Activity #6 - Study Tools

TOOL #2: TAGXEDO

 

Marvelous Minnesota

I had pinned the Tagxedo website on Pinterest awhile back and played around with it as a school idea, and now here it is!  When I did it via Pinterest, I had a difficult time manipulating things (I don't think their site is the most intuitive or novice friendly), but after watching the tutorial this time I was more easily able to get what I wanted.

I really like the visual fun a student could have with Tagxedo.  We had been using a lot of Wordle images this past year, which students enjoyed, but feel that the Tagxedo is the next step of it allowing for a lot more customization and visual appeal!

I see my students using Tagxedo at the end of a learning activity to plug in words or themes we learned into an applicable shape.  For example, after learning about Minnesota, we could brainstorm words together and place them into a final product/image.  We have a color printer in our classroom so the visual appeal of creating and printing these excites me!

TOOL #2: TIMETOAST

The other tool I chose to work with was Timetoast.  I like the visual structure and order a timeline presents to users.  Unfortunately, I feel many of my students have NO concept of time whatsoever (probably nature of their disability).  One minute, one hour, one day, one year...all the same in their minds.  When we talk about history, it is even more difficult for them to comprehend...things very relevant to our country's history are so far beyond their cognitive reach and are just not meaningful to them, so it is difficult to teach.

I did like the idea of a timeline more relevant to them - such as one on their life or perhaps their daily schedule or high school career.  I created this of my son's life as an example.

It took me awhile to figure this one out.  I was having ongoing difficult uploading photos and would get an error message for many (but not all) of the photos I wanted to use.  Tip to whomever uses this, they need to be UNDER 3MB - so I ended up resizing/resaving my photos to fit those parameters and then they worked!  Frustrating until I figured that out.

I did like that there are 2 view options:  timeline (traditional left to right, chronological) and then a different text view that is more top to bottom.

When I published this and made it public, I didn't see a way to filter or set privacy so that only certain people could view it.  It seems to go public to everyone.  While this is ok for an educational thing such as a general history timeline, I would need to be careful not to use it for personal student photos or personal student timelines that would include identifying information.

How else would people use this in their teaching?

Activity #5 - Creating a MV YouTube Channel

Following the instructions for this one, I had a little difficulty. Working from my home computer, my husband already had some things set up and a YouTube channel created for other purposes - so, it was using that as the default setting and I had a hard time switching the username, etc. But, I think I got it! (Not quite sure how...but I'm thinking if I login as myself again or on other computers, it should be my own channel.)

This is a video we took via IPhone a few weeks ago of my toddler thinking he was strong by "pushing" the golf cart around. "Mighty Maddox" was quite proud of himself. When my husband actually took the video and wanted to share it with out-of-state family, he found it too long to quickly share via email and so he did the YouTube channel thing, told me about it, but I tuned it out....now, here I am creating my own. Guess I can do it in the future?!

I see a lot of applications of this in my classroom. We like to take videos of students doing activities - cooking, personal tasks, "job interviews" - and this would be a great way to have them get to watch themselves. In the past, we just took video via Ipad and had to cram around the small screen to watch it again. This will allow larger screen playback by projecting it onto the Ipad. I could also see myself using this to video certain students working/learning and sharing the link to their parents. Because students would be involved, I'd need to be sure to get video permissions and make sure everything was very private for only me to share or only the parent of the specific student to see. How easy is that? Is it possible? (I'll need to play around more.) I can also see myself using this as a sort of YouTube video library for myself. Many times I know what I want to show/share with the class but have to search for it which takes up time. I could keep a database of common videos on my channel to have quick access to. I'm going to work on adding a few more videos (probably ones that are already done) and see how it plays without advertisements and without all the things on the side.

I get nervous using this tool in class sometimes because there always seems to be some questionable content on the related videos shown on the right side!!!! (Students notice!)

Activity #4 - Screencasting

OVERVIEW:
I've seen lots of screencasting used in a variety of setting but had never done any myself.  In initially working on the activity for this week, while free, if I were going to use ScreenCastOMatic at school, I would need the technology people to "unfreeze" my computer to get some things set up and saved.  I've done this with things in the past, but sometimes it is a pain and takes time, when I want things immediately!

My husband actually suggested ScreenCastOMatic over the other one, as he teaches engineering and does a lot of this, and said it was his "go to" method.  Once I got ScreenCastOMatic ready to use on my home computer, it really was quite easy.  Like all the other programs we are learning, there is an additional subscription fee and lot of bells and whistles you could play around with.  I stayed very basic on this one - not changing screen size, not messing with sound, etc.  One thing I would need to work with in future instances is the noise/sound (you can hear my radio from the other room, my voice wasn't the strongest, and I had a baby making some noises - so I would remedy that for future use!)

Once I started recording, I thought it was pretty easy.  I need to remember to go slow - as it would be easy to move fast and get done.  (I especially need to remember this for my population of students with disabilities who often take much longer to grasp things!)  I thought it was interesting that, while I am fluent in logging in and writing an email, here are always "unexpected" things that come up (ie already logged in, can't see where I am writing, too many boxes).  While it is easy for me to quickly click around and get to where I want, I almost need to "practice" some of this stuff before I record to make sure it goes smoothly for instructional and viewing purposes.  I found myself stumbling over my words!

In the end, I envision a number of applications of screencasting for my class, centered on task analysis of different things (breaking a task into extremely small pieces, for instructional purposes.)  Writing emails, computer navigation, cooking tasks, personal hygiene tasks - all could be served with a screencast method.  I like how it can then be saved and revisited an infinite amount of times.

Question for all screencasting tools - If I were to use this at school, could I do it on my classroom computer?  We don't have built in microphone/method of recording voices, so do I need to check out another piece of equipment from tech?

I would like to try this again on my school computer, using the SMART Recorder.  (I used to have it on the home computer, but don't anymore because I felt it slowed things down too much!)

ACTIVITY #3: Digital Storytelling

OVERVIEW:
I really enjoyed creating this - I think both the topic excited me (I love Hawaii!) and the creativity aspect.  I could see it being using in my class for a variety of purposes: students could take something they have learned and make a product to show parents (ie where we went on an outing, a state we learned about, their daily schedule).

Given the nature of my students, I don't think any of them would have the cognitive capability to create a novel story independently.  I see this more as a tool we could use (either individually 1:1, small group, or as a class) to create a product demonstrating our knowledge for others to see.

It would also be fun to use this as a teacher to create short introductions of new topics or lessons.  Some things I see doing are creating step-by-step task analysis stories of things we do (a cooking lesson, daily grooming) for students to click through visually.  It would also be a fun after-product way to show photos of an outing or activity we have already completed.

PROS: After playing around for a few minutes, I became pretty fluent in how to manipulate the program to create what I needed. I liked that I could use a variety of photos, both personal and image I found on the computer.  I think my students would really relate to the page turning, like a real book.  I also like the potential for further interactivity in terms of clicking on images to get more information and the potential to link up to other websites (though I didn't try this with my Hawaii presentation, I saw it was an option).

CONS: It would be easy to get caught up in all the animation and fancy things you could do in this program.  (I liken it to when people go overboard with animation, color, and graphics in PowerPoint or SMART!)  Oftentimes, I think simplicity is better!  Also, without paying the subscription price, you are limited to only 10 slides (though I thought it was plenty long at this point and couldn't see my students doing much more). 

A few questions I have but didn't really explore yet:

1) Are free subscribers limited to a certain number of books, or can I have a library of unlimited?

2) What would the benefits be of paying - beyond extended animation/graphic options?