Tell Your Learning Story!

Who doesn’t like a good story? Many students, yes, even high school students, enjoy gathering around their teacher or a guest reader, listening to a story being read to them. How many of us spend an evening, relaxing either at a movie theater or in the comfort of our own home, watching a movie? How often are teens online viewing YouTube videos? Fire up your laptop, or mobile device and whether you enjoy a drama, a comedy, a tragedy, or history, you can find something that appeals to the story lover inside. Storytelling is an ancient art and before the written word was the only means of conveying knowledge and entertainment. Storytellers were sought out and highly respected. So what does this have to do with educational technology and today’s students? Rather than be only the “listeners”, why not let them be the storytellers? Sure, they may be writing some stories in their English classes but let’s take it further. In our 1:1 iPad environment, students have an entire video creation studio at their fingertips. Download iMovie and start putting that built-in camera and microphone to use to tell the story of their learning. Want some ideas for what is possible? Visit Rushton Hurley’s Next Vista for Learning website. Search for almost any topic and you’ll find a student created video about it. There’s even a Lightbulbs section that breaks the videos down by subject. Want to know what subject has the most student created videos? Math! Well now… there went that excuse!

Here are some tips (thanks to Matt Miller for these) that might help make video creation projects go more smoothly:

• Storyboard - map out what you want to say and draw out what scenes you want to shoot before beginning to shoot video. This will speed up the process measurably.
• Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect - Think YouTube not Universal Studios!
• Give yourself a little leeway - start your recording and then don't speak for about 4-5 seconds and then leave a few seconds of silence when you're finished talking. This will give you some room to add titles, transitions, etc. You can always crop what you don't need out later.
• If your video includes interviews it might be worthwhile investing in a low-cost lavalier microphone similar to this one available from Amazon to enhance the audio quality.
• Bring in other elements - still photos, news clips, personal interviews, and music will add depth to the story.
• Share with a larger audience - don’t save these videos for just your eyes! With student permission, show them at open houses and community forums, post a link to the website, even have students submit to one of Next Vista for Learning’s contests!

So put on that director's hat, grab your portable video recording studio and let your students tell us a story!

Augmented Reality for Classroom

I always learn a lot while attending the AssisTechKnow conference that Kent ISD puts on every Oct. This year was no exception. One of my biggest take aways this year was Augmented Reality in the classroom. The two teachers that presented, Karrie Martin and Melanie McFadden did a great job walking us through the possible uses of several different AR apps such as Daqri 3D Elements and Anatomy 4D, Quiver and various AR Flashcard apps that all bring chemistry, anatomy, coloring pages, and earlier elementary concepts to life. My favorite was Aurasma, an AR platform that allows one to easily create AR auras. With this tool, teachers and students alike can truly add value to their classroom reality. The tool is available via a browser as well as apps for both iOS and Android so platform isn’t a problem and the process of creating an Aura is pretty straight forward. You need the app, something for the trigger and a video for the "live" portion of the aura. Open the app, create a new aura, select or take a photo of your trigger, overlay your video and finalize the aura. Use the same app to scan the trigger and view the aura after you finish.

You’ve all walked through a high school hallway and admired student work displayed on the bulletin board. Now imagine having this student work come to life! Point your mobile device with the Aurasma app installed at the student work and listen and watch the student explain why and how they accomplished the work and what they learned from it.

Ideas for how an educator can utilize an app like this are endless. Here are a just a few examples:

Take your teacher home with you: How often to you discover that students have forgotten the instructions for a worksheet by the time they get home? Create a how-to video and make the worksheet the trigger. The student uses Aurasma and suddenly you’re there with them at home explaining what they need to do.

Book Talks: Students looking for a good book to read for class? A book cover can become the trigger for a student’s video explaining why someone should read the book. Print out labels of the Aurasma app icon to tape to the book so students know which ones are triggers.

Virtual Meet the Teacher: Parents waiting in line for conferences? Why not have a trigger posted outside your classroom door or near your conference station that parents can scan with Aurasma and find out what inspires you, what goes on in your classroom and why you love teaching!

Explain Math Problem Solutions: Post the solution to a complex math problem and it becomes the trigger for the student’s explanation and demonstration of how they accomplished the solution.

Give Aurasma a try and I'm sure you'll find several uses for Aurasma! Oh, and did I mention it's FREE! The awesome just keeps coming!

My sketchnote of Karrie & Melanie's session at AssisTechKnow16