Add a Back Channel to Your Classroom

There is a new phenomenon occurring in classrooms, workshops and meetings. It is called back channeling. This refers to participants in a event communicating and collaborating with technology to take notes, ask questions and reflect in real-time.

A great tool to accomplish this is the website Today’s Meet. In order to get started you visit the site, create a room and send the link to the room to the other participants. The link to the meeting room can be posted on the board, linked to a teacher website or emailed to a group. The participants can immediately start a live chat. The results of the chat stay online  for the period of time specified. They can also be copied to a Google Doc and shared with the rest of the class.

This technology could be very useful as a way for a class to take collaborative notes and pose questions  while viewing a media clip, a speaker or a class lecture. Instead of having students sit and watch a media clip or longer video they can be engaged and interact with it. The teacher may post a couple of thought provoking questions for the students. While watching the video the students may use Today's Meet or a Google Doc to document their answers to the questions. By adding Q1 or Q2 to the start of the response, the teacher and students will be able to identify what they are responding to. Students may also comment on what they are viewing and add questions and reaction that they have.

Typically it is difficult to get students to take notes. When using this technology and asking them to multitask the students actually respond. As a result, the online documentation of the collaborative conversation allows the teacher to see what the students understand, what they do not understand and what topics require further discussion.

Today's meet could  also be used during video conferencing sessions with other schools or subject area experts. Students from both classes may take detailed notes regarding the event. These notes are then viewable online for everyone to review.  They may also post questions that the speaker may access and address during the presentation.

Many schools have utilized student owned electronic devices to maximize student access to back channeling. In some classrooms , that have only a couple computers, a few students are assigned the role of "class scribe" for the day. They are responsible for collaborative note-taking. These notes are then available online for the class to share and discuss.

Create A Talking Character with Voki

If you are looking for a creative way to provide content, procedures, or announcements to your students then look no further! With VOKI you can create your own customized digital avatar.  Here is a description from the site:

"VOKI enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters… animals, monsters, anime etc. Your Voki can speak with your own voice which is added via microphone,  typing of text, upload, or phone."

A VOKI can be embedded into your blog, website, Moodle course or just about any other website. When creating a Voki you can customize his or her appearance, language/accent and gender.  Below is a VOKI I created.


Get a Voki now!

The integration ideas for VOKI in the classroom are endless. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

World Language

• Students may create a recording in which they speak in the language they are studying.


• Students may create a news report spoken in the language they are studying.

• Create a Voki of a historical person.


• Create a news reporter that is reporting on a historical event or current event.
  


• Create a PSA announcement.


• Create a lecture about an important event.

• Create a Voki that teaches other students about an important class topic


• Report the findings of an experiment.
  

Electronic Post-it Notes as an Instructional Tool

Have you visited http://www.wallwisher.com yet? It is a Web 2.0 site that is fairly new. Wallwisher allows anyone to create a Wall. Each wall may contain digital post-its. A post-it may contain up to 160 characters of text and links to images, audio or video. The post-its may be organized on the wall anyway the user wishes.

A wall creator may share his or her wall by providing participants with a link. You may also adjust settings to approve all postings before they are published on the wall.  Wallwisher does  require an account to get started. An account is not required to post to a wall. 



There are many uses for Wallwisher in the classroom. Here are a few of my favorite:

1. Students may post what they already know about a topic or what they would like to know. (KWL)

2. Use one to post project links or resources.

3. Provide students with a question and allow them to answer it on a wall.

4. Create a wall to gather feedback regarding an event, reading, project, or trip.

5. Post student book reviews.

6. Add the names and details of veterans that students know for veterans day wall.

7. Create a wall to post “going green” pledges.

8. Use as a suggestion box

Teaching Current Events -The Week in Rap

I came across this site thanks to a blog posting I read here. It is called The Week in Rap.  The week in Rap is a music video that summarizes the major world events of the week. It is organized as a Rap video.  A typical video is under 5 minutes.

This is a great alternative tool for teaching current events. It may be a great end of the week activity.  Some ideas that come to mind are:

1. Link to this in a Moodle discussion and ask students to respond to a question regarding it.

2. Have students develop a blog posting reflecting on these events using Ning, a wiki, Moodle, Google Doc, or traditional journal.

3.  Have students create their own music video that discusses a global issue. Use this as an example.

http://theweekinrap.com/

Enjoy!

Glogster - Create 21st Century Posters

Have you ever heard of a Glog? Would you like to learn how to take a traditional project like a poster and create a 21^st century, online version of one? Do you think your students would be interested in learning how to create an online poster with text, images, video clips, sound, graphics and design features? Would this type of assessment foster creativity, engage students in the learning process, and develop technology literacy skills?

If this sounds interesting to you then you should take a look at Glogster Edu. A glog is a 21st century poster. A Glog is an online poster that can contain photographs, images, graphics, video files, sound files and text.  Glogs allow you to add hyperlinks to other websites.

Glogster EDU allows teachers to setup a virtual classroom for creating Glogs. A teacher can create and manage accounts for each of his or her students. Student Glogs are kept private and are viewable by the teacher. Other students in the class can leave comments about another students Glog and the teacher can exchange messages with his or students as well. Once a student has a managed account they can access Glogster and start making a Glog. The teacher can monitor and manage their progress.

The finished Glogs can be viewed online or embedded into a wiki, website or blog for review.

Glogster is an exciting and engaging tool for students. Glogster takes the traditional process of creating posters and makes it more interactive, dynamic, creative, and in tune with 21st century expectations.

I will be offering a workshop on a web 2.0 tool that provides the opportunities listed above. To learn more about it and to register please follow the link below.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aaa0uxFLu14JZGZzd2JrM21fMTZnYm53M2dnNw&hl=en

If you want to jump right in and start exploring then please visit the Glogster EDU home page at http://edu.glogster.com.

IMPORTANT: Currently a teacher who registers with Glogster EDU can create up to 200 student accounts. This will be changing to 100 starting March 1. Register now to lock in 200 accounts before March 1.

Stay tuned for how to documents and instructional screencasts.

Enjoy!

Life magazine's online photo archive

Before the age of cell phone cameras, You Tube, and Google Images, America received news and event images through weekly magazines. One of the must-see publications was Life magazine.  They captured the heroes, villains and events that shaped history.

These images are now available on the newly launched life.com. Here is an excerpt from their site:

Welcome to LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the Web.heroes, our stars, our celebrations and heartbreak, the events etched in our memory and the small moments that make life sweet. When you find a photo you like, you'll be able to share it, print it, and sometimes even buy it.

LIFE and Getty Images, the two most recognized names in photography, have joined forces to provide you instant access to millions of breathtaking photographs — for free. LIFE.com not only lets you wander through the legendary LIFE and Getty archives, but with more than 3,000 new photos added every day, it also gives you the best pictures of the people and places shaping our world now.

These are the photos you won’t forget. Taken by the world’s top photographers and curated by LIFE editors, they tell the story of our times — our

Edutopia Magazine recenlty had a great article on "Teaching with Primary Souces". Specifically they spoke about using images. They recommend the following:

1. 
   
   Select Photographs - Use the custom search tool on life.com to hunt for images by topic or photographer.


2. 
   
   Research the techniques


3. 
   
   The Library of Congress's American Memory Website (loc.gov/teachers) provides lesson plans and question guides to help students think critically when examining photos.


4. 
   
   They also have self directed study modules on teaching with primary sources (loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/tpsdirect/selfdirected


5. 
   
   Develop a list of questions based on the following topics:

• 
  
  What is the main subject of the photo


• 
  
  Time: what might have happened just after or before the photo was taken.


• 
  
  Framing: What would be visible if you could move the camera left or right, up or down.


• 
  
  Vantage Point: How far was photographer from the images seen in the picture?


• 
  
  Dominance: What is the first thing you notice in the picture?


• 
  
  Original Purpose: How was the photograph first seen or used? How is the photograph regarded today?


• 
  
  Intention: What do you think the photographer was trying to express through the image?

"When you teach students how to be critical viewers, they learn how to elevate personal opinions into authorative opinions",  Elizabeth Lay, retired English teacher from Oakland, California