Using Technology in the Classroom: Blabberize

One of the greatest assets that a web 2.0 tool can have with respect to teaching practice is "ease of use." Many teachers are comfortable with their technological skill level and will even venture into the realm of the unknown from time-to-time; but in order for many teachers to dive in and plan for its use in their classroom - it has to seem worth it and 'hassle free."

In these days of time-saving, cutting-edge and tech-savvy classroom lessons, one program holds a great deal of potential as a teaching tool for both elementary and secondary teachers - blabberize.

Blabberize.com is a web 2.0 tool that can be used with no prior experience and put to practical use in little time. The idea behind this website is to upload a photo or picture, and then record voice (using a microphone). The final product is a photo (you have chosen) that has a moving mouth (which you manipulate) and saying the words that you record.

As a program that students as young as primary can play a large part in using, blabberize can be an ideal way to use a technological tool for "writing in role" and "empathy" lesson activities. Have students research a particular culture or citizen of a country and then write in role how their life compares to ours. When students are finished, they can show the class their chosen person (with a photograph) and listen to them explain their way of life and daily activities.

This tool is also a terrific way of utilizing peer helpers and 'buddies' in your school. Have junior and intermediate students pair up with a primary student or pair of students. The older child can work the technology aspects to the program, while the primary student can focus on the writing in role and speaking presentation. It is a great collaboration opportunity and will help your peer mentors demonstrate leadership skills, initiative, and possibly even, conflict resolution (depending on the group dynamic).

Here is a brief list of the strands of Social Studies that could lend themselves to blabberize:

Grade 1 - The Local Community

Grade 2 - Communities Around the World

Grade 3 - Urban and Rural Communities

Grade 4 - Medieval Times

Grade 5 - Ancient Civilizations

Grade 6 - First Nations and European Explorers

Grade 7 - New France/British North America

Grade 8 - Confederation/Settlement of the West

*For each of these units;

1. A character could be researched or taught about in class

2. Students write or speak about what life is like for them (and how it relates to life today)

3. They upload a photo of the character and create the shape of the 'moving mouth.'

4. Students get to listen to a "guest speaker" in class - a character from their Social Studies unit that explains to them information about their lives.

***My one word of caution is to preface any lesson that you undertake with an explicit message about stereotypes and generalizing. Students should write and record "in role," but they must take caution not to use overt stereotypes or poke fun at a particular cultural group/way of life.

You could have a great deal of fun with accents and dialects (as components of you Oral Language program) and even incorporate Shakespeare through soliloquys that would otherwise not make it from the student's mouth to the "stage" by using blabberize.

Give blabberize a try! I would love to hear about how it goes with your class and even have you post a reply that shares YOUR IDEAS about how to use blabberize in teaching.

Blogging with Students: Raising Reluctant Writers

In a previous post, I wrote about how to setup your classroom blog page (as a teacher) as a tool for communication with parents and to relate school events to home. Another exciting way of incorporating the blog idea in your practice is to give students blog pages to write on.

Addressing gender gaps in achievement (and improving literacy skills in boys) remain hot topics in education: blogging with your class is a terrific way to make strides in letting the writing flow. For those students who are hesitant to put their ideas down on paper, using a web 2.0 tool like blogger.com can provide an alternative method of producing wonderful writing.

Once you have a class blog page setup, it is an easy process to add student blog pages to your account. This post will again refer to http://blogger.com. Follow the steps below to make this endeavor a reality:

Adding Student Blogs to Your Class Blog Page

1. In the "Design" tab, click on the "add gadget" link where you want your student blog names to appear.

2. Decide what you want to assign as a title (e.g. Our student blogs) and type in the URL address for each student blog that you want to add (e.g. johnnystudent.blogspot.com).

3. Click "save" and your new gadget is all set and ready to view.

*If you need to setup student blogs for your class, follow these steps to begin the process by providing students a blog (especially for elementary school students) who might not already have one. To do this, you will need an email address for each student who is going to have a blog page created.

In some school boards, each student is given an email account from their school board - this would be an ideal solution. If not, you would need to ask students for an email address if they already have one OR possibly even gain parent consent to create an email account for them (or have them use one from home). The email address is solely used to setup the blog page initially and would only be used to verify the google account or contact the student with blog-related alerts, if needed.

Creating Student Blog Pages

1. Go to blogger.com

2. It will ask you for a google account OR ask you to create a new one.

3. Enter in the required information and use the student's school email or personal one (if it applies).

4. When assigning a blog address, choose a template to follow (e.g. http://myschool.johnny.blogspot.com) and then simply change the student's name for consistencies sake.

5. Choose a starting background template and give it a temporary name (e.g. Johnny's Blog). The student can change these things once they get going.

6. Your student blog page is created and ready for them to personalize!

How to Use Student Blog Pages

One of the greatest first-steps in using blogging is to release the reigns and allow students a chance to "make it their own." Don't be afraid to give the students 'free-writing' tasks, as well as suggested topics and sentence starters (e.g. The scariest thing that ever happened to me is...). Once students have bought in to this kind of writing forum - by using their own creative devices - they will be more willing to invest their energy into topics that you assign as well.

On my class blog page, I have added the gadget "Pages" where I have created a page for "Blog Assignments" and "Glog Assignments." These pages are where I create a number list of topics assigned (e.g. Free Choice, "My favourite band") and the dates they were assigned on. Students can access my "Blog Assignments" page in order to check their progress with past blog work and find new blog assignments as they are assigned. This is a great way for students (and parents) to keep up-to-date with writing work both at school and at home.

Why Blogger Matters to Kids

Even the most reluctant writer wants to be successful. For many students, writing stories or written responses in notebooks is simply painful and uninteresting. Blogging is a way to bridge the age gap between teacher and student using web 2.0 technology. In the same way that you hear that kids don't email - they text. Many students don't write - they type. Give them a forum for their ideas with the novelty of technology, gadgets, feedback from classmates (or even a global audience), and they will dive in and tread in the waters of literary excitement.

As teachers, we need to incorporate new ways to address traditional learning. Writing matters. But not the writing on the ruled paper with holes to the left; rather, the writing that comes from the meaning and purpose of the writer whether on a blog or in a text message. Writing is communication and our global world (and its technology) have been re-drawing and re-defining this on a revolutionary scale for some time now. It is on our shoulders to find ways to catch up and keep the learning both relevant and preparatory - for life...not just the course syllabus.

Good luck with your student's blogging journey. This could be the thing that hooks them into being lifelong learners and writers - which is what we are, in fact, here to accomplish.

The Blogging Teacher: Setting Up Your Classroom Page

Blogs ("web logs") are an effective way to communicate with parents and the school community about the learning and events taking place in your classroom. As a teacher, using a blog page as a method of sharing news and information can be helpful to parents (and students) by allowing them access to these things online - rather than by paper handouts and agenda writing.

By customizing features of your blog page, you can ensure that this blog page functions just as you intended and does not bring more grief than good. This is my current classroom blog page (grade 8 class). This post will describe how to get started blogging as a teacher.

Here are some simple steps to creating and using blogs as a teacher (using blogger.com):

1. Create a "google account" if you do not already have one (http://blogger.com)

2. Once activated, choose "create blog" to initiate the blog.

3. Once you have chosen a web address, title and background - you are ready to blog!

4. As a communication tool for parents, you may want to enter the "Settings" area and change some of the default options. For example:

BASIC

* Change default so your blog is not added to the blogger listing

* Change default so search engines cannot find your blog

FORMATTING

* Change default in Timestamp format so the time posted is not shown - only the date (no one needs to know when you are posting to your blog)

COMMENTS

* Change default so "Hide" is chosen for comments

* Choose "Only members of this blog can comment" - that way you can email people that you would like to participate in your online blog experience by posting comments.

* Choose "Always moderate comments"

* Choose "word verification" needed.

PERMISSIONS

* If you share a classroom or would like another teacher to be able to post writing to your blog page, you can "Add Author" by sending them an email and requesting to be an author of your blog page.

5. In the "Design" area, you may wish to remove the "Followers" gadget which is included on your blog page by default. You may also wish to remove the "About Me" page if you would like to avoid needing to give a personal description of yourself on your site.

6. I would recommend adding the "Pages" gadget to your blog page which will allow you to add new pages that deal with different subjects or areas in an organized way (e.g. News, Student Assignments, Forms and Letters, Calendars). To do this, go into "Design" and click on the "Add a Gadget" option directly below the title header. Scroll down and choose the 4th option "Pages."

7. If you create your class calendars in Microsoft Publisher, you can add them to your class page by saving them in Publisher as a "jpeg" file not a .pub file. In your blog page options, choose "New Post" and find the "Add Image" icon at the top of the post and find where you saved your calendar as a .jpeg file. You can then alter the size and alignment. This is the same process if you want to add a picture from the internet into a blog post.

You now have a blog that is setup to communicate with parents. You may wish to send home a letter describing how you wish to use this internet resource. In this letter, you will definitely want to include the blog's web address, so parents know where to find it. If your school can link it to the school's webpage that is an even better way to directing traffic to your site.

If you have any questions about this process, please comment to this post and I will do my best to steer you in the right direction. Thanks and enjoy!

Using Technology in the Classroom: Online Animations

Online animation programs allow the user to instantly create an entertaining and humorous cartoon. Gone are the days when successful animators are the only people able to enjoy the process of putting voice to cartoon creations and experience a fantastical world that inspires.

Goanimate4schools.com can put the creativity back into your pedagogy.

Whether entertaining or educating, cartoons are a powerful vehicle to carry educational content and teach in a 21^st century manner. Students will love your creative new approach to teaching them using cartoon characters, as their interests and values are adhered to using web 2.0 tools.

To get started, teachers can create an account for their school, after which they can create logins for students to access this school account. As animations are being created, students have the option of saving a draft or publishing a finished product.

This is a terrific way to incorporate aspects of media literacy, language expectations, content subjects (history, science, etc.) and even character education. Having problems addressing bullying and peer problems in your class? Why not teach the lessons students need to learn using cartoon characters and humor; rather than lectures and detentions.

GoAnimate4Schools allows students to be the creators of virtual worlds where they choose characters, write dialogue, decide on movements and gestures to match words and focus on a variety of settings through which the plot or action occurs.

This application is very user-friendly and is a much more appropriate option (compared to goanimate.com) for elementary school students. GoAnimate4Schools features built-in text to speech that allows you to type words that can be instantly read out loud. A variety of voice options allow you to personalize and alter the sound to fit your needs.

In as little as 30 minutes, students can create (from start to finish) an animation presentation worthy of display to your class and their family. Web 2.0 tools such as GoAnimate4Schools are paving the way for teachers to infuse technology into classroom practice with very little technology knowledge themselves. Let students be the teachers and show you how to animate. It builds literacy skills, confidence and engagement into the school day.

Using Technology in the Classroom: Creating Glogs

"Glog" is a term that refers to "graphic blogs." In other words, these are a visually-based account of something. Think of a poster only with animations, sound, video, pictures AND text. "Glogster" is a free program that offers users the chance to visually display information on any particular topic of their choice.

In a classroom, glogs can be an effective way to synthesize or summarize information researched or even just to make fun posters on personally relevant topics. Glogster provides a rubric that can be used to evaluate a glog that I have altered to fit more with how I wanted to "mark" glogs made by my students. There is also a checklist found here as a "quick and easy" method of surveying how well a student has met certain basic requirements in completing a glog.

There are countless examples of finished glogs contained on the edu.glogster.com website and searchable on the internet. If you are looking for a way to introduce new technologies into your classroom practice, glogs can be an ideal (and powerful) first step on that journey. Give your students the opportunity to learn computer skills and exercise their creative powers using a safe and supported web 2.0 application.

Here is the first glog poster I have created for "Ignite. Incite. Inspire." (this blog).

This slideshow shows you step-by-step instructions on how to use the Glogster program.

Glog On!

View more presentations from Jan McGee

Team Teaching with YouTube

We've often heard the saying, "Everything I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten." It's supposed to be a humorous view of how the education system teaches the fundamentals early on and then fills the remainder of a student's time with information that is not as important. I'd like to offer my own current one: "Everything I need to know, I learned on YouTube." Students today are using this video archive to teach them skills and information that they search and seek out.

We don't need to be the controllers of the content. Teachers today stand to gain nothing of themselves or their students by keeping the knowledge guarded or secured. We need to educate students about how to use the knowledge. They can already find any answer they want by searching it online. They don't need a teacher (for instance) to inform them about historical dates and details. They need a curriculum expert to enlighten them about how those historical events are playing out right now in our world.

Students need direction and critical thinking skills about the kinds of things they seen online and find posted on YouTube. They can access it at almost any age; and yet, have not been taught how to process most of it into a context or framework that can build their own knowledge or understanding. YouTube and Google hold the knowledge. Teachers, now, are standing outside looking in through the windows and wondering what lessons their students are learning in today's online classrooms. They attend their choice of online classes at any given moment. They search and it appears instantly. They read what they want and move on when they feel like it.

When you teach, ask yourself, "how does this information prepare my students for the real world and what matters to them?" If you struggle with this question, how would you use the information if you weren't a teacher and therefore didn't need to know it to teach it? Do you remember when you learned the things you know or do you perhaps even learn some of it only because you need to teach it to your class? Rethink what you do and reap the benefits of either legitimizing your practice or starting to drive the change to improve your practice.

Web 2.0 and You

This "GoAnimate" animation has been created to explain what Web 2.0 is. There are many programs being used by students that are interactive and user-based; rather than content-based. With these tools and applications, though, comes responsibility. It should be the role of the parents and schools to educate students on how to use these Web 2.0 tools, in order to facilitate digital citizenship values in our youth. Digital citizenship is the next great frontier of curricular development needed to further our students in the coming years.

These kinds of technologies have exploded into our lives - so fast that there has not been the framework and support system put in place in our education system to properly equip students for their 'online' lives. Teachers find themselves caught in the middle between traditional methods of teaching that appear to be relatively safe and known, and web-based methods of teaching that are still somewhat unchartered due to their constant development and innovation.

Choosing to stay 'ahead of the curve' when it comes to implementing technology into your classroom practice, also means that you will need to show the professional commitment and initiative to map out these rich areas of 21st century learning in order to be successful. There are many opportunities for personal and professional growth in this learning realm, should you jump on board and began your ride. The key is the confidence and resilience you will need to experiment with your methods, evaluate your pedagogy, and forge a new teaching identity to your students.

Begin Your Web 2.0 Journey

A common theme that runs through most educational discussions on technology seems to be web 2.0 tools. These are applications that allow a teacher to deliver content, and a student to receive it, by designing it online. Things like glogs, blogs, wikis, prezis all offer a new way of reaching students and reshaping the learning process. The problem with these programs is not a new one in the education sector - time.

It takes time to navigate new technologies. Time to become comfortable with them. Time to purposely plan for their use and its impact on classroom learning. Time is always at a premium.

Training does allow for the opportunity to be exposed to these web 2.0 tools, but the majority of training often comes as an after-hours, during breaks, or informally delivered chance with a colleague. Steps in a new direction can be trail-blazing for your classroom practice; but they still need a path - and this path requires a guide. Whether your guide is self-guided learning on the internet at home or networking with a colleague during lunch; your choice of guide can make or break whether you choose to take these new tools and actually use them.

Here is a starting point for those who want to be exposed to some of the possibilities out there. This website offers a list of different kinds of web 2.0 tools and explains their purpose and use. It is not exhaustive and should be merely a starting point. If you truly want to begin your journey of web 2.0 technologies, choose ONE thing and implement it. Let it be messy. Show the students how it looks to figure things out...in front of them. You will be modelling resilience, problem-solving and patience. These are some of the most important skills a student can learn. It serves no benefit to always be perfect and properly execute a lesson as a teacher. Students need to see a mentor struggle to envision what strategies will lead to success.

Don't get overwhelmed if you're new to this. It is a process and simply reading this blog post has landed you somewhere on the web 2.0 path. Now choose your next step if the time is right for change.

Using Technology in the Classroom: Bitstrips Website for Teachers

Here is my latest published article on incorporating technology into your classroom practice. I will be posting a series of articles on technology resources that are useful to teachers in the next while. I have also added a new page for these articles found at the top of my main blog page. Let me know what you think of the website or share an idea that you have used with Bitstrips already.

How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers

**Resource Sharing**

How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers

This is a great post on something that we could all be doing in our classrooms (if we are not already). Let the blogging begin...and reap the rewards of engagement! Check out Jacqui's site "Ask a Tech Teacher" - it is filled with amazing resources and ideas.