Spotlighting 500px

What is 500px?

Let me begin by saying that I am posting this using my iPad, so I will not be able to post any pictures until I get my hands on a computer.
While I was playing with my iPad I came across a great app called 500px. This image generating app is populated with tens of thousands extreamy high quality images that are truly breath taking. I used some of the images with my students as picture prompts for story writing and poetry and the results speak for themselves. My students tried to capture the emotion and mood in these pictures using extreamly vivid vocabulary. It is amazing how their writing changed by simply changing the quality of the picture prompt.

How to download 500px

In the app store search of 500px and the app looks like this


All you need is an iTunes account and nothing else as this is a free app.
One precaution is that there are images that may not be appropriate for younger children, however content restriction can be activated.

How 500px was used in the classroom

So I started by giving my students a regular picture that I had cut out from the newspaper and asked them to explain the emotion and mood they felt after seeing of the image. The picture I used was of a group of children playing at a newly built play ground. Some of the statements they said were:

"They are having fun"
"The playground is new"
"The plastic is red and yellow"
"It must be cold because I can see their breath"

The next example I gave my students was from 500xp of a group of people skating in an outdoor rink. However, this time the image was externally high quality. I asked my students the same question "explain the emotion and mood they felt after seeing the image". This time the language they used was significantly more vivid and specific. Some of their statements were:

"they are skating on a clear glass surface"
"emotions of joy and pleasure flood my heart"
"the colours of the rainbow transcended beyound the picture" (the people in the picture were wearing colorful jackets)

The Next Star, Blogging III

Looking back at the Journey

Blogging has been a great way of communicating with my students and their parents. By using blogs my students became better informed of their assignments and the events taking place at school; their parents became better informed of classroom happenings.  Furthermore, I have truly enjoyed getting to know my students on a personal level (Zawilinski, 2009).  By reading and commenting on their posts I learnt a great deal about what their likes and dislikes, what they like to do for fun, and even their future hopes and dreams.  I know that I would have learnt the same information if I didn’t use the blog; however, I am not sure if I would have learnt this much in only two weeks.  I can’t wait to try using our classroom blog in other ways.  Blogging is one of my favourite tools so far and I can’t wait to learn more ways to effectively implement it into my everyday teaching.  

Uploading Video Lessons

 Blogging in my classroom today

Today blogging has taken on a much different look in my classroom.  It is much more focused and learning centered.  Based on my readings from Richardson, Berger & Trexler and McGrail & Davis classroom blogs need to positively impact student collaboration and communication.  McGrail & Davis suggest that classroom blogs focus more on the communication process rather than the simple mechanics such as spelling and grammar.  Those things are still important but the main idea behind a blog is to get a message across to others (McGrail & Davis, 2010). Students still need to learn how to spell and how to use proper grammar; however, the main idea behind blogs is to get student engagement up –especially to those students who might be reluctant learners.  My experiences using blogs seemed to match those observed by McGrail & Davis. My students became more motivated to write; they expressed their opinion on a variety of topics, used a lot of humor and were extremely playful (McGrail & Davis, 2010).      

Recently I started adding more curricular based discussion on our blogs and encouraging discussion from my students.  We took volunteers from the class that would like to become domain masters for each subject area.  It was those students responsibility to create video lessons on topics covered in class and post their lessons on our blog for others to watch and comment on.  This was a great hit with all the students and parents.  Students created so many lessons on a variety of topics.  Soon everyone was on board and began creating and posting lessons or asking for lessons to be made.  In short, my students wanted to learn.  This was the highest level of intrinsic motivation that I have ever seen from students (Richardson, 2010).  The attitude changed, the level of understanding deepened, the type and amount of connections increased and they became better learners (McGrail & Davis, 2010). 

Areas of Frustration 

There were two areas of frustration for me when I created my classroom blog: my district frowns on public blogs sites and strongly encourages teachers to use made and operated sites.  This is a great idea since students was extremely safe from any outside contact, in fact none can be made at all.  What this means is that parents need to use their children’s credential to log in from home and that other students in the school or grade level will not have access to my classroom.  According to Richardson, blogs are meant to be shared with others. While I might not want the entire world to see that my students are typing to one another, I think it would be okay for their parents and other students to see and comment on a discussion.

The other main frustration I had with setting up my blog was the amount of time it took to get it just right.  I had to invite all my students one at a time and then grant them permissions for each different section of the virtual classroom.  Again, I love how secure my virtual classroom is but there has got to be a better way of providing a high level of security while still being time effective.  I know a lot of teachers that do not use blogs in their classrooms because of the time it takes just to get one up and running.  It took me approximately 6 hours to get my blog setup with all the right security settings and another 2 to invite all my students and give permissions.  This doesn’t even take into account the time we spent in class learning how to use the tool. 

I don’t want to sound like a pessimist; in fact, I love my classroom blog and will use it for the rest of the year and for the years to come.  All I am trying to say is that if we want more teachers to buy in we must make these tools more manageable and time efficient.  Teachers are extremely busy people so for them to change what they are doing (and what is working) the new thing must be better for them, their students, and their schedules.

References 

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world / Pam Berger and Sally Trexler ; foreword by Joyce Valenza. Santa Barbara, Calif. : Libraries Unlimited, c2010. 

McGrail, E., & Davis, A. (2011). The Influence of Classroom Blogging on Elementary Student Writing. Journal Of Research In Childhood Education, 25(4), 415-437.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms / Will Richardson. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Corwin Press, c2010.

Zawilinski, L. (2009). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking. Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661.

The Next Star, Blogging II

The Blogging Journey begins

So far I have only been a consumer of information found on blogs and not a creator; however this year was the year to change.  Since I had visited many blogs in the past, I was aware of some possible applications for them in my classroom.  As a starting spot, I decided to create a homework blog where students can check on their homework assignments, ask questions, and post special events on our shared calendar.  I understand that according to Richardson this is not real blogging but it’s a start (Richardson, 2010).  Below is an example of how our blog looks and the type of things that we blogged on.

Starting to Blog

Screen capture of our homework

 

We quickly started using our classroom blog to share pictures of special events with parents at home.  Below you will see some images from our blog showing Marty Chan’s visit, a visit from Father Michael Mireau and some projects that we have been working on. 

 

Needless to say my students and parents fell in love with this blogging and wanted more.  We have since setup many more blogs on topics were meaningful to students. Below you will see screen captures from our fun blog that is student centered and created, everything you will see is made by students for students:

The Next Star, Blogging I

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzQ5ZnpiczlxYzM&hl=en_GB&pli=1

 

Why I decided to use blogs. 

In my search for best practices using blogs in the classroom, I came across this great site titled “64 Interesting Ideas for class Blogs” (https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzQ5ZnpiczlxYzM&hl=en_GB&pli=1 ) this site discussed many great applications of blogs and how teachers and students can use them effectively in a classroom setting.  A few of these 62 suggestions stood out to me as they also appeared in Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for classrooms” (Richardson, 2010). They include:

1.   Sharing photos of your classroom.  Using one of our classroom blogs, I shared photos of really cool activities that my students were involved in (Richardson, 2010).  Some of our favourite photos were from guest speakers such as Marty Chan and our district Chaplin Father Michael Mireau.

2.   Sharing photos of a class display.  This was a great way to show parents their child’s art work.  Because I do post my students’ work on our bulletin boards, taking the work home is a challenge. Therefore parents usually wait for demo of learning or a time when they can come in to see the work (Richardson, 2010).  Using our classroom blog this is no longer the case; parents simply login to our district site using their child’s credentials and are able to view all their child’s work.  

3.   After taking about two weeks to set-up and update out classroom blog, I have two students who have learned how to maintain the blog.  They are continuously updating our site as the day goes on for all the subjects including classes like French that I do not teach.  This is a great enrichment project for those students who like to take on more responsibilities (Richardson, 2010). 

4.   Students in my class are also using our blog site to post tutorials of recently covered topics.  This is great. We have two students who are responsible for creating these tutorials for each subject area.  In total, we have eight students creating video tutorials for Language Arts, Math, Science and Social.  These lessons have become great learning tools for students who may have missed a class or would like to revisit a previously covered topic (Richardson, 2010). 

5.   Parent communication of special events.  Using our classroom blog parents can check to see which important events are coming up.  For example right now we have the dates for our Hep B immunizations, demo of learning and Halloween based special events (Richardson, 2010). 

6.   Student support network.  Using our classroom blog students can post questions that they may have on a project or homework assignment enabling them to learn socially rather than independently.  Normally a response is given within a few hours of the original post.  This is a great tool that allows students to collaborate outside of the classroom! (Richardson, 2010)

RSS, Changing the Internet II

RSS for Education 

RSS is a great tool for teacher to use in order to stay current with the research and best practices. Technology in education is growing at an exponential rate and teachers need to stay current in order to best educate their students (Hendron, 2008).  Teachers can further their knowledge in a time effective manner by using RSS feeds to follow what the Gurus of the industry have to say.  For example, some of the people I am following are: Anne Davies (Assessment Guru), Daniel Mass (Technology Educator), Daniel Espejo (literacy Educator), Allan Gould (Apple Canada) and Richard Williamson (professor at U of T). By following their feeds instead of just randomly going to their sites and checking if they added anything new I am able to utilize my time and apply it accordingly.  A teacher’s time is extremely important because there is always something we need to do. RSS feeds allow teachers to use their time effectively by bringing the information to us as it is create.  

People I Follow

RSS feeds can also be setup for students.  I have not done this yet but this is something that I am going to try with my students (Hendron, 2008).  Right now I do have a couple of blogs setup for my classroom hosted on the Edmonton Catholic School District (ECSD) portal.  I checked with technical support and the ECSD portal does have the ability to create RSS syndication. I envision my students using their already created Google accounts and subscribing to our blogs RSS feeds and having the information come to them as it is created (Richardson, 2004).  I think this will be a lot easier for my students otherwise they will have to keep checking the site to see if there has been any updates or if there are any new important announcements.  Technology can be a burden on schools and educators if it is not used in an effective/efficient manner.  RSS feeds are one way educators can have can have technology work for them instead of the other way around (Richardson, 2004).  Richardson and Duffy share similar findings stating that educators are willing participants when it comes to furthering their knowledge if the right conditions are met. I feel that RSS feeds help provide these necessary conditions and more importantly allow educators to learn at their own pace. 

Personal use of RSS Feeds 

For personal use RSS feeds are great for keeping me organized and even useful around the house.  Instead of going to all the sites I have saved in my favorites and checking on what’s new, now I check my RSS aggregator and the information comes to me. If any of the sites I have saved post something new, I am immediately informed about it and can go check whether it is relevant to what I need or not.  I am following a lot of great feeds such as: Car and Driver, Gordon Ramsey, Wired Magazine, Holmes on Homes, 3 Minutes Fix it, Quick and Healthy Meal Planner and yes even Maxim Magazine.  To put it simply, my technological life has gotten a lot less cluttered since I started using RSS. 

Learning to Cook

References 

Duffy, P. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: A conversation of possibilities. University of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In proceeding Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, pages pp.31-38, Brisbane.

Hendron, J. G. (2008). RSS for educators : blogs, newsfeeds, podcasts, and wikis in the classroom / John G. Hendron. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education, c2008.

Richardson, W. (2004). Blogging AND RSS--The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators. Multimedia & Internet@Schools, 11(1), 10-13.

RSS, Changing the Internet I

Why use RSS

As many of us have learnt, the internet is a great place to go for information and to learn about anything that may interest us. For example: the way I watch TV has changed, now when I am in front of the TV I have my iPad out and I look up the different character I’m watching, what characters are talking about and even products being advertised either within a show or commercials. 

Over the years I have been teaching, I learnt about a great deal of website that serve as superior resources for my lessons, my personal/professional development, and for suggestions of a variety of topics such as cars, cooking and random do it yourself project for around the house stuff.  For those of you who know me, I am not a “do it yourself kind of guy” however with these resources I have taken on many small project and managed not to hurt myself or my wife, yet! 

Only Social and Resource links

So needless to say I have tons of websites in my favorites which are organized according to topic/folders.  At first this was a great way of doing things. When I first starting to use folders to organize my favorite websites it was a gift sent to me from the heavens.  However, as I started collecting more and more favorites, that gift was taken away.  It became too hard to follow all these sites in my favorites, I couldn’t tell when they were being updated, and I couldn’t even tell which one was which any more. I needed a tool that could make my life easier, I needed a tool would check to see when the sites I was following we updated and then tell me about it, in essence I needed a site that would look out for me wave a flag and tell me, hey go check this site that adding something new and even tell me a short caption on what was added.  

Animoto to the Stage, Take II

My First Animoto

To start my first Animoto, I clicked on the “Create” button at the top right hand corner of the page. Needless to say I LOVE the layout of this site. Everything that is important is in green and overall, the site walks you through the steps. For example, the first thing I needed to do was to choose a theme for my presentation.  Because I am a little boring – or because I just wanted to see my first video (you chose) – I clicked on “The Original Animoto.” 

www.animoto.com

The people at Animoto could not have made choosing a theme any easier.  Just click on a theme and BAM! there you have it, you have just chosen how your pictures transition. Now that I am typing this, I can see that I had a lot of options to chose from and maybe I was a little hasty when I clicked on “The Animoto Original.”

How to Create an Animoto video

www.animoto.com

Animoto to the Stage, Take I

Why the interest in Animoto?

Last year a new member our staff used Animoto during one of the school wide celebrations.  Needless to say, I was more that impressed.  The animation, transitions, sound effects, and overall quality was more than impressive. I noticed at the end of the video presentation the word “Animoto” appeared at the start of the credits.  This is how I knew about the program. However, due to the rather busy schedule of a teacher, I was never able to actually play with the program. This year is a different story! By taking a web 2.0 class, I was given the opportunity to explore programs that I have always wanted to play with.  

Highlighting the Research?

Berger & Trexler identified Animoto as a great tool for project based activities for students K-12 (p. 139). Users can upload digital photos, add back ground music and even add text if they choose (p. 139). Teachers can create educational accounts where students can have a safe environment to create their videos that can be shared vie email, blog post, website, YouTube or by downloading it directly onto a computer (p. 140) 

Setting up the account

Setting up my Animoto account was a straight forward process.  After going to the Animoto.com website I simply clicked on the “Sign Up” button that was located in a big green box right in the middle of the page, I couldn’t have missed it if I was trying.  Filling in the “Create an account” required fields took only a couple of minutes and then my account was ready for me to get creative.