Thursday, January 16, 2014

At Least 6 Ways to Use Videos with your Class

The videos below are not tutorial videos, they are examples of each technique that I have used in my class.  As an aside, in the first video YouTube decided that the thumbnail would be a giant picture of my head.  I changed this in YouTube but when I did this post it still had my giant head as the thumbnail so if that is what you see below, I am sorry.  If you see a wall in the video below ignore what I just said.

Video Bellwork:

Bellwork can be an issue for many teachers.  For some it is a classroom management strain.  For others they have a habit of having the bellwork take too long (I have been caught in this trap before when working out questions on a bellwork).

Video bellwork does not solve those problems completely but it can help with each of them.  What you do is create a short video and in the video you tell your students the bellwork problem, typically repeating the question twice so they can get it.  Because you are doing this on video you can use real world examples and make the videos in different locations.  I made a fun systems of equations problem by ordering food at Wendy’s (the cashier loved being in the spotlight).   When the bell rings you can hit the play button or designate a student for that task, then have the students watch the video and do the work.  Here are a few additional things you could do:

·         Continue the video and show a countdown clock giving the students a specific time limit, then go over the bellwork on the video also.  Doing this would eliminate the “long” bellwork and works well at the beginning of the year to get students used to doing their work promptly.

·         Stand in the hallway during the video and stop/talk to any tardy students.  Don’t let them complete the bellwork and thereby create a necessity to be on time.

·         Do this once or twice a week for a change of pace activity.

·         Use a similar technique at the end of class for your closing activity or in class as an example problem.

·         Have other people on the video asking your students questions including people in various professions relating to your subject area.

Videos when you are absent:

 Over the past three years, every time I am absent I create a video for my students to watch while I am away.  My students are not particularly overjoyed when they find out they have to still learn new stuff when I am gone but I don’t miss days of instruction when I am absent. 

To create the videos I set up a PowerPoint or Flipchart (for a Promethean Board) that I can record.  I am a math teacher so I write on my presentations a lot.  Because of this, when I record at school I actually write on my Promethean Board and if I am at home I use a program called Splashtop which allows me to connect my tablet to my computer and then use my tablet as a writing surface.  I have used several programs to create these video but most recently I have been using www.screencast-o-matic.com.  This program allows you to save the video to your computer, upload it to their website, or upload it to YouTube.  I typically upload it to their website, put the website in my sub plans, and ask a fellow teacher to set everything up in the morning so the video is ready to play.

Short Video tutorials (work great for computer lab time, iPad or laptop carts):
http://geoconstruction.weebly.com/ 
If you can find ways to split up a lesson into smaller parts you can create a video tutorial lesson.  My example of this is a geometric constructions lesson.  I had my student do different constructions and I would start each construction with a video demonstration, then my students would work on their own constructions after each video.  I recorded each of these videos using a document camera and www.screencast-o-matic.com because I needed to physically do the construction example but many lessons could be created just using screen capture software.  Once the videos were recorded I created a website and put links to each of the videos on the website so students could view them one at a time.

After everything was done, students in class each got an iPad and used it to watch the videos then do their work.  During this activity, students were very engaged and they could work at their own pace.  Students who got it the first time could move on while students who didn’t understand something could go back and watch parts of the video again.  This was one of my favorite lessons of this past year.

Preparation for college, for when you are absent, or for a flip:
I think it is wonderful that students have the opportunity to learn in so many ways and that we have resources that can show students what their learning style is.  When a student is taught in a way that fits with their learning style new skills often come easily.  The concern I have with this is if students always get taught in the way that works best for them, when they get to college or get a job and suddenly are thrown in a situation where they are forced to learn in a different style they could struggle greatly and possibly fail completely.  I like to use different teaching styles, even boring, old school ones purposefully to help my students realize they can learn in different ways.  I have my students read textbooks, I teach a lesson without talking, I teach a lesson without allowing questions, I give group exercises where I refuse to answer questions, I make my students watch videos (both mine and others from the internet) to learn topics.

Maybe difficulty with videos is a math specific problem but when I ask my students to watch a video, by the end they have no idea what the video was about or how to do similar problems even though they watched it intently.  I have to teach my students the skill of learning by watching a video.  I start with short single example videos and work my way up to full lessons on video.  I often throw in videos created by others so my students realize they can learn watching other videos.  Eventually my classes get to a point where watching a video can be a successful learning exercise.  Then I can use videos successfully if I am absent, if I want to flip the class, or if I want my students to search for a video about a specific topic at home.  I also help my students prepare for college where they can’t interrupt a lecture every 10 seconds to ask a question (since they can’t interrupt the video with questions).

Become your own teacher assistant:
I like to show videos while I am in class so I can walk around and act like a teacher’s assistant, seeing if my students are following along and answering questions when they need help.  In these situations my students are getting two teachers for the price of one.  They get me one the video and they get me walking around the class answering questions.

Create a library of lessons (flip classroom, absent students, review lessons):
This is one I have not yet done in full  but would like to accomplish.  You could create a library of all of your lessons and use them in many different ways.  You could pull from this library for videos to assign for your flipped classroom.  You could assign videos to students who were absent so that they get to listen to the material even though they were absent, You could suggest lesson for students to watch when they are reviewing for a test or the final.  You could put these videos on DVDs for students to check out if they don’t have computer access at home.  I would like to get some portable DVD players for my classroom and use a video library as a tool to help some students during tutoring sessions.  If I had a full library of lessons I am sure I could find some more ideas as well.

That is it for this week.  I know this post was a bit long but I had a lot of material to cover and when  I started creating categories for video uses I kept thinking of more things and my list expanded greatly from what was originally in my mind.

Ryan Monson

 

Monday, January 13, 2014

A Resource about Resources

I normally like to add a little flare to what I post but this week I am behind (actually last week I was behind so I am posting this week) so there isn't much flare.  This week is all about the content.

For this week’s blog I am going to showcase some other blogs and resources for teachers to use when they want to search for different technologies to use in their classrooms.  When I am looking for things to use in my classroom these are some of the locations I go to.  This is probably something akin to blog suicide since I am writing a blog telling you to go to other blogs.  After you do, come back...please.

The first is our own GCS technology and innovation website http://www.gcsnc.com/education/school/school.php?sectionid=37404&.  There are two links from this main page to useful resources.  The first in the LiveBinder link.  It is the link that is the second from the bottom.  This LiveBinder contains information and training for various technologies that GSC supports and encourages.  The second is the resources tab which has many resources broken up into categories such as Creativity tools and Presentation tools.

The second set of resource is a set of blogs that are updated weekly (mostly weekly).  They tend to give one resource each week that they particularly like.
http://tammyworcester.com/tech-tip-of-week/ This website has other tabs aside from these resources that are also very useful.
http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/06/2013-honor-roll-edtechs-must-read-k-12-it-blogs This is an EdTech Magazine article highlighting the best education technology blogs of 2013.  Go here if you want to check out some additional technology blogs.

The third resource is a wiki called “Cool Tools for Schools”.  It is an incredibly robust list of thousands of resources split up by categories.  http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/Home

The last resource is a shout out to a friend of mine, Erica Speaks.  This is normally more of a political education blog (an exceptional one at that) which I know many of you will want to read for that purpose.  I added it to this list because in December she posted a list of technologies that she like and didn’t like that she has used in her classes over the past year (It is post #49).  She also had a post of the world of EdTech in pictures (Post #51) http://teachingspeaksvolumes.com/2013/12/

There you have it.  Go forth and do some investigating to find some ideas to integrate into your classes for 2nd semester.