Tech Tips for Teachers

Using Tech to Enhance Teaching 
Contributors
Tags



November 25, 2009

My first glog

I am trying glogging with the students and today they have spent some time gathering resources for their glog posters. Images, words, video etc. I want to be able to use this effectively in the classroom so I am creating this sample for the kids. Hopefully it looks okay. I think it is pretty barebones. I like the idea of being able to use the webcam to grab video and sound but unfortunately I couldn't get it to go when I used it. Will I use this feature in the classroom? Probably not. All in all it was a good experience and I think the students will be motivated to produce a good project.


Students can also leave comments with each other so that they can talk about what they liked about the glog and what they could improve.

Anyways here is the glog I made:


Try out the service. Its free and I think it yet another tool in the arsenal where we can allow our students to express their digital creativity.

Loading mentions Retweet
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [1]

November 25, 2009

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Lee Winik requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn:

Arjun,

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Lee

Accept View invitation from Lee Winik


DID YOU KNOW you can conduct a more credible and powerful reference check using LinkedIn?
Enter the company name and years of employment or the prospective employee to find their colleagues that are also in your network. This provides you with a more balanced set of feedback to evaluate that new hire.

© 2009, LinkedIn Corporation

Loading mentions Retweet
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [0]

September 28, 2009

Become Tech Savvy! Use Twitter and other Social Media Tools to Increase Your Skills

Hey there! I'm back and I'm set to do some more posts, screencasts, podcasts of the things I have learned about using tech in teaching. I hope that you find some of the ideas on this blog useful and can use it in your daily instruction. As part of my professional growth plan, I will be using my blog to become a more reflective practitioner of education (Doesn't that sound official?). Anyways, getting back to what this post is really about: TWITTER I discovered it a few months ago. It really is quite a powerful tool for networking and sharing information. At first, I was the same as everyone else, I thought "so what?". Who wants to use only 140 characters to communicate an idea anyways? The stream of information that pours onto a first time user of this service is chaotic to say the least. In fact, its overwhelming and trying to make sense of the twitter stream is impossible at first.

So my first piece of advice for those of you who want to try Twitter is to get a good Twitter client ( a piece of software that works with the Twitter service). My recommendation for this is Tweetdeck It really helps the user to make sense of what is going on in the community. That's the important thing here folks. This is a community, and it is a live conversation. The next piece of advice is to use a hashtag or # sound sign when you do a search on a topic of conversation. This allows you to track results of conversations going on about a given topic. Tweetdeck allows you to do this quite easily and this is why it is such a powerful twitter client.

This is an example of a screenshot of tweetdeck. It is broken up by columns so you can see what is going on in the stream. In the ALL Friends column you have the tweets of all the people you are following. In the next column there are the mentions ( this is the column where people have sent public replies to your tweets). In the next column you can do hashtag searches. Think of these search columns as chat rooms where people update information about a certain topic.

One search I use quite regularly is #edchat. Edchat is where educators from around the globe come onto to twitter to share educational tips and discuss issues that affect teaching practice. A lot of what is discussed is related to using tech in teaching. The one thing that I have found is that the atmosphere or conversation on edchat is quite inviting and friendly. I have learned a lot from these educators and they have posted links to resources I might have not found otherwise. It also gives a perspective into how education is approached in different parts of the world.

So this is just one way I am using web 2.0 tools to build my skills as a tech teacher and life long learner. To end this post I thought I'd leave you with a Common Craft Video that explains Twitter in plain English. Next post a Tweetdeck tutorial!

</object>

Loading mentions Retweet
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [1]

June 9, 2009

Video Slideshows

I like slideshows for projects, but I hate when student make slideshows.  Let me explain.  Every time a student presents a powerpoint, they end up just reading directly from the slide.  Itès frustrating.  So, when I read this post it cought my interest, so i adprted it for my own needs.
 
Here is an excerpt:
"In this assignment you will be studying one particular aspect of WWII and creating a video Slide Show (with voice over) detailing the information to the class."
 
I provided links and questions to answer.  The students had 5 classes to finish the project.
 
I needed more time.  The project really caught my Grade 12's interest and some of them really put some solid work into it.  The best part was that students that were not even familiar with MovieMaker had very few technical difficulties.  the learning seemed to be richer.  We shall see.


--
Geoff Haacke

haackeg@gmail.com

Get the Flash Playerto see this player.
(download)

Get the Flash Playerto see this player.
(download)

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   history   video  
Posted by Geoff Haacke 

Comments [0]

May 12, 2009

Remembering that Tech in Teaching is Linked to Learning

Jared Nichol, who is the author, of Journey''s in 2.0 teaching had a great post about his experiences using tech in his classroom. This week he is talking about how the learning outcomes in the curriculum certainly did not cover all of the aspects of the project he was working on with his students. It really helps us to think why and how we use tech in our teaching and the difficulties of using it effectively in education when technology is changin all the time.

You can find Jared's post here:

http://2pointohteaching.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-are-teachers-assessing-with.html

If you are using tech in your classroom how are are you assessing the students' work? How do you design your projects? These are the things we have to be diligent about when using technology in education.

Loading mentions Retweet
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [0]

May 5, 2009

Senteos and other Interactive voting systems

 Today I will be reporting on the Senteo interactive voting system. I just received about fifteen of these clickers and I am trying to integrate this new piece of tech into my teaching as smoothly as possible. If you haven't heard of this system before here is what they look like:
 
 
 
Each student gets a handheld remote aka "clicker" and with some teacher created questions you can have the students answer the questions by voting on the answers and submitting the results directly to your computer. So, it sounds like it is the old fashioned multiple choice test all over again given with a high tech twist. While some of this is true the Senteo application can be a really useful tool in the classroom. I have used it on many occasions to start discussions, poll student opinions about issues, and do review and testing of major concepts learned in class that day or that week.
 
Case in point, we are doing a unit in cyberbullying in our classroom and I brought in a guest speaker to talk about the dangers of this growing phenomenon. I put together a questionairre that the students had to answer after listening to our guest speaker and handed it out in class. Everyone was given a clicker and I set the test to use Anonymous Mode so that we could poll the students results without picking on any one individual for their answers. To speed the survey up I gave everyone a set of questions and we didn't even use the Smartboard until we saw what the results were. The purpose of the survey was to get everyone involved in the discussion. Normally you have one or two students who are keen to give answers in class but now everyone is participating because they want to know how they compared to the rest of the class in terms of understanding and thinking.
 
It was interesting for the guest speaker and myself to see the results because then we could see where some of the misconceptions students had about the internet and what their beliefs were about cyberbullying. This tool really helped to focus our discussion and made it informative and fun for everyone.
 
My weaker students also enjoy doing these kinds of assessments in class because of poor writing skills which often hampers their communication.
 
Another important feature of the Senteo is that the questions can be developped in Word, which is a great time saver. If you had some previous assessments already created than they could easily be imported and ready for use with the Senteo software in minutes.
 
At the Teacher2Teacher conference in Bow Island, AB. I learned how to do some real time assessment with these tools as well. Senteo has a an instant question feature that allows you to review with the kids immediately and will display the results of who is and is not grasping a concept in class.  It can certainly help you focus on who needs more help and those students who are independent and can move on to more challenging concepts.
 
You can also test to make sure the assessment is working correctly using the clicker simulator that comes with the software. It is a virtual clicker that works exactly like the real thing so you can simulate the testing experience.
 
By the way, all the results as I have mentioned earlier are stored in the Senteo software and will even calculate running averages and how the students performed against the rest of the class. All the results can even be exported to Excel document where the data can be put into a gradebook or made accessible for some other piece of software.
 
Its a great tool, and I am hoping to find other ways to use it in my classroom. How do you use your Senteo?

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   assessment   interactive voting system   senteo   smartboard  
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [0]

April 29, 2009

Tech Tips For Teachers Episode 2

Hey there everyone!

This is episode 2 of Tech Tips for teachers. I am just giving a brief rundown of digital storytelling and photostory 3 for windows. If you have any comments please let me know!



Record your screencast online

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   digital storytelling   photostory 3   tutorials   web 2.0   web resources  
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [2]

April 10, 2009

Blogging InDepth from Journey's in 2.0 Teaching.

Jared Nichol is a fellow teacher from the Cold Lake area and he hosts a blog called Journey's in 2.0 Teaching. If you want to see a great post about blogging in the classroom from creation to evaluation you should check his post here. It basically shows how Jared has been using blogs in his classroom with writing and the rubrics he has been using to help evaluate the learning taking place in his classroom. I think it is a fantastic post and if you are new to blogging and want to learn more about it you should send him a quick email.

As for me I am into exploring all the ways 2.0 can help me. By the way did he tell you he's a Mac Addict?

Cheers Jared!

Check out his blog!

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   assessment   blog links   blogs   mac  
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [1]

April 10, 2009

First Post From a New Contributor

Hi there! Geoff Haacke here! I am a teacher at Pierceland Central
School (one of the few results you get from Googling me). I have
experimented with both blogs and wikis and will be sharing my
experiences with these as well as my experiences with my SMARTboard.
Also, I have done a LOT of Professional Development on using
Technology in education and hope to share my thoughts.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   new contributor  
Posted by Geoff Haacke 

Comments [2]

April 4, 2009

Screencasting!

What is Screencasting? Well screencasting is capturing what you do on your computer to show to others so that you can visually explain how to do some thing or how it would benefit them. Instead of creating a step by step instruction booklet, you can simply show them in a short video, narrated by you on how to do something. Its an incredibly neat tool and I am going to try and compile some of the things I have learned to share with others in my school and division.

I have just been experimenting with some screencasting tools. The one I have been playing around with is Jing from TechSmith.com. If you want to try Jing you can find it at Jing. I made one this evening(click the link below to view):




Free online screen recorder


Tell me what you think! You only have five minutes of recording time so you must be sure to use your time wisely. I tend to ramble so I had to go and redo it a few times.

Other sites and apps you can try:


  • SnagIt- a capturing tool also by Techsmith
  • Camtasia Studio- Techsmith's high end capturing tool (very cool but pricey!)
  • Screentoaster.com- Lots of features! 

Well, I hope this works out and let me know what you think. I'll be working on other screencasts for the future.

Cheers,

Lee

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   Jing   screencasting   screentoaster   tutorials   web 2.0   web resources  
Posted by Lee Winik 

Comments [0]