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 - ThingLink

Sign up for a free ThingLink account to create interactive images

Creating Interactive Images Using ThingLink

@joe_edtech/@LisaBerghoff

Earlier this Fall I took my daughter and a friend of hers to the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. Since I am a bit of a History nerd - specifically an American Civil War nerd - my daughter is not new to the topic. She's been dragged across the battlefield at Gettysburg, carried to Ford's Theater in DC, and even read a young adult version of the story of Lincoln's Assassination and the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. But there is something powerful in an image. As visitors walk through one of the exhibits at the museum, they turn a dark corner and enter a room flooded with uncomfortable red light bathing a slave auction. We hit that room and I felt her little hand grab mine and I looked at her. Her face was covered with shock, fear, sadness - she'd read all about this. But now she saw it. And it affected her.

When I taught history, I gradually came to believe I spent too much time focusing on words, and not enough time focusing on images. I'm not saying words aren't important - they really are what we have from most of history - but images engage the emotions. That's not a new or shocking discovery, researchers have been saying it for years.

With a "free-ish" Web 2.0 tool called ThingLink, it is easy to take any digital image and make it interactive - an image to explore instead of just take in. Below, I've taken a simple image of the State of Illinois and added a couple of Tags. The tags are interactive and can take your students to places where they can find more information. Take your mouse and hover over the image and you'll find there are two interactive tags. Click them, and they take you to an informational website and an overview video.

Creating an interactive image is easy. All you have to do is choose an image from the Web or upload one from your computer. In the "Text" box, type your tag. This can be a short description or a set of directions. In the "Link or image address" box, you can make your tag interactive. I've labeled "Alton, Illinois" on the map. When students click that tag, I want them to be taken to the official website of the City of Alton, so I pasted that URL in the "Link or image address" box. By the way, you can put the URL of information websites, videos, or link to your classroom website or LMS. The images you create can be saved publicly or privately.

ThingLink allows you to tag videos as well. In the following video, I've added two tags - both links to different websites that can provide students with a little more information on the video they have been assigned to watch. You'll notice the tags right away because they are blue text boxes stamped with an "i" icon for information.

I introduced ThingLink by calling it "free-ish." Everything that I've demonstrated in today's blog post can be done with a free account. However, there are several different levels of premium accounts that will give you access to more features. If you are sharing with students, a free account should get you all that you need.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to take your image creation to the next level? Free Technology for Teachers published a piece on using Google Slides, ThingLink, and Snagit from Chrome to have students create interactive presentations to share with the class.

Flipped and Blended Follow Up

Are You Flippin’ Kidding Me?

Why Would I Flip?

@joe_edtech & @LisaBerghoff

This article is co-written and cross posted by Lisa & Joe. You can also find it on Lisa's Blog - rethinkteach.com

It isn’t about using technology because it is flashy, and it definitely isn’t about more industrial age efficiency. Integrating instructional technology is about being able to do something that you've never been able to do before. It is about re-imagining the classroom, and everything else about school.

Last Saturday, we had an opportunity to host a Google Education On Air Hangout on the “Flipped Classroom” during which we provided our participants with a description and history of the Flipped Classroom teaching model, clear reasons why each of us tried it with our students, and some evidence of it’s effectiveness. If you are interested in reading more about that as well as accessing some tools to help you get started, you are welcome to visit the “Flipped Classroom Resources” webpage we created.

However, we don’t want to take up our blog space and inundate our loyal readers (a.k.a. - Joe’s Mom) with a lot of information about what and how. We think it is really important to start with why. Why would you take the time to flip your class? Probably the best way to explain it is through the eyes of a few students. First, we want you to see class through the eyes of Lisa’s Special Ed US History students.

@LisaBerghoff

My US History students all have IEPs.  Reading and writing is challenging for them and US History is dense with written information. Our textbook, while adapted for reluctant readers, is very long and intimidating. I wanted my students to be able to access the information but then do something with that information. I wanted them to apply their learning, make connections and predictions for the future based on what they are learning about the past. I wanted them to participate in activities that require them to think critically, make a claim, and support it with evidence. However, most of our class time was being used to read the material, talk about the content, and reach for a basic level of understanding. I was assigning homework activities that required them to extend their learning but I quickly became frustrated because many of my students were not completing the homework. The students who were completing it often missed the mark and the quality was nowhere near what I thought they could do.  

I decided to take a risk and assign a video for homework. The students would watch the video to get the information and then we could use our class time to work in small groups to apply what they learned. I was amazed when all of my students watched the 5 minute video. I gave them a short survey and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.  Watching a video for homework was a low-stakes activity.  Everyone could access the video and it was much easier for them to get the information in this manner.  I was so encouraged I tried several other approaches.  For one assignment, I read the lesson from the text and recorded myself while highlighting the important information.  I then took it one step further and created a Zaption “tour” with this video by embedding questions. I could check the analytics to see who had watched the video and their answers were recorded and even graded for me! I could see how long the students spent on the videos.  One student clearly forwarded the video and just answered the questions.  Another student watched it more than once. This was exactly the kind of differentiation I was looking for.  The students had some control, everyone was able to get what they needed, and our class time was spent doing the kinds of activities that push their thinking and maintain the high standards that I have for my students.

@joe_edtech

That’s the success story. On the flip side - pun intended - my daughter spends hours and hours struggling with her math homework. It is no fun, and I fear that the constant frustration will lead her to dislike math, or worse, school. When she is in class, the teacher explains the concepts and the skills, and it all makes perfect sense. But by the time she gets home, she has forgotten much of the teacher’s instruction. It is just one of many classes and activities she participates in every day. More than once Katherine has said, “Ugh, I just wish I could see her work this problem again.” And that kind of thinking shouldn’t surprise us. She is used to looking up instruction on YouTube. When she wants to learn how to fix her hair a certain way, or create something new with her Rainbow Loom, or generate ideas for building in Mine Craft, she turns FIRST to YouTube and other digital resources available to her. Imagine how empowered she would feel if she could review her math, or science, or music lessons in the same way.

From a Technology Director’s perspective, I love the Flipped Classroom idea because it can act as a “Gateway Drug” to the integration of much more instructional technology, and can help facilitate the shift from teaching-centered classrooms to learning-centered classrooms. And as Lisa mentioned before, you don’t have to invest hundreds of hours to try it. All you have to do is “Flip” one lesson, one time.

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

You can still be a part of the conversation. Our Google Hangout Webinar “Flipped & Blended Learning for the Chromebook Classroom” is embedded below. If you have any questions, please contact us via Twitter or leave a comment in the box below.

Chromebooks - Aren't They Just Toys? II

Posted by Rachel Wente-Chaney CC License

A Flippin' Success: Chromebooks in a Freshman Science Classroom

@joe_edtech

One of my favorite made-up words is "transformativeness" (I want to give Renee Hobbs credit for that. I heard it first at her workshop on Fair Use in the Classroom.). I think of that word everytime we talk about our 1:1 program. We didn't roll out Chromebooks so that teachers and students can do what they've always done more efficiently. We rolled out Chromebooks so that our students could have learning experiences that were never possible before.

It is still early in our program, but we already have some success stories to tell. For instance, Mr. Bill Stafford, science teacher, has been experimenting some with the "Flipped Classroom" instructional model. In a nutshell, in a "Flipped Classroom" model, students receive lecture instruction at home from online videos or interactive materials, and then practice the skills they learned in classroom with the guidance and support of the teacher and collaborative groups. In this model, students are up and active in the classroom as they interact with the material. 

When she works on math homework in the traditional model, my daughter only has her parents to turn to for help at home. That is a problem when they were both liberal arts majors! In the "Flipped" classroom model, parents can actually watch the instruction with their students at home, and students have their classmates and teachers to rely on for support when they are working towards mastery. (For more information on the flipped classroom, you can visit the District 113 "Flipped Classroom" Resources page. Or you can join my partner Lisa Berghoff and I for our Education On Air session on April 9.)

The following is the first in a series of videos that we are producing in conjunction with our monthly principal's newsletter to highlight some of the "transformativeness" that is happening in our 1:1 classrooms. This is Principal Audris Griffith interviewing Science Teacher Bill Stafford about his "Flipping" experiment:

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

You can find the DHS Principal's Newsletter by clicking here. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to include them in the comment box below or email me at jtaylor@dist113.org.

FTT - Free Screencasting

photo credit: YouTube website screenshot via photopin (license)

Three "Free" Screencasting Tools for Teachers

@joe_edtech

Flipped and Blended classes are all the rage. And whether you are creating content for your students or having them create something to share with the class, personally created video is one of the best ways to take full advantage of a 1:1 classroom. There are some very good - and very expensive - screencasting tools that you can purchase, but unless you need really robust editing tools, there are also plenty of free options. Since several teachers are going to be offering sessions on using video in class at our upcoming district institute day, I thought today would be a good day to look at three good options for recording your screen for free.

My favorite free screencasting option is Google + Hangouts. If you start a Google Hangout on Air with yourself, you can record any browser screen on your computer. And, the real reason I like it so much is that Google + Hangouts provide you with a great way of not only recording your screen, but also recording you, meaning your students are getting personalized instruction from you anywhere they have access to the Internet. I've created a direction set for you (click here to access), but here's a very quick demo:

Screencast-O-Matic is a tried and true, bi-platform method for screencasting. The free version of Screencast-O-Matic allows you to upload 15 minute video chunks to YouTube. If you are recording more than 15 minutes, this isn't the option for you - but most of the evidence out there suggests that your personally created lessons should be shorter than that. Here is a quick video tutorial:

If you want your students to record their Chromebook screens, Snagit is a decent option. In order to use Snagit, you need to go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Snagit. You need to install both the App and the Extension for it to work properly. The downside of Snagit is that if your Chromebook doesn't have a fast processor, Snagit will not record video - or it will be choppy. But the upside is that it is extremely easy to use whether you are screencasting or taking still screenshots. Here's a little more information on Snagit for Chrome by TechSmith:

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

Do you have a favorite Free Screencasting tool? Share it with us below.

FTT - Two Google Add Ons to Make Sheets Easy to Read

Image from New Visions Cloud Lab

They Completed Your Google Form. Now, How Do You Read Their Answers?

@joe_edtech

While your students will sit for HOURS completing the PARCC assessment, perhaps the reason the State and Federal Government have adopted such tests is that they are incredibly easy to grade - objective tests with a lot of selecting the right answers. All you have to do is run the answer sheet through a simple computer program and you have mountains of "achievement data" to turn into pretty graphs.

In the real world, and in the classroom, answers are not always objective. And most teachers want their students writing critically and creatively. Ask any Google Apps for Education teacher and they'll tell you that forms are the most efficient way to assess for learning, formatively or summatively. But, have you ever tried to read a free response answer or an essay on a Google Spreadsheet? If you have, you just winced. If you haven't - DON'T DO IT!

Save as Doc Add On

The Google Add On Store offers two great solutions for taking the written information in Google Form Response Spreadsheets and turning it into something useful. The first, and easiest tool is called "Save as Doc." This Add -On takes a column from a spreadsheet and saves the data in a very readable Google Doc. (See below for a demonstration of the "Save as Doc" Add On.) "Save as Doc" is probably best used if you want to generate a discussion with a group or quickly glance through answers to check for understanding. At a recent workshop, I had teachers fill out a form on which they wrote down some ideas they have about student grades. Rather than opening the results spreadsheet, I used "Save as Doc" and displayed the anonymous answers to the group to generate a full discussion.

The other Add On worth discussing is a little more complicated, but is perhaps my favorite Google Tool, and will prove worth your time to learn and utilize. autoCrat, by New Visions Cloud Lab, is a tool for merging data from a spreadsheet into a Doc or into another spreadsheet. Imagine giving your students an online quiz using Google Forms and having a Google Doc generated for each student with their answers displayed in an easy to grade, easy to comment, and easy to share way. You can also use autoCrat to create certificates or mail merge letters. Written directions for autoCrat can be found on the New Visions Cloud Lab page, or you can watch the video, created by Jay Atwood, embedded below for step-by-step instructions:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the benefits of being a part of the Google Apps for Education Community is that all GAFE Teachers and Trainers create "how to" materials for using Google products. While the first video is mine, the second video is posted by a fellow Google Education Trainer. If you find another good video tutorial for a Google Add On, please share it with us in the comment box below.

FTT - Actively Learn

Turn Any Text Into An Interactive Text With Actively Learn

@joe_edtech

For years I have started presentations on integrating technology into the classroom by saying 21st century learners do NOT have short attention spans, they are simply not engaged by the kinds of classroom activities that engaged us when we were kids. My 13 year old daughter provides me with a perfect illustration of my point. 

I have heard from her teachers that at times she seems bored with their lectures and with some of their learning exercises, so she must have a really short attention span. Well, I don't think so. The last time the two of us drove to St. Louis from our home in the Chicago Suburbs (by the way, the most boring drive on planet earth) she spent the entire 5 hours actively engaged in building a city on MineCraft - a game, I might add, that has graphics that are less advanced than the Atari Game System I played when I was a kid. (By the way, Cognitive Psychologist Daniel T. Willingham offers some evidence to back up my mantra in his recent article, "Smartphones Don't Make Us Dumb.")

So, if it isn't the flashy graphics and ear pounding soundtrack, what do you like so much about MineCraft? She says, "It's fun. I can make decisions about what to do. If I get stuck, I can ask questions or look up answers. And if I build something I don't like, I can quick tear it down and build it better." I heard her say those words and I translated it into classroom speak: inquiry, autonomy, interactivity, the ability to make mistakes and then fix them.

So what if we applied just a few of those things to the practice of reading her school assignments? What if instead of receiving a static textbook or handout, she read on her mobile device and her teachers were able to ask her specific questions about what she read, point out things that are important in the reading and explain why they are important, and even embed videos to illustrate the point or provide a little direct instruction while she was at home? ActivelyLearn.com does all of that, supports any electronic text, and is incredibly simple to learn. 

Here is a brief intro from the ActivelyLearn.com website:

To get started, all you need to do is navigate to ActivelyLearn.com, create a free account as a teacher, and then create your first class. There are thousands of texts and lessons already included in ActivelyLearn.com, they may already have the text you are using for class. Once you've selected a text to use, you can embed questions, highlight important passages, provide the students with notes, embed videos, and monitor each individual's progress as they read. In a worst case scenario, you can upload a PDF to the website. If you do that, you lose some functionality, but you can still embed questions on every page.

ActivelyLearn will automatically generate an email you can send to your students to help them get signed up for your class, but I've created a one page handout you can share with them in order to get them signed up and signed on. (Click here for the "Signing Up For ActivelyLearn" Handout.)

ActivelyLearn works with any platform or device with an Internet connection, and there is a robust help section for both teachers and students. However, a trademark of most good, free online tools, there are a lot of support videos posted on YouTube and Vimeo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are there other FREE tech tools you use to help support close or interactive reading with your students? If so, please tell us about them in the comment section below.

FTT- EDpuzzle

Flipped and Blended Learning Tool - EDpuzzle

Supporting Flipped, Blended, and Differentiated Learning with EDpuzzle.com

@joe_edtech

I am usually quick to point out to my teachers that the purpose of technology is NOT to make our lives easier and make everyday tasks more efficient, it is to facilitate doing something that could not be done before. EDpuzzle.com is actually a tool that might serve both purposes.

Video Products
Available in Edpuzzle.com

On it's face, 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. The screen shot below is from the Edpuzzle.com Demo video. It actually demonstrates three different features. In the main screen, you can see the question builder (simple WYSIWIG). At the bottom, on the video timeline, you can see where the questions have been embedded into the video. And on the right side, a pop up window appears with the question the students need to answer. The video pauses until the question is answered and the student clicks continue. Both the student progress through the video and their success rate with the questions is recorded.

The implications for your classroom are profound. If you are flipping your classroom, you can assign the videos for homework and be confident in knowing that the students watched and understood the videos. If you're differentiating or blending assignments, when you want your students to have an opportunity to explore a topic a little more in depth, or as review, you can choose to use a video you create, or find an existing video to assign to your students.

EDpuzzle has searchable help and a blog for you to follow if you need help. If you'd like a little better idea about the kinds of videos available and what you can do with them, here is a short Demo from EDpuzzle's blog:

FTT - Blubbr Trivia

Blubbr - Trivializing the Classroom...

in a Good Way!

@joe_edtech

Last Winter, my daughter and I were riveted to the TV every afternoon during Jeopardy. One of my former students, a former Scholastic Bowl Captain, had a 6 day run on the TV show racking up more than $100,000 worth of winnings. I haven't told him this part yet, but I take full credit for his victories. For each of the days I watched the show with my daughter and a former colleague and his college aged daughter. So, there were at least four of us, and sometimes more of us, sitting in the family room shouting answers to trivia questions at Alex Trebek. I'm not sure he heard us, but it was great fun anyway.

So, continuing a "Gamify your Classroom" theme we started when we discussed Kahoot:

Alex, for $200 I'll take "Gaming in the Classroom." The answer is, "This Web 2.0 Product lets students and teachers play and create video trivia, and it costs nothing to use." -- What is "blubbr.tv?" "Circle gets the square!" (Wait, that might be a different show.)

I could take some time to tell you how to use Blubbr.tv, but I think it would be more effective for you to learn about Blubbr from Blubbr - Click here to play the Blubbr Triv Game!

In a nutshell, Blubbr lets your create a series of questions based on short YouTube videos. These can be videos that you created and uploaded, or they can be videos that already exist on YouTube.


Not only great for formative assessment, Blubbr seems like a great way to reteach or reinforce a topic with students who struggle to chunk information on their own. On the other hand, it can just be good clean fun to review old topics or introduce new ones.

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

Have another good Web 2.0 game to play in the classroom? Tell us about it below.

FTT - eduCanon

Embed Interactive Video Into Your Classroom With eduCanon

@joe_edtech

Looking for ways to make classroom videos truly interactive? A history teacher I once worked with recently told me about one of his favorite Web 2.0 tools, eduCanon. According to their website, eduCanon "is an online learning environment to create and share interactive video lessons." 

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

I use eduCanon 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 eduCanon and watch the video presentation for class discussion the following day. The best part of eduCanon 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.

You can get started in a couple of steps. First of all, go to educanon.com and create a free teacher account. Then follow their simple steps for building, assigning, and sharing lessons.

Here is a video from Benjamin Levy that further explains what eduCanon is and how to get started:

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

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

FTT - MoveNote

Add Narration to Your Emails!

@joe_edtech

Today's blog post is essentially an embedded video demonstration. Sometimes that kind of thing makes me feel like I'm cheating on my blog, but there are some instructional tech tools that are best introduced through video.

The Movenote Chrome App is just one of those tools. Let's face it, if you give your kids a presentation using Google Slides or PowerPoint, the most important part of the presentation is what you have to say about the text and pictures you are providing the class.Using Movenote, you can quickly add narration to any presentation you need to share with a colleague you teach with, or a student who missed class. I suppose you could use Movenote to "flip" your classroom, but it is probably better for really quick explanations that go with documents, pictures, or presentations you want to share.

What better way to introduce Movenote than by sharing a completed Movenote?!?!

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

Have you tried Movenote? Tell us what you've used it for. Or, if you know of a Chrome App we should be using in the classroom more, tell us about it below.

FTT - VideoNot.es

VideoNot.es

Making Sense Out of Flipped Lessons

@joe_edtech

Recently I had the opportunity to run a workshop on "Flipped Classroom" techniques with an excellent veteran math teacher. As we sat down to talk about the things that have to be considered before teachers simply make a video and share it with their kids, we came up with a key list of pre-production ideas to focus on. The list included items like:

• metascripts for lesson planning
• production values for videos
• software available
• long term storage

While we had a great discussion about preparing instructors to teach in the flipped classroom, I think the piece we missed was preparing students to succeed in a flipped classroom. If I had to do it all over again, I would suggest that we model and then scaffold note taking skills using tools like VideoNot.es.

An add on to Google Chrome, VideoNot.es allows you to split your screen and watch an instructional video on the left and take time stamped notes on the right.

And because it is all integrated with Google Drive, it is simple to share notes in collaborative groups or just between student and teacher.

VideoNot.es can be found on the Chrome Web Store by clicking here.

Here are some easy to follow instructions on getting started with VideoNot.es from Chris Morris:

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

How do you teach your students to take notes?