Wednesday, April 30, 2014

We all know it, some of us use it, and some of us wish we could do more with it or make it easier.  Here are a couple of YouTube tricks.

Editing a YouTube video:  I often want to show a clip of something in class but the clip is surrounded by additional, extra stuff.  Sometimes I want to cut a lot, other times I just wish I could cut the first minute of introduction to get to what I really want my students to see.  Tubechop.com is the place for you.  TubeChop allows you to cut the beginning and the ending of a YouTube video off so you only show what you want.  This is a great time saving resource for anyone who has ever started a video and wasted time trying to find exactly where the important part starts.

Showing multiple videos:  In math there are always many videos that show examples for a skill I am teaching.  I would love to be able to put all of these videos together in one video to show my class or to set up for my students to view at home if they are struggling.  I am sure that other disciplines could have similar reasons for combining videos.  Dragontape.com allows you to take as many videos as you want and combine them together in a single video.  You can also crop each video just like you do with TubeChop so you only get the relevant section of each video.  Dragontape does require a username and password but it is a free service.

Showing a video without all of the other content and suggested videos that you see on YouTube:  Have you ever shown a video and one of the videos on the side or one of the videos that shows up when the video is finished has an image that is a little risqué?  I wanted to highlight a website called View Pure which removes all of that content but it is blocked in our schools so I can’t.  Instead I am going to suggest using TubeChop for this as well.  When you open a video in TubeChop you can easily play the video without editing it and it plays without any of the additional youtube content added in.

There are many other things that can be done using YouTube videos which I may discuss at a later time but if you want to know if you can do something specific with a YouTube video, just ask and I will find out for you.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Kahoot


Kahoot is a lot of fun.  After playing it in class, my students were begging to do it again, so we did later in the week for a test review.  It is a class response system that is set up like a restaurant game.  As the time ticks away so do the amount of points that a student can earn.  It encourages students to be fast, but one wrong answer can take a leader off the leaderboard.  In class we played it in pairs and also individually. 
Success Story:
The second time I tried Kahoot I did it as a review for a test.  during that class I had 3 students that typically really struggle make it into the top 5 for the first game that we played.  We played a second game that day (I liked splitting it up into 2 shorter games because it allowed students to start over and reinvest in the game) and one of those students again made the top 5.  The constant changing of points and changing who is in the top 5 kept everyone interested through the last question.

How it works:
You create a Kahoot or you find one that has already been made (there are over 120,000 so far and about 2,000 are added each day).  I made a 15 question Kahoot and it probably took me 45 minutes to create the entire thing so the time commitment isn’t bad.  If you find a premade one that you like you can always add additional questions or remove questions from the premade Kahoots which might make the time commitment even less.  Once you have a Kahoot ready to go, then you need to play it in class.
To play a Kahoot you need to click on the play button next to your completed Kahoot, the launch button on the next page, and you are brought to a screen join the Kahoot screen. 
At this screen all of your students are going to register for the Kahoot by going to the website kahoot.it and entering the pin number.  Students can use cell phones of you can check out the laptops or iPads to use as your devices.  One of my classes played with cell phones and some of the students had issues with getting kicked out of the game and some students had a slow connection so they got fewer points because their answers didn’t register immediately.  My other class used the laptops and they didn’t have any problems playing the game.  Cell phones work but without allowing students to log into our wifi laptops or iPads are better.
Once all of the devices are registers you start the game and let the fun and learning begin.

Below is a set of instructional videos.  The first is an introduction to Kahoot and a tutorial for finding a premade Kahoot.  The second is an instructional video for creating a Kahoot.  The third is a video demonstration of how the game is played.

Kahoot Intro and searching for a Kahoot tutorial:



Creating a Kahoot:



Playing Kahoot: