FTT - ePals for Global Connections

From the ePals Website

Making Global Connections in Your Classroom

@joe_edtech/@LisaBerghoff

One of the many things that has impressed me in my short time in District 113 is how globally aware our staff and students are. As proud as we are to be Giants and Warriors, I don't get an insular feeling of isolation at all. All eyes are focused on the future of our global community.

With technology in the hands of all of our staff and students, our global connections can become more than just theoretical. However, based on several conversations I've had this year, there is a little bit of trepidation about connecting our kids with that global community online. At a National School Board Conference a short time ago I was introduced to the online tool called ePals, designed to give students authentic cross-cultural experiences in a completely safe, managed environment.

From the ePals website, "Teachers use the free ePals Global Classroom to create real world, culturally- enriching learning experiences for their students. With ePals classroom matching, a high school class studying Chinese can connect with a class studying English in China, or the classes can work on a special project together." While ePals is great for World Language, it is also perfect for any globally minded classroom.

Here's a short video that shows you what ePals can do and how to get started:


For the High School Classroom:
There are a lot of tools included in the ePals suite, and you may want to use some of them with your classes. I've found that the tools we have in Google Apps are probably better for collaboration and production with high school students, but ePals overall has been designed to be a safe place for students as young as the elementary age to develop authentic global connections. The "Classroom Match" tool is what really makes ePals powerful for high school students.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you used ePals or a similar tool to make global connections in your classroom? If so, please share your experiences below.

FTT - Custom Search

Custom Search With Google

@LisaBerghoff/@joe_edtech

I grew up in a time when phones had cords, photos were taken with film that needed to be developed, and research was done with encyclopedias. I am amazed each and every day that my students have current, quality information at their fingertips and that communicating with experts on the other side of the world is possible with the click of a mouse. When students have questions, one of my favorite phrases to use in my class is "you have a very powerful computer in front of you, let's look it up!"  They will eagerly go to Google and type in a few words or a phrase to search. Inevitably, they will get somewhere in the order of 23,000,000 responses in .41 seconds. How amazing is that!? However, the excitement starts to wane as my students begin to sift through their results. Many educators believe that proper search skills are imperative for success in the future and I agree. Google has a whole curriculum for teachers about effective search skills. Click here to access Google Search Education. 

It can be tricky to teach search skills when the internet can be such an unwieldy place to learn. I was at a #GAFEtalk sponsored by TextHelp last week and learned about an incredible tool called Custom Search.  I don't know how I never came across this before but I'm happy to share it with you now. 

Custom Search was developed for users to add a search engine to their websites. When you are on a website, you may notice a search bar that says "search this site". It allows you to search for content that is located on just the website you are on. 

This has HUGE implications for the classroom.

Here is an example:

In my biology class, we are currently studying trophic levels in Yellowstone National Park. I want my students to search for information, but I don't really want them to search the entire internet and then spend their time sorting through potentially bad sites. I can create a custom search for them, it looks just like a Google search, but will allow them to search within certain sites, such as NationalGeographic.com or NationalParkService.gov. I might want some of my students to search a site like newsela.com, where they can adjust the reading level. I will create a custom search for them and that will be their platform for finding information.

• Begin by going to the Custom Search Homepage. 
• Click "create a custom search engine" or "new search engine". 
• In the sites to search box, type one or more sites you want to include in the search results. You can include any sites on the web. Don't worry, you can add more later.
• In the "name of the search engine" field, type in a name to identify this search engine. I will call mine Yellowstone Research.
• When you are done, click "create".
• Click on the box that says "public URL" and that is the link you will share with your students though your website, Hapara, Google Classroom, or however you share digital information in your class.
• You can make several adjustments to your custom search including turning off image search, enable speech input for the search box, format the layout of the results, and see some of the analytics for your custom search.

Click here to try the Yellowstone Research custom search engine I just created.

Here is what it looks like:

5 Ways/Reasons to Use Google Custom Search

1. Easy differentiation. The search looks just like Google search but some students will do better with different search results.

2. Really focus and hone in on specific websites. Tired of students trying to take the easy way out with wikipedia? Not anymore!
Save time and frustration when students are searching.

3. Enable students to search and choose, but just stay within the sites you want them to use.

4. It allows students to search without needing to leave the page or site that you are on.

5. Your students will be researching sites that you have already vetted as high quality.

Are you using Google Custom Search? 

What are some ways you would (or do) use this in the classroom?

Go ahead and post comments below. 

FTT - EDpuzzle and PlayPosit

http://nyphotographic.com/

Alternatives to Zaption: EDpuzzle and PlayPosit

@joe_edtech/@LisaBerghoff

For good and for ill, technology is always changing. The company that created and supported Zaption, one of our favorite "Free Tech Tools," was sold and the new company announced that the product would be taken offline.

The good news is that while we tend to highlight our favorite online tools, there are usually pretty decent alternatives in the EdTech world. EDpuzzle and PlayPosit (formerly eduCanon) are both great alternatives for teaching with online video. Like Zaption, both allow you to take ANY online video, embed questions, and assign it to students or groups of students. 

EDpuzzle 

Edpuzzle.com is a free Web2.0 tool that is designed to help teachers make any digital video interactive. With a few clicks of a button, teachers can add personalized introductions, comments, or questions to any portion of any digital video available through the products listed to the left. Furthermore, the videos can be assigned to groups or classes, and teachers can monitor student progress as they view the videos and answer questions, and the videos can be locked so students can't skip important parts just to answer the questions.

Videos and lessons created on Edpuzzle.com are public and searchable within the platform. The idea is that we are all creating products that could potentially help other students. So part of the power is that you can simply log into to Edpuzzle.com and find a video lesson that has already been created and assign that to your students. You don't always have to start from scratch. 

To get started, simply select your video source and use the embedded video editing guides to add voice-overs, comments, or questions. As an added bonus, EDpuzzle.com integrates nicely with Google Classroom, allowing you to easily import your roster and share "puzzles."

PlayPosit - formerly eduCanon

PlayPosit works pretty much the same way EDpuzzle.com does except that it has been designed to integrate nicely with any LMS, whether you use Google Classroom, Edmodo, or Schoology. Rather than "puzzles," you create and assign "bulbs" to your students.

The best way to see the way PlayPosit works is to try it out. Click here to open a public "bulb" created for a Ted Talk video. Notice, you'll have to answer the embedded questions before you can move on in the video.

Here's how my friend Mike uses PlayPosit in his classroom:

I use PlayPosit for a couple of purposes. One of them is to disseminate information via the flipped classroom model. Students can access the lesson that I've created in PlayPosit and watch the video presentation for class discussion the following day. The best part of PlayPosit is that during the presentation, kids have to answer a few questions during the video. This serves the purpose of not only checking for accuracy in their viewing, but also as a focus point. It also allows me as a teacher to design questions that are timed to emphasize the points that I wish for them to know. Finally, the questions are required. The video will not go on until the question is answered. It is a creative and interesting way to get started with the flipped classroom model.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Have you used EDpuzzle or PlayPosit in your classroom? Tell us how. OR tell us if you use a different tool for embedding interactive videos in your classroom.

FTT- Recap

Video Reflection Made Easy with Recap!

@LisaBerghoff/@joe_edtech

More and more, we are asking our students to reflect on their learning. We want them to think about their thinking and we want to know what they are thinking! Having a conversation with each student to hear about their thought process and connections they are making is an unbelievably powerful tool for teachers. Regular conversations are often tricky to schedule, time-consuming and then there is the matter of what the rest of the class is busy doing while you are meeting with each individual student. Many teachers have been dabbling with the idea of video reflection as a means for more frequent formative assessment. Given that each of our students has a Chromebook with a webcam, this is a fantastic idea.

I am so excited to introduce you to my new favorite free tech tool, Recap, the free video response and reflection app! This app gives you a secure, and user friendly way to use video in the classroom. It is brought to us by a company called Swivl. They make that amazing Robot camera that moves as you move around the classroom. They completely understand the power of video images for learning.

Recap allows students to respond on video to questions created by their teacher and then it asks them to rate their response. Student responses are recorded privately, within the app, and teachers can then review answers all in one place. This easy to use format gives teachers insights into how individual students are thinking, while also collecting data on the whole class. Since Recap can be used on any device and is so easy to use, it can be utilized for frequent video formative assessments. There are many options for sharing responses so teachers can highlight or share responses with parents, case managers, other teachers, or an entire class.

How it works...

• Teachers assign a question or group of questions to a student, a group of students, or a whole class. The questions can be in text or video format. The teacher can decide how long the student responses can be, the shortest is 30 seconds and the longest is 2 minutes. Students do not have to use the whole time. 

• As students respond, teachers can watch their videos and leave written feedback for them. They can also share responses with other students for peer review, teachers, or parents. 

• Teachers can look at the whole class's data and see how they rated their responses.

Ready to give Recap a try?

Just go to Letsrecap.com and sign in as a teacher. From there, you can have your students create private student accounts or you can use your class pin and add student names. When your students enter your class, they will click on their name. 

When you sign up, you will be given a "demo class" with some student video responses already there for you to try. You can set up assignments and give feedback in your demo class just to try it out and see how it works.

Here is a 2 minute quick start video from Recap:

Recap Quick Start from Swivl on Vimeo.


Are you using video reflection in your classroom? Going to give Recap a try? Feel free to comment below!