Video Conferencing in the 21st Century Classroom

Enhance curriculum with virtual field trips: The Royal Ontario Museum offers live web conferences with an experienced educator. During the conference, students virtually view, discuss and ask questions about ROM’s top-notch collections. I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of these conferences while completing my teaching practicum (Grade 4 Medieval unit).

Bring experts to the classroom—virtually: Interview authors, scientists, doctors, astronauts and other amazing individuals from around the world. Watch the video clip below of students interviewing Chris Hadfield, Canada’s first astronaut to walk in space, operate Canadarm, and command the International Space Station.

Connect classrooms in different countries and expand students’ worldview: Making international connections can provide students from different cultures the chance to discuss and debate common issues and current events. Students can brainstorm ideas on how to solve world issues. 

Record and archive sessions for future playback: If a student is sick, or misses the day of a special video conference they still have the opportunity to review what the class has experienced.

Conduct parent/teacher conferences remotely: Teachers are able to connect with the parents that are unavailable to attend after school conferences.

Tools for video conferencing:

Google Hangouts - https://hangouts.google.com/

Skype - http://www.skype.com/en/

Adobe Connect - http://www.adobe.com/ca/products/adobeconnect.html

Elluminate - http://www.blackboard.com/online-collaborative-learning/index.aspx

 

http://theinspiredclassroom.com/2013/04/web-conferencing-an-aid-for-learning/

Resources:

http://www.lifesize.com/video-conferencing-blog/video-in-education/

https://www.freeconference.com/blog/how-to-utilize-video-conferencing-in-the-classroom/

Comparing Presentation Tools

PowerPoint:

PowerPoint is a powerful presentation software program that is part of the Microsoft Office package. It is not a free program, an Office 365 personal account starts at $60 a year. PowerPoint tools provide you with everything you need to produce a professional-looking presentation. It is an excellent program for personal and/or official use. With PowerPoint you can create individual slides that produce a slideshow, the end product. Creating slides is easy, as PowerPoint provides you with sample themes and you are able to add text, tables, charts, pictures, animations, and even sounds.

https://products.office.com/en/powerpoint

Apache OpenOffice - Impress:

Apache OpenOffice Impress is a multimedia presentation program, very similar to PowerPoint. Impress enables users to create individual slides that produce a slideshow presentation (the end goal). It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It saves and stores all of your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. The best part about OpenOffice is that it can be downloaded and used completely for free!

https://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html

Google Slides:

Google Slides is a tool within the Google Drive productivity suite. It is a free program, the only thing that users need to have is a Gmail account. Creating a presentation on Google Slides is fairly similar to that of PowerPoint. Google Slides provides you with a variety of presentation themes, hundreds of fonts, embedded videos, and animations. Users are also able to choose from a wide variety of pre-made presentations and portfolios. “Access, create, and edit your presentations wherever you go — from your phone, tablet, or computer — even when there’s no connection”. With Google Slides you area able to collaborate on presentations with other people at the same time. By sharing your presentation with your friends, classmates, coworkers, and/or family they can view, comment on and edit your presentation. You also will never have to hit the “save” button again.  All of your changes are automatically saved as you type. Google Slides provides the option to view “revision history”. Teachers and/or people working on the presentation have access to see old versions of the same presentation, sorted by date and who made the change.  Another bonus is that Google Slides works with PowerPoint, you are able to convert PowerPoint files to Google Slides and vice versa.

https://www.google.ca/slides/about/

Prezi:

Prezi is a presentation tool that can be used as an alternative to traditional slide making programs such as PowerPoint. Instead of slides, Prezi provides you with one large canvas. You are able to pan and zoom to various parts of the canvas and emphasize the ideas you want to present. With a Prezi presentation, you are able to group concepts together and then zoom out to show the big picture. In a visually engaging way, your audience will be able to easily follow along and understand the connections between your points. Prezi offers free public accounts to users with options to upgrade services for a monthly subscriptions.

https://prezi.com/

Green Screen Technology

There are so many amazing uses for a green screen in the classroom! Green screens and the appropriate apps allow you to transport yourself and your students to anywhere in the world as part of a video.

Some great classroom project ideas include:

• News Broadcast (Local School news and events)

• Weather Broadcast (local / international weather)
• History Topic / Time Travel (Travel to a specific day or time in history)
• Music Video (could involve school band)
• Holiday Video (add seasonal backgrounds to videos – Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc.)
• Become a SuperHero (add green materials to chairs /desks and make them invisible)
• Sports video
• Business Topic

http://mrpetersclassroom.weebly.com/blog/green-screen-app-smash

Green Screen by Do Ink is an app that makes it very easy to create incredible green screen videos and images right on your iPad. The app currently costs $3.99. Green Screen by Do Ink was featured in "Best New Apps in Education" in iTunes and is classroom-tested by students and teachers. The app allows students to creatively and uniquely tell a story, explain an idea, and express themselves.

Resources:

http://trakax.com/lesson-plans/using-green-screen-in-the-classroom/

http://techtutorials.edublogs.org/2011/09/19/greenscreen/ 

FREE Image Manipulation Programs

GIMP – GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a free program you can install for tasks such as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. GIMP has all the necessary tools needed for high quality image manipulation. The program provides artists with the power and flexibility to transform images into unique creations.

https://www.gimp.org/

Photoscape - PhotoScape is an easy and fun photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos. It provides tools such as resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming, paint brush, clone stamping, and brush effects.

http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

Pinta – Pinta is a drawing and painting program for editing photos. The programs goal is to provide users with a simple yet powerful way to draw and manipulate images. It provides users with easy drawing tools to draw freehand, lines, rectangles, ellipses, and more. Pinta includes over 35 adjustments and effects for manipulating your images.

http://pinta-project.com/

Photo Editor by Aviary – Photo Editor by Aviary is a comprehensive photo editing app you can use on any handheld device. It manipulates your photos in seconds with stunning filters, frames, stickers, touch-up tools and more.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aviary.android.feather&hl=en

AgingBooth – Don’t forget about the fun and entertaining apps that are available. AgingBooth is a very easy to use face aging machine. For the past 2 years I have used the app with kindergarten students on their 100^th day of school. Students loved getting their picture taken and then waiting a few seconds to see it transform to what they will look like when they are “100” years old.

http://www.mrsthompsonstreasures.com/2015/02/100th-day-of-school-fun.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.piviandco.agingbooth&hl=en

Additional Resources:

http://www.educational-freeware.com/news/fun-with-photographs.aspx

http://appcrawlr.com/app/search?similarTo=&q=photo+manipulation&category=&iap=&price=Free&_src=facet_topic4&device=iphone%2Cipad&smartFilter=4%3Afamilies

http://appcrawlr.com/ios/cut-me-in-easy-photo-background

FREE Apps to Record and Share Audio

Explain Everything is an interactive screencasting whiteboard app that allows users record their voice as they write on the screen. The app is being used by over 2 million students, teachers, leaders, and learners around the world. Explain Everything includes many features that lets teachers to easily add text and animation to their screen. The final videos can be shared in different ways, including direct upload to a teacher YouTube channel. Students are able to use the app in MANY ways. The video below shares some possibilities. 

Literably is a free app and website that teachers use to monitor the progress that students are making in reading. Students read the passages on the app or website aloud and then Literably will complete and score a running record for the student. It is a great app to track targeted students. Teachers can implement it as part of their Daily 5 program. 

Dragon Dictation is a voice recognition app that allows you to use your voice to dictate messages. It is “up to five times faster than typing on the keyboard”. It is an ideal tool for students who struggle with writing (especially those with dyslexia). It allows students to express themselves simply by talking. This is an excellent app for teachers to use when differentiating instruction as it works fast and is easy to use.  

        

Resources:

http://classtechtips.com/2015/10/26/3-screencasting-resources-for-the-flipped-teacher/
http://www.erintegration.com/2015/11/13/literably-automatic-running-records/

Online Bookmarking Tools – Key Facts

• Online social bookmarking websites are an excellent way for students to discover, and organize information.
  
  
• Websites such as Delicious and Diigo encourage group collaboration and enhance student learning by allowing students to share web resources quickly and with ease.
  
  
• Online “bookmarking services offer greater scope for research, integration, and collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality” (read more here).
  
  
• By having secure logins, students are able to access their lists of resources on any computer and/or device.
  
  
• Students are able to share what they find online with their peers and teachers.
  
  
• Teachers are able to direct students towards scholarly sources and reputable articles.
  
  
• “Tags” allow students to find resources and information on topics they are searching for.

As a 21^st century teacher, social bookmarking websites will help me to organize articles and resources I find online into one area. By having the option to create “bundles” I hope to develop extensive lists for different areas of interest in my Delicious account. I would love to eventually have bundles of math, language, science, play-based, inquiry, special education, and blended learning resources (and many, many more!). I currently use Pinterest to organize class projects and activities that I would like to implement into my future classrooms, Delicious will now help me to organize the resources I find. I wish I had an account while I was completing my previous Additional Qualification courses.

A list of 25 popular online bookmarking sites can be found here:
http://topbestlisted.blogspot.com/2011/07/top-25-best-bookmarking-sites-social.html

https://www.pinterest.com/

https://delicious.com/

Did You Know?

Students in the province of Ontario have many online resources available that they can access at school and at home.  Every student in grades 7-10 has access to “Homework Help”, which provides access to free math tutors, math specific tools and resources. The tutors are available every Sunday-Thursday 5:30pm – 9:30pm ET.

The Provincial e-Learning Strategy provides Ontario school boards, schools and students with access to valuable software, resources, tools and support. Every student from Kindergarten to Grade 12 is able to benefit from blended learning in a safe and customized environment. “With today’s competitive economy and ever changing technology, it is more important than ever that students have unlimited opportunities to learn and achieve”.

An overview of the technical components that make up the Provincial e-Learning Strategy:

Learning Management System (LMS)	A digital teaching and virtual learning environment.
Ontario Educational Resource Bank (OERB)	A digital library of Ontario curriculum-tagged resources.
E-Community Ontario	An online community for teachers and school boards in the provincially-funded education system.
Seat Reservation System (SRS)	A tool that lets school boards share seats in secondary school e-learning credit courses across the province through digital reservations.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/strategy.html

In addition to the provincial strategy, each school board offers their own library of digital resources. The London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB), for example, offers unlimited access to Infobase – Learn360. Learn360 provides access to more than 150,000 multimedia assets.  The reliable, authoritative resources support the K–12 academic curriculum and provide flexible options for accessing educational content whether in school, at the library, or at home. Students and teachers can access full videos, video clips, audio books, speeches, music tracks, images, encyclopedia articles, historical timelines, science experiments, historical maps, math activities, and science diagrams. LDCSB students also have access to the following databases:

EBSCO provides an online research solution consisting of databases, ebooks and ejournals to enhance the physical collections of our school libraries. It best supports the English, Science and Social Science courses.

CANSIM is Statistics Canada's key socioeconomic database. Updated daily, CANSIM provides fast and easy access to a large range of the latest statistics available in Canada.

GALE (CENGAGE Learning) features full text articles from over 30 online periodical databases including CPI.Q (Canadian periodicals) and Chilton's library, as well as numerous ebooks, crossing the curriculum.

Teen Health & Wellness provides intermediate and senior students with nonjudgmental and straightforward self-help support.  It includes topics on diseases, drugs, alcohol, nutrition, mental health, suicide, bullying, green living, and financial literacy, all of which are covered in the curriculum.​​

The list of resources made available to students is endless. I find that students enjoy using BookFLIX, Raz-Kids, Learning A-Z, Career Cruising, and Mindomo. If a student or parent does not know the appropriate login information they should contact their child’s teacher and/or school. 

Students using Raz-Kids