Digital Storytelling Project

Ibrahim's Story

This project has turned out to be much more time consuming than I had anticipated...

However, the pride that Ibrahim exudes makes it well worth the effort!  My Wiki page for East Hartford Public Schools will also have this video embedded so that he will have the opportunity to share our creation with family and friends.  Additionally, through this process, I feel that I have built a much stronger relationship with Ibrahim and his sister (who is also an ELL student at the EHHS).  ELL students need an opportunity such as this to show how much they do know because too often, other students don't realize the wealth of information and the new perspectives that could be shared with students from other parts of the world.  Although the project tried my patience at times, I am grateful for the opportunity.

This is a very rough draft of the concept that I had originally thought I would pursue but it was difficult with all the time off we have had compounded with not seeing my students every day.  However, I corresponded with Ibrahim and his sister outside of school often to try to make up for lost time and fill the seemingly endless gaps.  His sister, Shabana answered many questions and provided me with their personal photographs.  She was exceedingly helpful and then thanked me for my time and helping her practice her English!

The second draft has some of the questions I had, answered but I had some difficulty uploading the pictures that Shabana gave me.  Thankfully, the photos uploaded onto Moviemaker with no problem.  The video seems lengthy at this point because Ibrahim has had some difficulty reading his script and we haven't even covered all the areas I wanted to at this point.  Additionally, he didn't keep the microphone near his mouth so  some of the narration fades out.  I think I will edit some of the script and re-record some of the narration to shorten the video; I may have to delete somethings as well.  I am afraid to upload the video at this point because I am unsure if I will be able to edit it again once I have saved it and I REALLY don't want to do it all again!

The third draft has been edited.

Can Technological Fun Change Human Behavior?

I wish we had more creative ideas like these!!  By incorporating fun into mundane daily practices, technology can really motivate people to make better choices. "Day of Glass" may too intrusive for personal tastes, but I think these are fun ways to incorporate technology in a positive way.  What do you think?

What Makes You Itch?

Personally, I found this video very powerful.  Although I love parts of my job, I don't feel as though my job is overall satisfying...I love teaching but I don't love the teacher that I have become if that makes any sense.  While I understand the necessity of assessments and accountability, I think it is potentially detrimental to how children learn naturally.  I don't feel that I have the freedom to develop their curiosities and creativity by exploring topics in depth or spending the time on projects that are of interest to them.  It is too expensive and  if I did they might not be able to pass standardized tests. I wish that I was independently wealthy so I could just spend time engaged in learning activities led by children.  To me, experiencing the sense of wonder and discovery through a child's eyes is a wonderful feeling!  I think there is too much anger and hatred in the world.  Perhaps, as educators, we should be responsible for leading students on a path of self discovery, as opposed to pounding knowledge [that they don't care about and will most likely forget because it is irrelevant to the their lives] into their heads (often unsuccessfully). How many students get to high school or even college and have no idea what they want to be (my middle baby included)? This saddens me, and like I always do, I feel that I have not done my job both as a teacher and as a parent. I truly believe that having a passion for what you do will bring joy.  It may sound corny, but I also think that if people lived in joy, there would be much more peace in the world...

A Day Made of Glass...is AMAZING!

Ok, so this isn't exactly educationally related but I was amazed that this type of technology could actually be in our homes in the future, possibly now I suppose for those that can afford it.  This video is not new (especially when considering the rate at which technology advances).  It strengthens the argument that the system of education and teachers need to become technologically savvy if for nothing else than keeping up with the "digital natives."

Time Zones...Who Knew?

TED Ed Talks

Why do we have standardized time in the United States?

In my RSS feed, Richard Byrne posted this and other related videos.  Maybe all of you already knew this so please forgive my ignorance as I did not.  I thought it was interesting and thought it could be used for units on Industrial Revolution.  ELL students benefit greatly from multimedia in lessons so I thought maybe I would try to utilize more of these types of videos in my instruction especially for reader (well viewer) response questions.  If I had a class with a blog, I might embed a video with questions for students to blog about.

Want a New Way to Apply PhotoPeach?

PhotoPeach seems almost identical to Animoto in terms of creation and sharing.  They additionally offer educator packages for entire classes and schools that allow all the students work to be in one central location for the community to view.

We all know how to use this type of tool for creating a video but I just read a new idea for using this tool for instructional purposes.  PhotoPeach has an option to select quiz in the educator's package.  The captions you add are questions and multiple choice answers complete with a timer!  For a step by step instructions with screen shots, please visit a Dropbox link on Lori's Latest Links.

To see an example of the quiz format, please click on the following link:  Life Feast: Creating QUIZZES with Photopeach.  This example is of particular interest to me because it was created to practice English grammar by Ana Maria Menezes, an EFL teacher in Brazil.  

Application?

I was thinking of using it as an "All About Me" type of project.  Many of my students have very interesting heritages that would be fun to share.  For those of you that have classrooms, you could send a fun and interactive "All About..." to introduce yourselves to your new students and their families on your blog.

In addition to the grammar example, I could use the video as a type of pre- and post assessment for determining background knowledge in the content areas or for vocabulary development.  I'm not sure of the logistics yet.  I wonder if there is a way to have students respond with clickers to collect data.  I have no idea if that can even be done with iPads but after this week, I am thinking probably not!

If you have any other ideas, I would love you to share them!

   

Are You Looking for a Cool Way to Create a Word Web? Try Popplet!

One of the easiest instructional strategies for ELLs is to incorporate semantic maps.  This strategy has become rather common place so the Popplet app adds a refreshing novelty.  Popplet is usually a paid app on Apple devices but I have heard it is offered for free sometimes or you can access it on the website for free.  The free version is limited to 5 creations but you are able to share or export your popplets and save them as pdf or jpeg files.  The following video describes how to use the features of the app.  



I created a popplet on nonfiction text features to try it out.  Since the site would not let me embed the popplet I created, I decided to take a screen shot.  My awesome sister-n-law taught me how.  Thank you, Elena!!!!  

I exported the popplet as a pdf file but I don't know how to upload it in that format.  I was hoping to enlarge it so that it could be more easily seen but this seems to be the best I can do.  If anyone knows a better way, please feel free to share!

It is really easy so I plan to have my students create their own.  Some ideas for application are:

1. Building vocabulary
2. Synonyms
3. Story mapping
4. Main idea and supporting details

Can you think of anymore?

Richard Byrne

Recently, I attended a Technology conference in Springfield, MA.  As I was listening to the presenter, my phone notified me of Elena's post about a resource she thought I might like (which by the way, I deleted by accident on my phone so now I am not sure if the link she gave me is the same because he has that picture on everything I have found so far).  Low and behold, as I clicked on the link, I saw Richard Byrne's face smiling at me digitally and in person.  You can check out his blog if you would like, he has a wealth of information that he was barely able to touch upon in the short sessions.

I was seated next to our "tech guy" (whom I adore) and during a transitional lull, I was telling him about how much I loved Diigo.  I'm not sure if Mr. Byrne heard me or not because I was so close but he continued the conversation and sang Diigo's praises as well.  I think maybe my "tech guy" was a little impressed with me, THANK YOU DR. ARZT!!

He was explaining how he goes into these manic blog posting episodes but then he programs the dates so that the blogs are released periodically throughout the week in an attempt to hide his digital obsessions.  He used a similar trick on his blog when he was a social studies teacher.  At night, he created links to all his classes for the day with readings, assignments, questions, activities all on their class page.  He emphasized how handy it was for sub planning as students were conditioned and knew exactly where to go and what to do.  He also commented about he used if for record keeping and parental communication as we have learned in our class.  

Byrne shared that recently, he had seen a former student.  The student asked if Mr. Byrne recalled a video project that they had worked on.  He explained that students remember something they made or did that gave them a sense of pride or accomplishment.  He emphasized the importance of teachers staying up to date on the latest technological tools and trends so that they can provide the students "with just the right tool, at just the right time, for just the right product."  To exemplify the variety of student strengths, he shared the following video:  

He shared many tools that were already familiar because we have learned so much in class.  However, there was one that absolutely amazed me!  It is the concept of augmented reality.  He demonstrated how AR apps could provide a virtual reality experience.  For example, when using a device to read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, viewers would see videos of interviews with the author, video clips, and so forth.  Sadly, when I googled it, I couldn't find anything with that description.  However, I found a YouTube video that describes it much better than I.  I cannot embed it because it has been disabled but I highly recommend that you click on the Common Craft link on augmented reality.  Mr. Byrne said that eyeglasses have been prototyped with this technology and are currently being tested.  Amazing!

That session was specifically on blogging but there were many beginners in the audience so he had to go very slowly.  The problem was compounded by the fact that the Marriott's WiFi could not accommodate the volume of people trying to go online.  Everyone kept getting kicked off including all the presenters.  My heart went out to them because all of them were so well prepared with what they wanted to demonstrate but many were unsuccessful due to the WiFi issues.  He did recommend that we visit his blog for further information, which is where I found this on his creating blogs and websites page:

Creating an Effective Online Hub from Richard Byrne


He also has further videos on comment moderation, adding & subtracting contributors to your blog, edublogs, as well other forums.  He knew how to prevent spamming, how to protect his work, and the list seems endless.  

He was fascinating to watch and listen to though, I wish I had more time with him.  I also wish he spent more time sharing creative ways of applying these tools with students.

VOKI

This is NOT my Voki, I was all set to embed the Voki I had previously created.  However, now that type of avatar is for Voki Education use which is only free for a short amount of time...aggravating. So, I decided to try to take a screen shot of it at least.  The following are directions I found online to do so:




<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EoTpIYLBtKs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

but all I get is this code, it didn't work...grrr...

Anyhow, the tool still has some other avatars that are still free but in the process of looking for one, I lost my original pretty avatar...double grrr...

I am disenchanted with this tool at the moment but I will share some cool ideas for using it since that was my original intent.  

ELL Ideas for Application

1. To model fluency by creating a good and bad example and then having students discuss which example was easier to understand and why.
2. Students can record themselves reading for a similar activity or for self reflection
3. For giving rules for using capital letters and examples
4. To tell homophone jokes
5. To practice writing sentences from dictation
6. Students to make their own Vokis to demonstrate their knowledge of helping verbs
7. To present their findings on culture studies
8. To create Vokis that illustrate different heteronyms
9. To create a Voki that summarizes their news articles

Resources

Life Feast Blog

Voki Lesson plans

My Diigo Library

My Diigo Account








While posting a link to my Diigo library, I decided to take a second look at the tutorial.  I remembered hearing that you could tag and highlight webpages on Diigo but now that I have a little more experience, it was much more helpful.  Watching it actually being done made it that much more appealing so I decided to try it.  I hadn't realized that could take screen shots or that you could highlight certain parts of text or draw arrows or save screenshots of pages that possibly may nor work in the future.  I had recently seen an app that also saves the URL for screen shots but I'm not sure if Diigo does that as well.  

The screen shot feature is as easy as it says it is for the entire screen.  It took me a second to figure out how to take a partial shot and add the drawing to it but I discovered it by accident by playing with it.  I wanted to open a link to a lesson plan but then I lost my ability to take a screen shot.  I was hoping to save the lesson plan for future reference but I was not successful that way.   However, the tool is very helpful especially for the upcoming research classes we will be engaged in.  

I'm not sure if my students are at that of level of sophistication yet but I wanted to incorporate more research or collection of information so I may use it yet.  It would definitely help them in the future.  It is difficult for them to learn the language and content simultaneously so it would help them have references to go back to later. 

Character Traits Animoto

I plan to use this Animoto for instructing my students in grades 3-6.  The purpose of this Animoto is to supplement the study of vocabulary used to describe character's traits in literature.  ELL students are often asked to make connections to demonstrate or strengthen comprehension.  Such students often come to this country with very different cultures and backgrounds; thus, making connections to literature from the U.S. often difficult.  By focusing on character traits and character development, students can personally connect themselves to the characters using similar traits.  It helps them identify with the character in the text by reminding them of something they have done or manners in which they have acted, which hopefully in turn further stimulates their interest and provokes deeper engagement.  

Depending on student interest, I was hoping students could choose one of the apps to enhance a blog post.  By choosing the appropriate app for their favorite medium:  storybird, animoto, voice thread, etc. students will use at least two domains of language (if not more) to communicate their text to self connections in some way, through drawing, writing, speaking, or use of digital tools.  All will demonstrate how the character trait they have chosen connects to them.  Younger students may possibly use their iPads to photograph the character they connect with and write about it while older students may choose another medium cited above.

Developing vocabulary is one of my biggest challenges because of the repetitions needed to acquire terms.  I hope using digital tools will not only address ELL standards and expectations but fulfill ISTE's digital teaching standards one, two, and maybe three as well.