Communicate .. Create .. EdTech

* April Fool's two days early!

Back to reality....take a look at these fun, interesting April Fool's Day resources for your classroom!

**Update: 10/19/2013: Unfortunately, a single educator account is no longer free. Now, it will cost $79 a year for a teacher account and 50 student accounts. It also appears that "old" voicethreads can no longer be accessed. While still a great tool, I was disappointed by this. While I do understand that these companies need to be profitable, it does seem that some special dispensation for education users should be made. Oh well...**

VoiceThread is a unique web-based resource, and we have been remiss not talking about it 'til now. Briefly, VT allows students to quickly pull together images and then 'attach'  comments to each. Others - students, parents, teachers - can then start a 'conversation in the cloud' - via telephone, webcam, even file upload - and VT makes this process very simple.

For instance, I've had students use it to create 'reports' on issues faced by countries in modern-day Africa. The results were powerful, and the students were very proud of the outcomes. Our kindergarten teacher put together a great Mother's Day thread using scanned images her students created, along with a Mother's Day wish from each, attached to the drawing they made. Needless to say, moms (and dads!) loved it.



There are lots of easy to use controls to 'review' comments and manage the thread - navigation is pretty simple, and it's really a highly refined tool.

Not only can students add recorded voice to the images they pull in, the software allows others - even with no VT account - to easily add their own comments to the student's work. It's a very powerful platform that provides a reasonable way to encourage deeper thinking. It also support Project Based Learning in an easy to use platform. Comments can be moderated, and the free account has a decent level of feature that should satisfy most needs. There is also an iOS app (sadly, did not see one for Android, but you can use the web interface anywhere...). So, take a look at VoiceThread, and start a cloud-based discussion today.

CC Connection: This is a fun tool students can use to pull together the aspects of a story or novel they have read, such as an analysis of characters, setting, literary devices, or text comparisons.  They can use it to study vocabulary or significant lines of text.  Since they can hear themselves read, younger students can use VT to practice fluency and pronunciation.  Students can also use it to write narratives, share research, and illustrate conclusions.

April Fool's Day is NEXT MONDAY! Here's a thorough list of April Fool's resources provided by our friends at Edutopia.

I thought this Classroom Laughter Primer by Allie Magnuson in Scholastic was interesting about using humor in the classroom - right on point. Debunks all the usual excuses teachers try to avoid using humor. As an aside, I'm trying to get more skilled at including Habits of Mind 'practice'/skill building in my curriculum, and one of the Habits of Mind  is "Finding Humor" in learning, so that's a thought too...

I also enjoyed Edutopia's April Fools Day Video Playlist. Check the Orchestral Practical Joke, for one...

Need one more?  Try The Foil Prank.  No, not on your co-worker... as a math activity that challenges the students to determine how much foil it would take to cover everything in the classroom.  You'll see the standards at the bottom of the page.

For those of you on Spring/Easter break next week, enjoy your well-deserved time off!!!  If you are in school, try to blend in one or two April Fool's related activities if you can!

CC Connection: if you really do need to connect it (it's ok to not!) use some of this to create opportunities for students to reflect on, be creative with, or write about their experiences on April Fool's, inside of school or out.

We've updated our Resources page! Please take a look and learn about the tools we've recommended so far! Some of the highlights:

This Exquisite Forest is an online collaborative art project that lets users create short animations that build off one another as they explore a specific theme. The result is a collection of branching narratives resembling trees. (...direct quote from the site)

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, developed at Utah State University, is very popular among math teachers at my school. This free site supports math students from kinder through 12th grade, with plenty of online exercises in Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, and MUCH more! Each major concept is organized by grade (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 8-12); once you click the appropriate tile, a long list of applicable practice items from which to choose will be listed.

CC Connection:  This site covers the vast majority of Math core standards. Lots of ways to provide your students opportunities to see and practice various important 'core' math skills, using online manipulatives.

• The Library of Congress: Some great ideas in how to use primary sources and the work of American poets.
• Common Core Curriculum Maps: Besides being the most comprehensive guide in ELA, poetry is embedded in each unit.
• Poets.org: A complete collection of lessons for all grade levels.
• PBS NewsHour: Not what comes to your mind when you think poetry, but the two lessons are good ones.  We did a poetry slam with 8^th grade, and they really enjoyed it.  Great opportunity to make connections.

Next Vista for Learning is an excellent resource site with over 1000 student and teacher-created videos on a wide variety of topics. This site is run by our friend Rushton Hurley, a very well known and respected ed tech leader, and you should check it out. The site collects many of its videos via contests.

Teachers or students can use this site for several different purposes. The videos in the regular collections of NextVista.org are for a student audience, and highlight the creativity of students and teachers around the world. It's organized into three 'collections.' Light Bulbs introduces topics to students when they're 'ready to learn'; teachers can also benefit to see what videos done by others look like, or for lesson planning. Global Views helps students develop a sense of community as they view videos about places not 'here.' Seeing Service helps students and teachers learn about 'good deeds large and small' and help them realize that they, too, can do good deeds.

Next Vista run contests that students (and teachers) can enter - one called Creative Flight is underway now! From the site.... "Put a little creativity into a video teaching any concept one might encounter in elementary, middle, or high school, and keep it to 90 seconds or less. It can be about sculpture, negative numbers, supply and demand, alternative energy, adverbs, or anything else for which you have a clever insight."

There are actually 3 contests - one for students, one for teachers, and a team contest for a student and teacher together. Our school has entered some these contests, and they are lots of fun and an excellent learning experience for all. We were fortunate to win one contest, and the joy on the faces of the two students who participated and produced the winning entry was fabulous. You can see our videos on the Visit to Atria Senior Center, and another on St. Leo the Great School Turkey Drive. There are MANY more examples - as noted, over 1000!!!!

The contests, the number of (learning) videos on relevant and interesting topics, the focus on 'service' videos, and the sense of community all work together to make this a very important place to visit often.













CC Connection:  As I've noted before, "Digital Storytelling" - making and sharing videos or other multimedia in various forms - is one of the holy grails of integrating ed tech into the curriculum. It engages student's higher order thinking skills (analysis, creativity, etc.) and also places significant emphasis on 21st C. Learning Skills, too - Creativity, Communication, Critical Thinking,  and Collaboration.

Further, from www.corestandards.org, these skills are called out as we develop our students:

• They demonstrate independence.
• They build strong content knowledge.
• They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline.
• They comprehend as well as critique.
• They value evidence.
• They use technology and digital media strategically and capably.
• They come to understand other perspectives and cultures.

Nextvista.org supports all of these, across the curriculum!