Knowmia

Knowmia is a web site for teachers where they can upload their videos so that the students are able to access them.

Ariel Braunstein and Scott Kabat developed this web site so that teachers could share experiences and resources with each other.

There are some great case studies with interviews with teachers who are successfully using these videos in their classrooms.

There is a large database of videos that teachers can access and use with their students.

For those using a flipped classroom approach with their students Knowmia has, coming soon, a simple home assignment tool. For each assignment you will be able to include a series of lessons that you create or find in their ever growing lesson database. Homework may include three types of assessments: multiple choice questions, open-ended questions, and textbook questions (questions from textbooks that your students already use). Once you send out an assignment, you will be able to keep track of your students' actions and performance: When did they open the assignment? How did they answer each question? Which concepts require additional help and/or practice? Although the actions of your students are completely private and secure (visible only to you), the homework itself is shared instantly with other teachers so they can learn from you and borrow any portions of it for their own students. You may opt to do likewise with their assignments and lessons.

Blabberize

A fun Web 2 tool is Blabberize.

You need to register (free).

You upload your own picture to the web site and are then able to crop to use just  part of the picture if you want to.

You then place the mouth area on the graphic - you can use as many of these as you want to i.e. you can have more than one person in the graphic.

You then record the sound and your video is made. These can be embedded into the class wiki, blog etc.

Students will love making these as part of a presentation about a research project for example if students are studying about another country they could use a picture of a person from that country and then have them speaking about the food that they like to eat or something similiar. Young children could do a news topic for others to look at. 

PresentationTube

A very useful tool for educators is PresentationTube.

You need to register (free) and download a recorder to your computer (Windows).

You are then able to use the recorder to record your PowerPoint presentation. It records your animations, transitions, as well as embedded video and audio. The presenter is also able to annotate their slides which will also be part of the recording. Once you have completed this you can then upload the file ready to share it with your students or other viewers.

This video can be embedded into your online class e.g. Blackboard or Moodle or into a blog or wiki. How great for the teacher to use this as a presentation after a class so that students can go to it to reinforce their learning or the teacher could use it as an introduction to a new topic.

Students could use this tool to present their findings about a research topic.  This can be shared with a wider audience on a classroom blog.

Free videos for the classroom

WatchKnowLearn is a site where you will find videos to use in the classroom. This site is has videos and presentations which are in the different categories making it easier for teachers and students to find what they are looking for.

The videos and presentations are embedded from other sites or have links to other sites. Of course there are other sites such as TeacherTube which are great but the real advantage here is that it is one huge directory. In order to so this they invite educators to suggest videos for inclusion into the directory, and to review, approve, and assign those videos into appropriate categories using a wiki framework and philosophy. These videos are the highest quality found on the World Wide Web and cover all main curriculum or educational topics from primary to secondary schools.

YouTube for schools

Videos or movies have always had the power to engage the learners by bringing the topic to life.

YouTube, although it has many relevant videos for the classroom, is blocked by many schools as there are also many inappropriate videos to be found there.

Fantastic! Now YouTube have released YouTube for schools. This provides a secure, safe environment where students have access to hundreds of thousands of appropriate videos.

School admins and teachers can log in and watch any video, but students cannot
log in and can only watch YouTube EDU videos plus videos their school has added.
All comments and related videos are disabled and search is limited to YouTube
EDU videos.

Teachers can customize the content available in their school. All schools get access to all of the YouTube EDU content, but teachers and administrators can also create playlists of videos that are viewable only within their school's network.

YouTube.com/Teachers has hundreds of playlists of videos that align with common educational standards, organized by subject and grade. These playlists were created by teachers for teachers so you can spend more time teaching and less time searching.

YouTube for schools web site

There is an area which details 10 ways to use YouTube in your classroom.

These include:

1. To spark lively discussion by engaging students through showing videos relevant to their lives. This can then lead to students considering different perspectives or another point of view.
2. Organise the video content you find into a playlist for you and your students
3. Archive your work so you can refer back at a later stage saving you time and effort.
4. Allow students to dig deeper into a subject by creating an appropriate playlist
5. Get struggling students up to speed and push strong students ahead by giving students the opportunity to review the videos at a later time i.e. at home. Videos can be used to address misunderstandings or difficult concepts
6. Review for upcoming exams
7. Create a YouTube centre for your classroom
8. Create quizzes, using a Google Form, to accompany videos to give instant feedback
9. Create interactive video quests by using annotations
10. Flip your classroom where students watch the video at home so you can focus on applying the concepts

Reading programme

I have been helping with entering data from a research project about a reading programme which is becoming widely used here in New Zealand. Availll is a research based literacy programme for the classroom. It uses films in a series of scripted lessons to teach skills in three areas of literacy:

• comprehension strategies
• vocabulary
• fluency

Availll was developed by Dr. Alice Killackey (previously from Northern Arizona University) who had found, when teaching in the classroom in 2001, that while students had a good understanding of video they did not have good reading skills. She was inspired to use the students' strengths in video to bring up their weaknesses in reading. A range of activities were created, tested and re-tested with dramatic experimental results.

The researchers have found that students are highly motivated to use the programme. Originally this programme was only available in New Zealand but is now available internationally at a very low cost. For those teachers who are looking for a reading programme to motivate their children this is very worthwhile. Some of the books used are available as free downloadable ebooks.

A list server I am on is currently discussing the use of this programme and here is what one teacher had to say:

We found that the students were all very motivated and they found it
exciting to 'read' a DVD. After a term of the programme we found
students listening skills had improved and when we did the PROBE testing
we found most students reading and comprehension levels had improved by
between 1 and 3 years (great result after a term)

My Brainshark

My Brainshark is an interesting site for teachers to use.

Using this site teachers can upload their PowerPoint presentations and then add their audio to it to then embed the presentation in their online course or email their students to share the presentation.

You can also upload other documents, photos or video clips and add audio to these.

While this site has been developed for businesses but can certainly be used by teachers for educational purposes.

It is free to sign up.

SchoolTube

I have used YouTube (like everyone else),TeacherTube (which I love) and now have just found SchoolTube.

This web site was launched some time ago and is a teacher moderated video sharing website.

They are dedicated to supporting educational institutions and have a range of videos for educators to show how a range of ICT tools and software can be used in the classroom to enhance the thinking and learning as well as motivating the students. Teachers are able to share concepts, ideas and lesson plans with others.

There are various channels you can use starting with the free channel for teachers. There are other options which will cost the school e.g. a Premium channel costs $US495 a year.

I was disappointed to see on the main page of the site showed this video (title). I am not sure if the teacher moderated this video. While I know it is fashionable not to correct a student's work it is possible to discuss the spelling of something like this before it is uploaded to the site.

TubeChop

Many schools block YouTube but as a classroom teacher there are times when you want to use a video from YouTube. I have previously written about EmbedPlus for editing YouTube videos. Often you only want to use part of the video. TubeChop is a great tool for the classroom teacher to do this. It is a simple and quick tool to use.

You type in the YouTube url. The video is then loaded into TubeChop. You can then cut out parts of the video so that you are left with the relevant parts you want to use. You then have the embedding code which you can use or you also have a new url that you can use (the url is no longer a YouTube link but now is a TubeChop link).

Here is an example of one I have chopped some off.

The new url is: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/182695

Embed Plus

A great web site for everyone (but especially for teachers) is Embed Plus.

Teachers often use videos from YouTube in their classrooms to enhance the thinking and learning. These videos can stimulate interest or illustrate a point. With Embed Plus you can edit the movie from YouTube to customise it for the needs of your class.

The slow motion is great for action videos or if you are teaching how to do something like a long jump in PE. The Previous and Next buttons let viewers skip forward and back within scenes that you’ve marked. The zoom will give viewers a closer look at wherever they move their cursor. You can also add your own annotations to the movies - something teachers will love where they can point out things that they want the students to take particular notice of.

A beauty of this web site is that it is all free! All you have to do is click the Get Started button and away you go.

I would love to hear how anyone is using this site for their classrooms.

Using video to evaluate student teachers in the classroom

I have just been reading about this 'new' idea - using video to evaluate the student teacher in the classroom situation. This article is from the States.

Here in NZ this is something we used to do and also something we used to get students to do for their own personal critique. Students found that they learnt a lot watching themselves teaching although many couldn't believe it was 'really them' they were watching. The advent of the Flip video, ipod touch with camera and the like make access to videoing and editing assessible. Now many NZ schools do not like our students using videos in the classrooms due to the New Zealand privacy laws.

In some states in USA the students will have:

"more demanding requirements to receive their teacher license: Under a new
teacher evaluation system being tested in 19 states, evaluators will watch video
clips of student teachers delivering lessons in their classroom, and candidates
must show that they can prepare a lesson, tailor it to students of different
abilities, and present it effectively."

These assessments are made by independent evaluators rather than the Teaching Colleges. It will be very interesting to see how this goes. As one professor said:

“It’s a big shift that the whole country is going through,” said Misty Sato, a University of Minnesota education professor who is helping to adapt the assessments for Minnesota. “It’s going from ‘What has your candidate experienced? to what your candidate can do.”

I am very strongly of the view point that our graduates need to know both about and how to teach. I wonder, if in the present environment, some feel that the theory (about) is more important than the practical (how) i.e. the 'about' rather than the 'how'. We are in the middle of changing our courses and are now lecturing in mass lectures rather than smaller classes (where people are able to model behaviours that can be used in a classroom).

Seems that those in the states have now gone through most of this circle and are bringing more 'how' back into their courses. I saw a newsclip in Sydney two years ago on the same thing - 'we think it would be beneficial for our students to have time in classrooms rather than lecture theatres' was the the person being interviewed said. We are not up to that realisation yet, I wonder how long it will take us?

Sir Ken

This is a video of a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. Although it is quite long it is well worth watching as there are great thought-provoking ideas in it.