Popplet

Popplet is a tool that I have just begun using with my students.  So far, I haven't even used it in the way it is intended, but it has worked like a dream for my students who chose to use it.

Popplet at first glance looks like a mind-mapping tool, and could definitely be used as such.  Each "popple" (basically a rectangular bubble) exists as its own self-contained unit or capsule of information, but popples  can be connected as necessary to organize related topics and/or ideas.

Popplet enables real-time collaboration, so students can work on the same popplet, adding to and expanding ideas at the same time.  Images and videos can be embedded in popples, along with text, allowing for multi-media presentation of ideas.

My initial foray into Popplet was to include it, as I did Prezi, as an option for student written product for their family projects.  My students were able to learn Popplet very intuitively, with very little guidance from me.  Each of their family members was represented by a popple, including photo and text.

Here's an example created by one of my students:



I have also included Popplet as an option for the "Things I like" assessment.

When we return from vacation, I will be exploring its collaborative capabilities, having students categorize vocabulary.  Here's the template I will give them to start:



What do you think?

Arthur Alien Assembly

Ok, so admittedly this is a tech tool with a very narrow application, but it solves a problem for me that I have long been wanting to solve, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

The Arthur Alien Assembly Game allows students (or teachers) to create original alien creatures with minimal effort.  The website will then allow you to print the alien you have created, or alternatively, you can take a screenshot of your creation, and embed it into a web page, wiki page, etc. 

Why would a foreign language teacher be interested in this tool?  Body parts, numbers, and colors.  It's a concept most teachers of novice language students must teach.  I have long drawn absurd pictures of alien creatures for my students to describe to one another, but my art skills leave a lot to be desired.  If students have to ask me what body part appears on their paper, I have failed.

So here's how I use this in class:  Each student spends less than five minutes creating their alien.  Without showing their partner, they need to describe the alien (including numbers, body parts,and colors) to their partner, who must attempt to draw what they hear.  Partners then switch roles.  Drawings are compared to the actual alien creations to see how well they described/understood the description.

Here's a sample :

What do you think?

Empressr is Impressive!

I discovered empressr.com last spring.  The format is similar to Powerpoint (or Keynote for the Maclovers out there), except it is more streamlined, and it is cloud-based.  It also allows for creation of audio, video and photos within itself, as well as allowing files to be imported into your library.

Is it free?  Of course!  Is a download required?  Absolutely not!

I am a MacGirl, and had been primarily using Keynote for years.  Yes, Keynote will open Powerpoint files, and yes, it allows you to export from Keynote to Powerpoint format, but it never works perfectly in either direction. 

I have long had issues with students using a version of Powerpoint that is newer than Powerpoint 2003 (which is what our school computers have) and the files are incompatible. 

Another benefit to empressr -- NO MORE FLASH DRIVES!!!  I have no particular beef with flash drives, I just always seem to lose them, which defeats their purpose. 

No more need to remember to email myself a presentation I created at school, because it's in the cloud!

Downsides?  It is definitely more bare-bones than Powerpoint or Keynote, but I acually find this to be an upside when working with middle-schoolers who often tend to over-focus on aesthetics to the detriment of content when too many options are available to them.  Also, I have been unsuccessful at embedding empressrs into wikipsaces pages, so we have to settle for a link.

My first attempt at using empressr with studetns involved having an empressr presentation as an option for their family tree project (other options:  paper poster, popplet, prezi, or glogster).  I had only one student choose to use empressr, with little or no guidance from me -- technologically speaking.  The vast majority of questions I was answering were content-related, or research-related.

Bottom line, I am impressed with empressr.

Here's an example:




What do you think?

Prezi: Love It or Hate It

Prezi is an online presentation tool, à la Powerpoint, but which is anything but linear.  It zooms, it spins, it allows the creation of text within images within text down the most minute unreadable size until zooming in on what is important at a specific point in the presentation.

Honestly, I HATE Prezi.  I hate working with the platform, and for the most part watching Prezi presentations makes me dizzy.

HOWEVER, my students LOVE it.  (Go figure).  I took a workshop over the summer, and was forced to make a Prezi.   I used the opportunity to update my opening day Powerpoint, and my students thought it was "really cool".  I haven't made another Prezi since, and I don't feel I'm missing anything.

When many of my students reached the point where they were ready to create a project about their families,  I bit the bullet, and made Prezi an option.  The students who chose it, really enjoyed the platform, and they required very little guidance to create their presentations.   The most difficult part for them seemed to be creating paths -- some did not do that at all, but with only five "slides" required, I could easily click through the presentation and see what I needed to see.

I have to laugh, because after attending a workshop dedicated to Prezi (prior to the one I attended this summer) and still I struggled to make a Prezi I was happy with, yet the majority of my students took to it very intuitively.  Pretty amazing.

Colleagues I have spoken with seem to either love Prezi, or hate it -- a left/right brain thing, perhaps?

Although I am definitely not in the "love it" camp, I will continue to make Prezi an option for student presentations.  If it's something that inspires them, who am I to crush their creativity for my own comfort?

What do you think?

Let's Celebrate My Rockstars!!

Yes, it's true, I've been sorely neglecting my blogging duties.  It is certainly not a result of turning away from technology in the classroom, au contraire!  The thrilling reality is that I've been blessed to be able to teach in a 1:1 setting virtually the entire school year to this point, and due to some restrictions that I can't solve quite yet, building and grading portfolios takes a bit more of my time than I'd like.

Today, however, I am posting to celebrate two of my rockstar 8th graders that impressed me so much I just had to share!

I have thrown quite a lot of technology at my eighth graders this year, and I must say, there is a noticeable gap between their willingness to use new technology, experiment, and exist in a mostly paperless environment and that of my sophomores.  Maybe it's simply a product of personality, but I am amazed at the reluctance of students just two years older to embrace technology in a way their middle school counterparts can and do.

But back to my rockstars.  A little background on some of the tech they've used in my class:  We've used Voki to record their voices introducing themselves in French.  We used Blabberize when they described celebrities.  Partway through the Blabberize project, a number of my students began having trouble recording via the website, so we switched to Audacity, and uploaded the files into Blabberize.

Fast-forward to the weather forecasting project.  This was to be step 2 in an ongoing project where students learn about a French-speaking country (step 1 -- make a flag, and record yourself describing what the colors stand for -- using Audacity).  My rockstars used Google Images to download maps of their countries.  They added "stickers" representing weather conditions using Picnik (undoubtedly this will be a future post).  The final step was supposed  to be (at least in my narrow little teacher mind) to take a screencast of the map with a voice-over by the students giving the weather forecast, using Screencast-o-matic. (yes, I realize how far behind I am!!).

The students were already familiar with Screencast-o-matic from using it to record themselves taking listening assessments, but apparently the rockstars couldn't wait for me to explain exactly how I wanted the weather forecasts done, so by the time I got to checking on them (during "free" time they had to explore what their classmates had been doing on their portfolios) they informed me that they had completed their forecasts using Audacity and Blabberize.  Knock me over with a feather and color me stunned!  They knew what the end product was that I expected, and found a more than acceptable solution all on their own, by thinking outside a box I was all set to build for them.

So what did you learn from YOUR students today??

Here's one of the "Weather Blabbers":

Goalbook

Goalbook is one of my new favorite sites -- not least of all because their customer service is OUTSTANDING!!  If you are a reader of my Changing My Realm of Control blog, then you may have already read my parallel post there (more theory, less techie).  You probably also know that I have gone from dabbling to diving headfirst into personalizing instruction for my eighth grade French students (and I'm having the time of my life!)

Here's how my journey began.  Faced with the highest percentage of students with special needs I have ever taught, I simply could not bring myself to "teach the curriculum" knowing that some, perhaps many, would be left in the dust while I moved forward with the students who learn at the prescribed pace.  I just couldn't do it again.  So without even consciously deciding to do it, although I had certainly mulled over different scenarios and strategies, I found my classes separating themselves into flexible groupings based on topics students were working on at the moment.  Believe it or not, it just sort of happened.  The kids responded VERY positively, and it was far more manageable (if you like chaos) than I had imagined it could be.

So the question became, as each class divided into more and more groups based on student pacing, how do I make sure each student knows what they are "supposed to be" doing during a given class period?  My initial solution was Evernote.  I created a note for each day of the week. Each day I would grade the assessments that came in (not too overwhelming at first, since there was never a full class set of assessments to grade at any one time, due to self-pacing, and assessments were very short, due to beginning language limitations), and then assign each student to review, progress, or assess in a list in that day's note.

Don't get me wrong, I love Evernote, and will dedicate a future post to it's glory, but I knew from the beginning that my system was flawed, and that students needed to take more of a role in planning for themselves.  I just didn't know where to begin.

I first encountered Goalbook via a blog called Beta Classroom.  I backburnered it, because I just had too many other pots on the stove.  I revisited it this week, and the magical CLICK happened.  Part of my hesitation was the thought of  adding yet another piece of daily-use tech to the kids plates (some of them are really resistant to new accounts, and have extreme difficulty remembering passwords), but the more I researched and let the idea percolate, the more sure I became that this was an essential piece that would reap benefits far outweighing the whines.

When I began setting up the account...Tuesday evening, a chatbox popped up and a tech support person offered their unsolicited help.  When I regained consciousness and came out of shock I thanked him...in French.  He responded....in French!  Although I correctly guessed Google Translator was involved (students, if you're reading this, yes, you will get caught!!) the effort was appreciated almost as much as his sense of humor when I called him on it.  How refreshing!

My initial thought was to have all of the students use my login information so they didn't have to remember new information of their own.  But within a couple of hours of students creating their initial goals yesterday (I kid you not) the happy chatbox reappeared offering to solve all my problems -- and the offer was sincere, because they adjusted my account to allow for students to create subaccounts under my domain before the end of the day yesterday. (Shortly after 4PM for the sake of accuracy).  Unbelievable!! 


Yes, we are still working through some very minor glitches (Suzy is unhappy with her green alien avatar and can't seem to change it to a purple sparkly unicorn) but when I say WE are working through it, I really feel that is true, and if that's not a 21st Century skill we are teaching -- to be able to give your customers that feeling -- then it should be.

Read my parallel post if you want to know more about how I feel about setting goals with students, but if you're ready to jump in and give it a try, Goalbook is a great place to start.

What do you think?

Grading Student Writing Drafts Part 2: Jing

This is not something I discovered on my own, and there are several other teachers that I know of who use Jing for this purpose (names are escaping me)

My use of Jing is an extension of my use of Awsome Screenshot.  As long as I have been grading papers, I have been talking to myself while I grade -- a habit that drives everyone around me nuts, except for those of my colleagues who do the same.  And truth be told, I'm really not talking to myself, I'm talking to the student whose paper I'm grading, except my words float uselessly unheard into the atmosphere, never to help develop anyone's writing at all.

Enter Jing.  Jing is (the basic version) a free offering by Tech Smith (makers of Camtasia).  Jing allows me to record, in five minute video segments, the annotation process with a vocal background track -- me giving an explanation for each annotation.  To be clear, I am not telling students how specifically to correct their papers, but I can cram 20-30 mini grammar lessons (reminders of things we've already gone over) in about five minutes.  As for my own learning style, after recording a class of videos on a particular assignment, I know what points need to be revisited in class due to common errors.  No going back through papers tracking common errors.  If I've had to verbally re-explain something four or five times for a recording, trust me, it's memorable.  I also let the students know on the recording that theirs is the umpteenth "paper" where I've seen the same error, which seems to take some of the pressure off when we revisit the concept in class.

So far, my students really seem to like the correction videos, and they are effective.  However, I cannot tell a lie.  The are time consuming.  I range from 5-15 minutes per student per assignment.  It's a lot, but I feel it's worth it.  What it has also done for me is to limit the number of graded writing assignments I give -- that is not to say that my students are writing less -- on the contrary, in fact -- but I've set their blogging and commenting on each others' blogs apart from the graded writing, so it serves a different purpose.

Here's a sample in an eportfolio.

What do you think?