Animoto

I've known about Animoto for a few months but haven't bothered to use it till the other day.  I'm using Common Sense Media's digital citizenship curriculum with all of my classes from kindergarten to middle school. Their lesson called Digital Life 101 suggests that students write and illustrate a simile to describe their digital life.  It also goes one step farther and prompts students to create an Animoto video to demonstrate this simile.

Here are two really cool videos my students made in a matter of minutes.
Evan
Max

Yes, I think I will be using this site more often in the future.

How do you use Animoto in the classroom? 

Innovation Kick-Off Fall 2013

It's a new school year, which means a new round of Innovation Projects.  I teach a middle school course called Tools for Technology, which is where I implement my projects.  This semester I have a total of four students, which is both sad and exciting.  The good news is that I'll be able to give students more input and guidance along the way.

I have two goals this time around to make things better.  One, I wanted to start things right by helping students select their projects more wisely.  I want the focus to be on creating something to be proud of, not being entertained by something someone else made.  Two, I want to be able to model excellence and help scaffold students along the way.

If you click here and here, you'll see the two documents I had students read and interact with to plan their projects.  In the past, I merely asked students to think of a technical project they would like to do and write me a proposal paragraph. I accepted just about anything and maybe helped tweak the idea a bit.

This year, I've tried to get them to focus more on something they are passionate about.  I also created a contract.  I simply took their proposal paragraphs then added my own stipulations.  For instance, one student is creating his own song.  I added that he would have to write two songs, upload them to YouTube or some such site, then put the links on his blog.  I printed out two copies of the contract.  We each signed both and kept a copy. Hopefully the students will use their contracts to help guide their projects, and this will also serve as the standard by which I judge the quality and quantity of their work at the end.

Here are the projects we'll be seeing this time around:

• Evan -- Creating eight or more pictures using pixel art and putting them on his site.  Evan is a return student from last year, and I like that I'm seeing some more creativity on this project than others in the past.
• Max -- Creating two songs using Dubstep. Like I stated above, he will upload these to YouTube or a similar music sharing site and put the links on his blog.  I'm unfamiliar with Dubstep, so it will be interesting to see where this one goes.
• Mason -- Creating his own web site, though I'm not quite sure of the platform or the content. I'm going to be watching over his shoulder to see what he comes up with.
• Cole -- I'm not sure yet. You know how that goes.

The second goal I have for this semester's projects is to be a better source of help and encouragement during the projects. The vernacular for that is... I need to get up off my butt and get involved with the kids.  I just need to make it a point to spend a couple minutes with each student every Friday to make sure he knows what he's doing rather than wait for someone to ask for help.

I'm excited for this set of Innovation Projects and love the fact that I'll be seeing some creative creations rather than creative consumption this time around. 

Wanna chat sometime?

Dear #edtechex Friends:

I humbly apologize to you for ignoring you over the summer. It was not intentional.  I meant to meet you during our prescheduled chat times.  It started with a family camping trip during our first chat because that was the only time we could camp.  (We had a great time, by the way.)  Then, I realized I was thoroughly enjoying my summer blissfully ignoring educational technology and never looked back.  It really was a good summer!

Now summer is over and it's the first day of school. (Oddly, I am monitoring a study hall during first period this year.) I'm looking at my schedule for the year and see that Thursday is my best day to chat.  I'm free from 9:30 till 1:30 (with the exception of my Lunch/Recess duty between 10:45 and 11:45).  Is there a half hour or hour in there we can chat?

Let's compare schedules and see if we can gather 'round the ol' Twitter table.  It doesn't have to be Thursday.  Throw out an idea and we'll see if we can agree on some common ground.

Thanks!
Craig

The Three I's

Sitting in church on Sunday this summer, I got some incredible inspiration for becoming a better teacher. Now, mind you, the point of the message was about how to build into people spiritually, not intellectually. While I fully recognize this, the message was full of insight into being a better leader of people and help them  grow to be all they were intended to be.  Isn't that what teachers strive to do every day? (For those of you interested in listening to the message, feel free to watch the video here.)

Our speaker was Jo Saxon, originally from England, talking about how to disciple people and help them to grow.  She used plenty of personal history to talk about how she grew, watching over the shoulders of others.  In fact, she went on to discuss that the meaning of "disciple" is to "watch over the shoulder" of your leader.  She talked about sharing life with her mentors, learning from watching them live in the good and bad, talking through issues, and eventually being mature enough to step out on her own.

Obviously, as educators we are not going to take all of our students home with us each night to eat our food, watch us parent our children, and see us live our lives 24/7.  However, there is something to be said about the mentor/disciple relationship over the teacher/student relationship.

Jo broke this relationship into 3 I's:

• Information:  Obviously, in order to learn more, you need to be given more content.  Without the building blocks of information, you can't do anything.  (As I saw one tweep mention the other day, you can't Google EVERYthing. We need to teach content.)  Some things are taught.
• Imitation: Mentors need to be living examples for their students.  This requires relationship, time, and sharing.  All too often, we are ruled by the lesson plan, the objectives, or the Common Core standard and forget to let the kids see our lives and get to know us.  One really cool quote I took from the message was, "Their testimonies became my tools." As we share our stories and let kids into our lives, our testimonies can become their tools to live. Some things are caught.
• Innovation: Turn them loose so they can do bigger and better things.  Talking of her own daughters, Jo said, "I want the ceiling of my life to be the floor of their lives." Isn't that what we want of our students?  When I look at some of my former students, I can say I may be the most proud of the ones who have exceeded what I may have expected: the microbiologist who hopes to do his doctoral work at MIT, the VP at Dropbox, the IT guy at Children's Hospital, my worship pastor, the social network guru.  

How many of us as teachers -- >ahem< mentors -- focus on all three of these aspects of discipling? I bet if we did an honest poll of teachers across the land, we would find that most of us hone in on only one of these, and a few of us try to nail two of them.  

The third I hits home for me.  You've read my blog enough to know that I'm all about innovation.  Not only do I have my pet Innovation Projects, but I also spend a lot of time talking about students using technology to create, not being consumers of technology.  Guess what?  If all I want to do is guide them into innovation, I'm missing some key aspects of mentoring.  

So, as I look forward to another school year, I'm committing myself to focus on all three.  I can't expect students to create unless I give them better raw materials to build with and show them a few tips on how best to make something to be proud of. 

Which one of the Three I's do you need to work on? 

Vizify!

School's been out for a couple weeks, and I am enjoying a completely different schedule. In fact, I can't say that I've given educational technology much thought at all since walking out of my school's doors on June 3.  That will probably change as the summer wears on, but for now... it's time to play around.

If you're a tweep, give Vizify a try for something fun.  Here is my Twitter account video. Enjoy!
https://www.vizify.com/craig-dunlap/twitter-video

Kids Don't Learn from These Interactive Apps!

At lunch the other day, one of our teachers told me how her students weren't learning from Tiny Countries. Apparently, students only need to guess and click their way through the game. If you get a question wrong, it's no big deal. Just click the only other option and run with it.  When the game is over, the kids can't tell you much, if anything, about geography, but they had fun clicking through the game.

I think there is a tendency for all of us when we delve into educational technology to let the program do the teaching.  We find a great app, software, or web site and think the students will learn from it.  Maybe they will... but often they will find ways to cut corners or beat the system.

I remember when we first downloaded Mathemagics to our iPads.  I gave the kids time to explore and enjoy the app, hoping they would learn a few multiplication tricks along the way.  What they learned (within minutes of getting their fingers on it) was a loophole in the system and how to "cheat" their way through the program.

Knowing that many of our students take the path of least resistance (like I admittedly do), here are some ways to help students learn AND use their digital tools.

1. I think it's important to use apps like Tiny Countries or Mathemagics as review, not as the main teaching.  Teach your math facts, your geography lesson, or whatever you are doing, then give them 10 minutes on the app of your choice.  This way, you still get to teach them and monitor their review of the information.
2. Turn it into a presentation instead of a game.  You probably know by now that I love Educreations, but there are other great presentation apps out there.  (StoryKit, Haiku Deck, Show Me, and SlideRocket to name a few) Find one or two you like and allow students to use them to present their new-found knowledge. You can expect the first round of presentations to take a day or so to create, but once students figure out the program, they can whip up a good one in a few minutes.  This also pushes for higher level thinking than just the rote recitation of facts.

Last week, I met with a different colleague about some courses she'll be picking up next year.  She wants to add a digital component and was asking for advice.  My biggest piece of advice? "Don't let the technology dictate your course. Let the content drive your direction and we'll find technology tools to help you along the way."

When you find a great digital tool, find ways to use it.  Just don't fall for the trap of thinking an app can teach the kids better than you can.

Innovation Projects, May 2013

It's the last week of school, and my 7th graders are presenting their Innovation Projects (formerly called 20% Time Projects) for the fourth quarter.  Back in January when I came up with this idea, I was very excited for something I thought was pretty original.  It turns out that Genius Hour has taken the educational world by storm when I wasn't looking.  Even though my grand idea isn't so novel after all, it's great to be part of something new and exciting in education.  I feel strongly that if we give students to learn what they are interested in learning they will get a lot more out of it than they ever thought possible.  I've been blessed to be given the freedom to explore this angle with my Tools for Tech class this year.

This quarter, my students were given the opportunity to build upon their third quarter project or start something totally new.  About half chose to dive into something new.  We had some new GarageBand songs, a slew of websites, a logo hijacker, lots of wallpapers, and a Lego gun/saw.  In every case, I have no doubt learning took place, but I'm fairly certain I should have pushed them a bit harder to create (aka innovate) something new rather than mash up what already exists. Look at the examples below and let me know what you think....oh, and try a few recipes.  I highly recommend the brownies on Kent's page.

• American Sign Language (ASL)
• Everything Random
• Food, Fun, Friends
• The Plagemans
• All About Evan
• Games, Games, and Guess What? Games.
• Maxx and His Saw/Gun
• The World of Desserts and the world of desserts
• T4Tinnovation
• Wallpapers
• Minecraft Pocket Edition
• All About Evan (A different one) 
• Sports Fails 
• mattst4tappreveiw

Over the summer, I'm going to read up on Genius Hour and connect with some other Genius Hour teachers to try to hone in the happy medium of giving students a chance to pursue what they want to learn while making sure it's a learning experience worthy of one-fifth of our class time.  As always, I'm open to suggestions.

Click here to see the students' original instructions.