Incorporate Screencasting into your lesson plans

Introduction – Jing and Screenr

A few months ago I decided to use screencasting more in lessons. The first programme I tried was Jing. I actually liked it so much that I took out the pro membership which was very cheap but gave more benefits. Then I discovered Screenr which seems to have all the benefits of Jing pro as well, although it is free.   I wanted my class to do two things:*Learn how to create a Voki (a little avatar that can speak) .*Get their Vokis to complain about an issue in society as a writing and speaking task.

How to make a Voki

For this part of the lesson I explained how to make the Voki using http://www.voki.com/. The students really enjoyed this lesson. I also made a screencast using Jing on 'How to make a Voki so that the less confident students could practise and finish at home.

How to use Jing

I discovered an amazing site for learning how to use Jing.  Here is an image of it plus the hyperlink.



http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/jingInReality/index.html

Give a talk on an issue

*I wanted the class to use their Vokis to express an opinion about an issue.
*I captured an example for them to use using Screenr.

The Task
Today you will make a Voki expressing some strong opinions. Use http://www.voki.com/ to do this.

1. Think of something that really irritates you, that you think something should be done about.
2. Here are some sentence starters you could use:

*What really gets on my nerves is … the reason for this is
*What drives me up the wall is … because
*What I can’t stand is … . I think
*What really annoys me is … You see

3. I got this idea and took a Voki screencast  from Ian James's fantastic blog that I follow (http://tefltecher.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/voki-grumps/)

 

A blogpost about using Screenr

I have written a blog post about how to use Screenr:
http://schoolnetsa.blogspot.com/2011/10/screencasting-with-screenr-is-so-easy.html



Provide access to your Screencasts to the students

What I did is I created a blog especially for Screencasting so that the students could just go to the link and open up the screencasts.  However both Jing and Screenr store your screencasts so you can keep them there with links. Alternatively you can download them to your computer as MP4 files.



Recently I provided this lesson on a PowerPoint at a TeachMeet but the screencasts wouldn’t open for some reason.  I hope that doesn’t happen here!

Further ideas

I think that in the iintegration of your curriculum with technology this would be a great way to help the students that might falter a bit and want to practise at home. If you have a large class the students could go over the instructions using your short screencasts (screencasts should always be short and to the point - no longer than three minutes, for example.)

Why not give screencasting a try?

Microsoft Photostory

Microsoft Photo Story 3 is a very popular free application that allows users to create a visual story (show and tell presentation) from their digital photos. The software allows adding narration, effects, transitions and background music to create a Windows Media Video movie file with pan and zoom effects. Once a photo story has been made it can be played on a PC using Windows Media Player. 

Here is a tutorial for using Photostory 3 from the Partners in Learning UK YouTube channel



Classroom uses for this programme are endless.
*It can be used to provide tutorials for the students.
*It can be used to reflect on a year in a class.
*Outings can be recorded on Photostory 3.
*It is very useful to use for students to create projects. 

Microsoft Songsmith

Microsoft Songsmith is an amazing programme to use in the classroom for creating songs. The students absolutely love it.

What is Songsmith?
Songsmith is a pretty smart programme that creates musical accompaniment to match the voice of whoever is singing. All you have to do is choose a musical style, sing into your PC or laptop microphone, and Songsmith will come up with the backing track for your music. After that you can share your songs with your friends and family, post your songs online, or create your own music videos.

Songsmith is free for teachers
The great news is that Songsmith is free for teachers to use in their classrooms. 
Let’s look at this great infomercial from Microsoft Research.





Classroom ideas
• Use it as a reward period for your students
• Make up songs about the curriculum (Maths, Grammar, Poems, Facts from particular subjects)
• Create backings for class movies
• Use in music lessons

Tutorials
Here is a tutorial from the UK Partners in Learning site.

Windows Live Movie Maker

If you think that creating a video with your photos is too complicated then you haven’t tried Windows Movie Maker! The only downside of this amazing programme is that it is too simple for advanced users!

What can you do with Movie Maker?
It really is very simple to use like most of the Microsoft tools. Not only can you include your best photo shots and some of your clips, but you can also add some really nice video and transition effects. Your movie will look quite professional at the end I can assure you!

How to get started
If you look at the image above you’ll see that there is a place that says ‘Add videos and photos’. After you do this the media clips appear on the timeline at the side. Then you add as many effects as you like. You can even add titles and credits to your movie.

How to use Movie Maker in the classroom
1. It really is fun when you include Movie Maker in your theme as the students love working with it.  These two Grade 4 teachers from St Cyprians in Cape Town based their theme on their Grade 4 novel, ‘Tolbooth’ and used Movie Maker extensively. They won the Innovative Teacher competition in South Africa as well as in the Pan Africa and the Middle East finals in Jordan and will be taking their Movie Maker project to Washington DC for the World Finals in early November.



2. High School Life Science students in Cape Town used Windows Movie Maker to create an infomercial about HIV Aids.



3. These high School History learners from Durban created movies about Apartheid using Windows Movie Maker.



More classroom ideas
•A very quick movie about something that has just happened – an outing or an event
• Expression of an assignment instead of writing it out. This definitely reduces the  riskof plagiarism
• Make book trailers instead of book reports
• Make movies about their book as was done by the Grade 4s
• Movies about Maths or other concepts
• Movies about the year at school
• Movies of their future dreamsin the job market
• Combine Movie Maker with Songsmith to create a music backing
• The learners can write instructions for something they are making i.e. a recipe, how to knit, how to make a card. etc.

What about starting a movie channel for your class?
You can create your own movie channel in YouTube or in School Tube to store all your class’s movies.

If you need more detailed instructions on creating a movie with Windows Movie Maker just go to YouTube and ask for a tutorial on how to use Movie Maker.  You will find a huge selection.

Here is an infomercial from Microsoft showing how to use the software.

Why not give Movie Maker a try tomorrow?

Editing videos in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Just recently I have started using Office 2010 and I am delighted to find that PowerPoint has a video editing feature. This YouTube video from Office shows how it is done.

Microsoft's Photosynth

What is Photosynth?

Photosynth is a powerful set of tools for capturing and viewing the world in 3D. You can take photos in a 360 degree turn and experience a panoramic view. This is wonderful for school outings or just to capture the fullness of a scene.

How to get started

• Go to http://photosynth.net/ and join.
• It will ask you to download the application on to your computer.

Ideas for the classroom

Give a tour of your classroom. I tried this.
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=fd71f194-6973-42ca-85f2-f6633b18ab26




You could create a vocabulary game
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=5767adbc-f7b8-4d9d-ab38-7aec9558820e



This was done by Bart from Belgium (http://teacherinresidence.wordpress.com/)

You could show an art exhibition at your school
http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=40bd31ae-4249-477f-8fa9-bb08fa8d2541

Show the vicinity around your school
http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=74c4e358-87ba-4e1a-8273-ffaf440a7749

You could show a panoramic view of an outing
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=869b4d72-195a-437c-a1cc-395a544fb4d4

Ideas worth trying…

•Use it to show around your classroom
• Use it for an outing
• Show something that is happening at your school.
• Use it as a vocabulary lesson
• Use it to demonstrate everybody’s work.
• Submit your photosynths of views to Bing Maps

Microsoft provides plenty of online help for Photosynth

strong>A video from UK Partners in Learning

‘How to use Photosynth’

Microsoft's AutoCollage

I love all the Microsoft programmes that are free to teachers who join the Partners in Learning website. One of my favourites is AutoCollage. Have you tried it?  This is one really great way of capturing all the students in your class in various activities during the school year.

How does AutoCollage work?

1. Put the photos that you want to use in a folder in My Pictures
When you open AutoCollage you’ll see that it picks up all the folders of photos in My Pictures. Choose the folder you want and immediately all the pictures in the folder will appear in the middle.

2. Click on Create
AutoCollage starts to swirl the pictures around. This is where you make some choices in the settings. Do you want some to be bigger than others, for example?

3. Your picture starts to take shape

4. What’s the verdict?

If you don’t like the resulting picture just click on Create a again and a different arrangement appears.

Classroom ideas for Autocollage

1. Create a picture to put on a classroom door that incorporates everyone

2. Use it as a way of capturing everyone’s finished work or to remember names!

3. Use it to collect memories from a project. (This is from Lisa Gair’s Adopt-a-donkey project)

4. Use it for collecting themes about South Africa and writing poems about the theme as was done by the class of 8 year olds at St John’s College in Johannesburg.

5. Use it in Maths for collecting pictures of Shapes

6. Other ideas that could work

• Make a card from the class for some occasion
• Creative writing exercises – ‘How does this make you feel?’ ‘Moods and feelings’
• Book cover for a planning book
• Create a vocabulary exercise using PowerPoint and store it on a blog
• Create certificates
• A collage of a novel’s characters
• Background for a PowerPoint presentation
• A record of a lesson with everyone showing their product

7. Microsoft has plenty of step by step instruction available on their website

A video from UK Partners in Learning ‘How to use Autocollage’

http://youtu.be/1GAUW0wRd4A

Screencasting with Screenr is so easy

Today I thought I would experiment with Screenr as a screencasting tool to illustrate some aspects that I want to highlight in a talk I am presenting tomorrow. I normally use Jing, and I will write about Jing at some stage as well.

Well first of all I went along to the Screenr website and joined.

There was a video giving instructions right there and so I watched it.  In fact click on the picture below and you will be taken to the instruction video

See how easy it looks. For my talk tomorrow I was to show things as though I am on the Internet because it takes forever to actually click on a link. So after recording my snippet using Screenr I looked at it and it was fine. I then published it and downloaded it as an MP4 movie as I actually want to embed it in my PowerPoint as a movie. I worked! Success!

Don’t believe me? Well, it embeds on a blog as well. Here I am showing Storybird without actually going on to the Internet.

http://www.screenr.com/

34 ideas for a classroom blog

Classroom blogging is one of the most exciting ventures for a classroom teacher to embark on. It opens a door of possibilities and makes the way for making a host of new friends around the world. Apart from that it gives parents an opportunity to take a peek into the classroom and see what is happening. I love blogging!

This weekend I presented a workshop entitled ‘Blogging for teachers’ at the EdTechConference at Elkanah House in Cape Town. I started off with the ideas that follow in the slide-share presentation below as a source of inspiration. Then we did the workshop part where the inexperienced bloggers worked from an e-book to create their new blogs, the educators with blogs used one of the inspirational ideas to develop their blog, and I walked around helping whoever needed help.   I also invited the participants who already had blogs to demonstrate their blogs to the rest of the class. 

34 ideas for a classroom blog

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