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Via Kim Cofino on Google Buzz, I found the Google SearchStories Video Creator.
I see some great possibilities in the classroom for it.

• Pre-reading activities
• Book summaries
• Introduction /background knowledge
• Discussion starters

Doug Peterson has already blogged about his vision of potential uses in education, as has Kelly Tenkely from iLearn Technology.

You will create your story in three steps.

1. Write
2. Add Music
3. Preview and upload

Add your search terms

Add music

Here is a quick example, I created.

It was the first time I gave a presentation about tools at the Teacher2Teacher conference. It felt a little odd, since I so strongly believe that:

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS, It’s about the Skills!

Nevertheless, we do need to use tools in order to expose, practice and create through them. Here is a run down of70 Tools 70 Minutes

I am thrilled to be publishing a guest post by Andrea Hernandez, cross posted from EdTechWorkshop Blog on Langwitches.

http://www.edtechworkshop.blogspot.com/

In an earlier post, The Science of Play, I shared my ideas about the importance of playful learning, the type of learning observed in very young children. In my personal experience as a teacher, I have seen that as children mature they often lose some or all of their natural comfort with learning through spontaneous and playful exploration.
Think of a toddler with a big pile of blocks. Does the toddler ask an adult, “What should I do with these blocks?” or does a toddler start with a “product” like a big tower in mind and ask, “How do I stack these blocks to make a tower?” No, the toddler jumps right in and begins to explore, trying whatever he or she wants to try. Does the toddler feel upset and frustrated when the tower of blocks topples over? Doubtful. It is more likely that he or she is delighted by this and may knock it over and rebuild it again and again.
MIT recognizes the importance of the creative exploration of early childhood to the extent that they have created an entity called The Lifelong Kindergarten group.

In the Lifelong Kindergarten group, we’re trying to change that. We believe that it is critically important for all children, from all backgrounds, to grow up knowing how to design, create, and express themselves. We are inspired by the ways children learn in kindergarten: when they create pictures with finger paint, they learn how colors mix together; when they create castles with wooden blocks, they learn about structures and stability. We want to extend this kindergarten style of learning, so that learners of all ages continue to learn through a process of designing, creating, experimenting, and exploring.

As part of their mission to “sow the seeds for a more creative society,” the MIT media lab has developed a free program called Scratch that encourages the kind of open-ended exploration and creative problem solving that is not on the test, but that promotes the trial and error learning that is the heart of math, science and technological innovation. The beauty of Scratch and similar applications is that while the processes they engage are complex, most children are naturally drawn to them and find them fun. Kids ask to “play Scratch.”

In my STEM classes and, to a lesser extent, my weekly lab classes I attempt to provide students with the time and space to engage in this kind of exploration using freely available resources. In my role as the teacher I model possible approaches, support students in their attempts, validate and encourage them as they proceed, and open the door by introducing them to what’s out there. When appropriate, I push students to go a little deeper. Some students are more inclined than others to enjoy the open-ended, for those who require more structure I can help by defining a problem or assignment for them. I can also help them to reflect on their learning styles so that they grow in an understanding of their own abilities. Some students can’t wait to get to the computer and play, others prefer a tutorial (there are many tutorials online for most applications. It can be great practice and reflection to have students who are more advanced create tutorials for others), some students are more comfortable watching first before trying. Any and all approaches to learning are valid as long as students understand the process and challenge themselves.

In addition to Scratch, here are some other recommended resources for open-ended, creative exploration:

Whizzball -from Discovery Education, whizzball is a puzzle creator. Students can design puzzles, submit their puzzles for others to solve and solve puzzles created by others. I have found this to be challenging and fun for grades 1-5.

Fantastic Contraption- physics challenge. Use the materials provided to create a contraption that solves the challenge of getting something from point A to point B. There are multiple challenges and endless solutions. I am using this with a first grade STEM enrichment class, and they LOVE it. I could see it being popular with older students as well, although I haven’t introduced to other grades yet.

Lego Digital Designer – design tool using virtual legos.

PHUN – 2D physics sandbox. This one is more advanced. I recommend viewing at least one tutorial before jumping in to play. I used this with 5th grade, and it was fun (phun) at first, but many of them became frustrated quickly.

I just stumbled upon a great new tool called Lino-it. Thank you @shannonmmiller. It reminds me of Wallwhisher.
It looks like you can create Screens with different levels of privacy by inviting others to see the stickies only or having them contribute as well. It is very easy to add text stickies, attachment, image or video (that play directly on your wall) stickies.

Editing Options

Canvas Options

Wifitti looks like an interesting tool for the classroom, but also for presenations and conferences.
You can add up to 5 tags to be pulled in to your Wifitti wall from Twitter and Flickr. Contributors can text messages to the wall or enter them on the web.

Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens in thousands of locations from jumbotrons to jukeboxes, bars to bowling alleys and cafes to colleges.

You will receive a URL for the wall or can also embed it on your website with html code. The Wifitti I created below has the “@langwitches”, “langwitches”, Around the World with 80 Schools” and “Silvia Tolisano” tag.

While in Bangkok visiting Kim Cofino from Always Learning and Chrissy Hellyer from Teaching Sagittarian, I attended a session of CoTaIL (Certificate of Technology and Information Literacy) that is being taught at their school (International School of Bangkok). Jeff Utecht, from The Thingking Stick and co-teacher of the course,  had asked me to share with their class participants my recent experience with chatrooms in the classroom.

image by teachingsagittarian

I started out the session by creating a chat room on tinychat.com. With no preparation and little instructions, I asked the participants to use the chatroom to summarize what they were hearing.  I was hoping to be able to document a change in usage and focus of the chatroom as the presentation progressed.  As the primary focus of the session taught by Jeff and Chad Bates was “Digital Footprint”, I tried to tie in the use of a chatroom as yet another way of documenting your and your students’ learning. A way to be able to go back and reflect on conversations, questions and threads.

How do we teach with a tool that our students use exclusively (until now)  in a social setting? How to we guide and prepare them to use it on an academic stage and leaving a (positive!) digital footprint behind?

After the session was over, I was eager to go through the chat log to see what kind of thoughts were documented, what transformation (if any) had taken place in the mind of the participants, what kind of thoughts were “circulating” in the back channel while I was giving the presentation?

Well, as the technology gods must have wanted it, the chat log mysteriously only saved about 3 minutes of the about 40 minutes participants were using the chat.  So here is a snapshot of what went on during the presentation. No conclusive, since the majority of the log is missing but still insightful nonetheless. …

(5:13 am) breedlove – @teresa what about mandating students read the log of the chat and reflect on that?
(5:13 am) bedridden – Can someone move the camera so I can see the smart board?
(5:13 am) Karen – Application: Feedback on an oral presentation in real time.  Useful as we don’t always video tape presentions.
(5:13 am) Ida – I’m having a hard time writing while looking at Silvia and trying to digest everything she’s saying!
(5:13 am) Margherite – So could we have kids in different countries chatting at the same time?
(5:13 am) Stargirl – @carole @gaby…students can then check in and check others
(5:13 am) Teresa – @Jon: Yes, I like that idea.
(5:14 am) teachwatts – it seems like we all stop chatting when someone asks a question
(5:14 am) Chrissy – @Jon I like that idea too
(5:14 am) Andy – Sorry, but this really hits me as verbal diarrhea… people just throw so many thoughts out without filtering their thoughts. Does this lead to deep understanding?
(5:14 am) Kim – @margherite we have adults in this chatroom outside of thailand right now
(5:14 am) Karen – Question: Could you repeat your whole presentation when we’re done chatting.  I enjoyed chatting but I feel I missed a lot of your presentation.
(5:15 am) teachwatts – shouldn’t we give the same respect to the teacher?
(5:15 am) breedlove – @ andy that is ironic
(5:15 am) Teresa – @Andy: Love your question
(5:15 am) Chrissy – @Andy as the novelty wears off – most definitely
(5:15 am) Margherite – What’s Jono’s idea. I can’t find it
(5:15 am) bedridden – 1
(5:16 am) Guest66623 – Focused
(5:16 am) Chrissy – @margherite what about mandating students read the log of the chat and reflect on that?
(5:16 am) Diane – What Jeff is talking abou is what we’ve been doing…checking it out!
(5:16 am) mj – good point @jutecht
(5:16 am) Carole – How about access to computers….?
(5:16 am) breedlove – /msg Margherite the idea was to have the students read the log and reflect on that
(5:16 am) beachbum – @carole…good question

Since the presentation a few of the participants have reflected on their own blogs about the possibilities that a chatroom might bring to their classroom and what it might mean to  student learning.

Jono in his post Chatological Etiquette

I understand that this kind of set-up is second nature to a lot of kids, and that they often spend time chatting in this format. I can see how this may certainly be a big advantage to kids who find speaking up in class very difficult. With this, they can find a voice and have time to compose their thoughts and make comments without the fear of “looking stupid”.

Mary Belloney jumped right in and used tinychat with her elementary school students. She reflects on her blog post “Have you experimented with TinyChat?”

We have a lot of work to do when it come to chatroom etiquette but it was a great experience. I discovered that I need to break it into smaller groups as the slower typers didn’t have a chance to respond. As a class we are going to look at the transcript and see how we can work to make our chat more learning focused. I’ll update you the next time we use it!

I believe that using a chatroom can be a powerful opportunity to use a tool, that students find motivating and engaging, turning it from a social into an academic focus AND teach at the same time about:

• auditory skills
• writing skills
• online safety
• digital footprint
• collaborative work

It is up to us to harness these opporunities and be creative when implementing them with the ultimate goal of TEACHING our students. No matter what grade level, subject or skills.

Here are some ideas of chat integration:

• Collaborative classroom discussion of a video (Back Channeling in Middle School Social Studies)
• Documenting and summarizing Skype Video Conference (Using Chat Rooms As a Tool in the Classsroom)
• Beginning of class Foreign Language Review (Stinto takes a casual chat to a study activity)

Have you used a chatroom with your students? How are you integrating? What has been your experience? Would you do it again? How are you tweaking your lessons?

ShareTabs is a new tool I just heard about. It looks like a great tool to use in presentations, but also for your elementary school classroom.

It is very visual by displaying a thumbnail of the website link, but also has tabs open with the links you specify open, ready for your students to click on.

You will get one URL where all your links will be displayed.

Nancy von Wahlde from the American School of Madrid and I have been trying to collaborate on a project for a while now. We finally settled on connecting two of our first grade classes (Allison W. & Meghan M.)

We started looking at each others curriculum maps for the next few months and paid attention to units that were overlapping. It looked like that “I have a dream” writing assignment was one that we had in common.

After speaking with my first grade teacher Allison W., we settled on using their written “I have a Dream” essay and have students record them into VoiceThread.

I created placeholder images for each student from both schools. They will record their “I have a dream” essay directly on that image, using their own avatars, which are identities under the teacher’s account.

Each student will record their “dream” on the place holder image with their name. Their assigned buddy from the other class will be listening to the audio and THEN draw a picture illustrating the dream. We were lucky that each class had exactly 18 students.

We would love to make it possible to have each buddy talk with their partner (on Skype) AFTER they have listened to dream, but BEFORE they draw the picture. That way they already have heard their buddy’s voice and know already something about him/her. It might also give them the opportunity to ask some clarification questions before they start drawing.

Those illustration can be scanned in, digital picture taken or directly drawn in a drawing program.  They will then replace the place holder images.

I am in the process of applying to become an Apple Distinguished Educator for the class of 2009.

I don’t know if it is appropriate to publish my video clip since the application process is still open until January 31st.

But…

… it feels odd not to share my work, so in the spirit of transparency and documenting one’s journey and process,  in the hope someone else might learn from it… or get inspired.. here is a rough draft of my application video.

I still need to edit and cut it down to about half the size. The video was created in iMovie08.