We Teach We Learn » innovation

Show of Hands: Why visual literacy matters

Chris Wondra — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:25:36 +0000

Show of Hands from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

Ok. Now I know what you’re thinking: Did students really create that?

Yep.

Behind the Scenes of Show of Hands from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

Here’s more from this amazing, creative and innovative teacher.

Building your PLN

Chris Wondra — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:59:46 +0000

Building Your Own Personal Learning Network from Carl Anderson on Vimeo.

The Power of the Human Voice (Thread)

Chris Wondra — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:54:08 +0000

As I sat down tonight, my original intent was to simply post this video in the Video of the Day section and be done with it.

But I couldn’t do that. There is so much more to say!! I am so excited about Voice Thread and its possibilities for teaching and learning! As a result of this over exuberance, I’ve decided to forgo all the quality checks and balances we have here at We Teach We Learn, and just toss this out there. I’ve got a devil may care attitude tonight.

So, if you haven’t already done so, check out the video above for a brief 3 minute example/introduction.

Okay. Back with me? Great. If that’s your first exposure to Voice Thread, let me show you something else. See, I don’t want to spend a lot of time telling you about this. As a teacher, you really need to see it and experience it and then let your imagination run with the possibilities.

What you’re looking at just below, is an actual Voice Thread I’ve embedded here explaining what a Voice Thread is. So go ahead. Click play. You know you want to:

Alright, so maybe you watched the whole thing, or maybe you didn’t. Regardless, can you start to see the potential here? I’ve been playing around with this application for about a week now and have made a few Voice Threads of my own. One of my first was actually for this blog as I shared some information about gender differentiation. You can see that post here.

So there I am stumbling around. You liked it, you didn’t like it–whatever. That’s not the point here. Stay with me.

At the time of this writing, I hadn’t yet found anyone else to play with me. I mean, nobody has participated on the voice thread. I hope that will change soon. But it may not. Still, the point is it opens up all kinds of possibilities for presentations. The slides I used were taken directly from a handout I gave to people that attended my session at a conference. I also prepared a powerpoint that I used during my talk to inform and help stimulate discussion among the participants.

I was a bit rushed for time. Still, I thought it went reasonably well. But here’s the thing: When we all left the room that day–it was over. I haven’t heard from a single one since to further the discussion.

Not that this would be ideal, but with a Voice Thread, I could have prepared and presented everything on-line. People could have been able to access it as many times as they liked, whenever they liked. And not only that, but we could have also continued the discussion–OUTSIDE OF THE ROOM!

Okay. So to me, that’s pretty cool. But the other thing is, this application is so ridiculously easy to use! I’ve explored podcasting, and uploading slide shows using slideshare and trying to add voice and video into powerpoints–but it’s all so cumbersome for me. Sure, I suppose I could figure it out. But like I said when I started this post–I’m busy!

I promise you, Voice Thread took less than 5 minutes to figure out. It really is as easy to use as it looks.

So, naturally, I wanted to start using it in my classroom.

Now let me say right off the bat that, while my ideal is to get the kids involved in discussion by using the Voice Thread as a launch point, I have to temper my enthusiasm because I don’t have a solid, secure way to manage their accounts. You need an email to get your own free account. Not all my kids have that. I wish we could get them all secure accounts here at school, but we’re just not quite there yet as a district. So, I’m willing to start small.

Here’s what I did. This is a link to a wiki I’m developing to manage my–you know–class, curriculum, units. It’s a place kids can go to get what they need for 8th grade language arts. Please don’t be critical–I’m just getting it started. I don’t have any interaction built in yet–or even many units.

Anyway, we just started a Treasure Island novel unit. The way I run it is, typically, students are responsible for two chapters a day, one of which I read to them in class. The other, they’re on their own–which is fine for most. But, you know, there are always those that are going to struggle mightily with the text. I mean, after all, Treasure Island was originally published in 1883. The language has changed a bit. Plus there’s dialect and weird vocabulary and spellings and all kinds of other complexities.

So, if you check out this wiki page, you’ll see that I’m slowly but surely recording the even numbered chapters (those I typically don’t read in class), along with slides that support the text. Now these struggling readers can read along as they listen. We don’t have to have a library of audio tapes or CD’s to keep track of. They can just hop on a computer with internet access– either here at school, or home, or the library, or where ever–and away they go!

But this is just one (very limited I might add) application of how Voice Thread can be used. Soon, I’d like to secure a few email addresses for some of my struggling writers so that they can leave voice comments in response to slides I develop prompting them to–you know, all that language arts stuff–summarize, predict, analyze, interpret and extend the text of the story by responding ORALLY!!!

Who knows where we can go from there. Maybe even responding to each other, offering opinions (on our opinions), capturing discussions and learning on line. Maybe kids who are low energy during class will be able to engage at a later time of day. I don’t mean to imply that voice Thread can totally replace a good quality classroom discussion. But I think it can certainly be a tool we can use to enhance teaching and learning.

Lots of possibilities.

And the cool thing is–there seems to be no limit. It’s totally up to you. Now imagine how it might fit into your curriculum. Let your creative juices flow.

Next, invite your students.

For a list of examples of how other teachers have used Voice Thread, check out this page of educational Voice Thread examples to get ideas for your own classes. This page contains examples created by real teachers, for real K-12 students in all curricular areas.

Check out this link to explore Voice Thread logistics related to education. Complete with a discussion about privacy.

So there you have it. The bottom line: Voice Thread takes presentations and collaborations and discussions and media to the next level. Add it to your arsinal.

The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 1

Chris Wondra — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:08:42 +0000

Welcome to the first issue of The Edge of Education Carnival! Obviously, this is a new venture for us at We Teach We Learn. So, we’re learning a lot about running one of these things.

The idea of this carnival is to share experiences of “edgy” teaching and learning. There are a lot of great things happening out there in the edusphere. More and more, we’re beginning to understand how to blend the art of teaching with the science of learning. It’s a balancing act, and this carnival is the place to share our triumphs and failures walking that tightrope.

It’s about the risks we take, and the new stuff we try, and the stories we bring back from the adventures of blazing new trails.

Knowing this, it makes sense that stories of personal experiences will always be get links before other kinds of submissions–like list posts, for example.

Frankly we were was shocked at the number of lists of 100 that we received. We ignored most of them. Indeed we were about to delete all of them, but when we looked closer, a select few were actually interesting. Upon further review, we came to the conclusion that some of these submissions actually delivered quite a bit of value. Especially to the teachers at the “edges” of technology and education innovation. So we kept four list posts–out of 57.

Understand that not all original posts were accepted either. We’re setting the bar pretty high. In order to be accepted, posts must be valuable, interesting and honest. Action research is held in the highest regard, but interesting best practices and insightful reflections on educational literature and/or personal experience also qualifies as “Edgy.”

Our guiding intent is to maintain the highest levels of quality, value and integrity here. Teacher’s should expect nothing less.

Okay, we’ve rambled on enough now. Let’s get to the good stuff. In no particular order:

Marjorie Morgan wrote an interesting piece about the challenge of making math relevant to students at Lindsay & Sharon – outdoor adventurers posted at GO! Girls Outdoors. Her premise: Marrying Mathematics and Outdoor Education – can it be done?

The following paragraph from her entry hits the nail on the head:

While I was tutoring the other day, my student asked whether I’d ever used Calculus in my ‘real life’ (which I assume meant away from the classroom – he’s a bright student who has realized that teachers sometimes have a life away from school). I had to answer no, I never had – after all, if you chuck a rock off a cliff, it’s easier to just estimate where it will reach its highest point and where it will hit the ground than it is to pull out a pencil and paper and work out the equations.

Jeremy Burman presents Update: Baby Einstein DVDs to be refunded posted at Advances in the History of Psychology. Jeremy writes about the recent offer from Disney to refund the money of those who purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, saying that this begs the question: what do parents and teachers have to do to encourage giftedness in their children? He then offers a brief annotated bibliography of sources related to this topic.

We all know how important novelty is to stimulate attention and motivation. Rachel Lynette has supplied a great list of ideas we can use to provide that spark of surprise to engage students again. Get out of that Rut! posted at Minds in Bloom. We couldn’t agree more with this, from her post,

Yes, routines have their place, and you need them to keep your class in order and to get things done. But they are also so very boring and they don’t do a thing to stimulate creative thought. So, every so often (at least once a day!) shake your kids up and do something different.

TIC writes,

You’ve experienced it before: you teach the same lesson to two different classes. In one class it’s the best lesson you’ve ever taught. In the next class the lesson bombs. Have you ever sought to discover the reason behind this mystery?

Be sure not to miss this insightful article about the nuances of teaching that aren’t often addressed about Classroom Dynamics posted at Technology In Class.

Twitter has taken social media by storm, and individuals as well as corporate America are scrambling to understand how to capitalize. Shelly Terrell presents a great article explaining how educators can utilize this new tool to ramp up their professional development. PRESTO: How to Build A PLN Using Twitter posted at Teacher Reboot Camp is a great introduction on how to build a Personal Learning Network.

By way of introduction to this fabulous article, Shelly writes, “I hope educators will be able to learn about the usefulness of Twitter in this very short presentation.”

Jim McGuire has created a simple assignment that rewards students for reading. The problem is that, based on the documentation he’s getting back, some students are lying about how much they’ve read. Jim thinks it’s a motivational issue and shares a great video he plans to use to help motivate his students. Fake Reading, Will Smith, and Being Successful posted at The Reading Workshop.

And last but not least, Hall Monitor presents a great example of the spirit of ingenuity alive and well in today’s students DetentionSlip.org: MIT Students Explain How to Photograph Space for $150 posted at DetentionSlip.org.

And now for the list posts. These posts aren’t original, but collections of original ideas. If you’re looking for inspiration, browsing these links is great way to find some

Kaitlyn Cole presents 100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School posted at Online Colleges.net.

Fredric Cernick presents 25 Free Web Tools Every Student Should Use posted at How To E-D-U.

Angela Martin presents 100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom posted at Online Colleges.org.

Stacie Young presents 100 Blogs Every New Teacher Should Read posted at Online Schools.

That concludes our first edition of The Edge of Education Carnival. Want to submit to the next one? We’d love to hear about your “Edgy” teaching. Just use this handy submission form.

Image credits:

Front Page: Woman on cliff

In article: Climbing man

Thank You!