potential.  The various adapters are a bit of a pain, but the outcome is worth it - being able to view the iPad on the big theater screen.


• Keynote on the iPad is quite nice.  The presentation screens are customizable and can allow you to view next slide as well as notes.


• While we are using this in the theater, I can envision this setup being used in classrooms, offices and conference rooms of various sizes.


• I've never been a fan of Interactive White Boards, and I really can't see how they will survive against the tandem of iPad/Apple TV.

 

 

 

Google Search Stories in HS English Creative Writing

Earlier this year, a fellow Google Certified Teacher, Wendy Gorton introduced me to Google Search Stories.  Since then, I've been waiting to find the perfect opportunity to use them with students.  This week, I've been invited to guest-teach in our Creative Writing course where I plan to lead students through the process of creating their own.  My plan is to show a few videos created by Google, then one created using the Search Story Generator (hat tip - Jim Sill) and then have students analyse what elements make them "work" before letting them loose to create their own.  I'm hoping it will be a good brain-stretching, creative, one-class-period exercise that gives them experience with working with a new and unique genre.

Links

 

A popular Google Search Story - Parisian Love

An excellent student example created using Google Search Story Video Creator

Google Search Story Video Creator

Flipping Guitar

We've got pockets around the school where teachers are experimenting with flipping the classroom.  Tony Ackerman, our amazing guitar teacher, is using the power of video to differentiate during class.  While he is working with one group of students, he sends another group out into the hallway with their laptops and a pre-recorded lesson tailored to their skill level.  In this way he is able to meet the needs of each of his diverse learners.

The videos are so good, that even someone as tone-deaf as me could learn from them. You'll have to excuse me - I'm off to buy a guitar.

Introducing A New DCA

We've spent a good deal of time this year working on creating a meaningful Digital Citizenship Agreement (which I blogged about here).  In rolling this new agreement out to students we wanted to get them thinking about and talking about some of the themes and their meanings and applications.  We split our 230 students into two groups; our amazing librarian took the grades 11 and 12 while I took the 9s and 10s.  We first introduced the idea through a short presentation(embedded in this post - hopefully I was more engaging in the live version)  that was meant to emphasize the powerful tools available to all of us and the importance of community norms and positive behavior.  Then advisors led their small groups of 12 students through a discussion using the following prompts:

Prompt 1: How do you respect yourself and others in your digital life?  Why is this important? Why is the school concerned about this?

Prompt 2: - How do you respect property and intellectual property in your digital life? Why is this important?  

Prompt 3: - How do you protect yourself and others in your digital life? Can you share an example? Why is the school concerned about this?

As expected there was some push back by students regarding why these things were the school's business, but overall the discussions went well and students were able to speak about the themes and listen to the ideas of others.  Our goal was to raise awareness and get students sharing and thinking about these topics - this we achieved.  Additionally the next day all students signed the agreement in their advisories.  We had a follow up session a few months later that was also well received by students.  This is a good start, but what do we do next?