Screencasting Worked - Just Not How I Planned

Yesterday I created a screencast to help students in a math tutorial class designed for kids who are struggling with math. The topic was integers. Turns out the student who planted the seed of this idea became confused with her schedule, or chose not to show up. But for the kids who did show up, I created this screencast as support for them to use at home and at school:




When I ran into Susan later that day, I showed her the video. She was surprised and pleased that I had taken an interest in her academics, but I don't know yet if she checked out the video. But someone did.

Jeffrey, another student from the class caught up to me in the hall. He told me he watched the video last night.

1. I asked if he thought it was helpful, and he said yes.
2. I asked if his homework was complete - another yes.
3. I asked him if he always completes his homework, and he replied no
4. Finally I asked if he would like to see more screencasts about his homework - definitely yes.

I guess the question remains, with other staff adopt the idea of screencasting their lessons? I went around and informally shared my screencast with other staff, and told them what it was for. Most were hesitant, perhaps dreading an awful learning curve associated with learning how to screencast with Jing. Or, perhaps they don't believe that students will go to the video.

It is my goal this week to support one person who is interested in learning how to screencast their lessons.

Embedding the best of the Web - CUEBC 2009

I am off to CUEBC later this month! I will be presenting on using "embed codes" in education. What is embedding? Why is it important in education?

How about starting your math lesson off with a laugh:

Embed codes are ways to bring great videos, podcasts, maps, projects, slideshows and more - right to your own classroom website.




I decided to embed a map to CUEBC 2009 - being hosted at Sullivan Heights in Surrey, BC. That way, all my friends could know where to meet me. I went to google maps, and googled the address. I got a map, and in the upper right corner of the map box I found a button labelled "Link". When I clicked it I got an embed code. I then came here to my blog, and when I clicked on the "edit html" tab -


View Larger Map

I hit paste, and now I have a scrollable google map in my site! How could you use this in the classroom? Where would you take your students?

What if you wanted to share a story plan with your students:




This is an online mind map site, called bubbl.us. You or your students can create accounts here (with teacher and parent permission) for free. There are other sites like it that also support embedding. I created this story web to help parents support their grade 3 student at home plan and write their story about "My Life in BC." By providing parents and students with the story bubble diagrams via your classroom website, you might get fewer late assignments, or even better quality assignments.


Sometimes I need to support other kinds of learning at home. What about demonstrating how to do something like a math problem? How long has it been since your student's parents did math? Do they know the new "partial product method"?




I find making a screencast to be really helpful. I use a free program called Jing, and a free account at Screencast.com. I capture my voice and the action on my screen. Then I just use a program like MS Paint to do my math on. Forgive my messy handwriting; I am sure you would be neater.


What about presentations and slideshows? You can embed them from different sites, such as google docs.



Google docs offers you an online office suite of programs that works with Microsoft Office. I made this presentation for the Learning Disabilities Association of BC. Using the embed code allows me to bring my presentation to my audience, rather than having them try to search for it.

Remember the YouTube video we used before? Here is a great alternative for when you want to host private videos - Vimeo.com. Vimeo allows you to embed password protected videos. This way, you can shoot video with your students in it (again with permission and understanding between all parties) and embed the video in your website. Then just tell your students / email your parents what the password is. In the Coquitlam School District, we use SharePoint websites which are password protected. I put the password on the same page as the video, and then only people with access to my site can access the video.

Password is: star

Guitar Lesson from James Gill on Vimeo.

Finally there is Voicethread. I have used voicethread a with a number of students and across a variety of subjects. Its an online slideshow that you can narrate, and other people can comment on your voicethread when you invite them in.



What if you want to record your kids. Podcasts are a great way kids can show what they know, and if you control the podcasting account and are careful they don't reveal their names and addresses, I feel it is a safe and fun educational experience. And once again, you can embed their podcasts so you can rotate the content throughout the year. I use podbean.com. After making a podcast (audio recording on the net) I did a little digging and found that when I click on the "embeddable player"...you guessed it...you get your choice of code to embed your podcast. It comes with its own player!

Powered by Podbean.com

Here is an example of how we can do some cool storytelling online, using voicethread



Putting your voicethreads into your classroom website is another great way to showcase what kids know.

So to summarize, you can embed video, password protected video, maps, screencasts, podcasts, mind maps, and Voicethreads. There are more things you can embed, such as photo albums from Flickr.com, and this feature is becoming standard on almost all sites that host other people's content. Think about bringing the best of Web 2.0 to your class. Use embed codes - they make for a safe, reliable, and educational web classroom.

Student Created Content - Better and Cheaper

One of my students has created a video. It is modelled after the educational video website, brainpop.com. This student has used some pretty basic animation skills I taught using pivot (a free stick figure animation program).

Unfortunately I have temporarily removed this video from my site as I think some of the music used was copyrighted. I will post it as soon as I am able. But I think it this student project represents a valuable idea: A subscription to brainpop.com can be costly, but possibly worth it. But, what if we gave our kids the ability to create content that was very exciting to watch and informative too? Then our students would be showing what they know in an authentic way, it would be engaging more areas of their thinking, and we as teacher might be able to use this kind of multimedia work year after year. Multimedia reaches more kinds of learners, and I have always found that kids really do a good job communicating their ideas to other kids.

Next September - Multimedia projects for global causes.

Librarian Takes Leap of Faith

My librarian has an exhausting job. We are the biggest middle school in the province, and Karen Ferguson has a lot of kids coming through her doors each day. Each week she is teaching entire classes new skills, such as research skills, reading skills and writing skills. She is tireless.

However this is not to say she doesn't get tired. Having to teach the same lesson over and over again has a cost. But, then I realized she could save herself time and effort by using Jing.

As I mentioned in previous posts, Jing is free software you can use to make a narrated video (if you have a microphone) showing how to do something on a computer. It records your mouse, and everything you click on and show on your screen. Karen had been teaching lessons using a computer and LCD projector. So I suggested she "Jing It".

Today she spent 30 minutes playing with Jing, getting a little frustrated, but then finding great success, and she created her first Jing video on how to use the library online catalog. As she was recording it, a teacher asked her if he could bring his class in next block. She said ok, finished her recording, put a link to it on her library website, and voila! Now she can show the video she made, and walk around monitoring kids learning while the video plays. It saves her time, and saves effort.

I applaud Karen's adventurous spirit, because she could have given up in the first few minutes, but she didn't. I hope that this small investment in time has a big payoff for her in the months and years ahead.



Librarian Takes Leap of Faith by James Gill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at gone-digital-native.blogspot.com.

A Jing is worth 15 minutes

Today I saved myself about 15 minutes. Rather than write out in detail a computer lesson (which may or may not be understood), switched on my microphone and did a screencast with Jing.

For those who don't know, a screencast is a recording of your screen and your mouse's movement on the screen. It also records your narration.

Wait, wait, there I go again. Click me.


There. That's one use I have for Jing. I have another... I began working with a team of teachers from another school who have formed a "Technology Learning Team". I will be the facilitator, which means I will help keep the conversation between them going and focused. I will help them set goals, and reflect on their progress. I also suggest ideas from time to time.

One of the ideas I had involved using Jing on their tablets. They use tablet computers to demonstrate math concepts. Tablets are so cool - laptops you can draw on! I thought that perhaps they could make a screencast of their lesson on their tablets, and then they could post it to their classroom website.

We can't always send textbooks home with our students in elementary school. What if they get lost? Parents often complain that they don't know how to do "new math", but with a screencast to demonstrate math techniques on the classroom website, they can support their children at home if they have trouble with homework.

Teachers are already teaching the lesson from the tablet. Jing is free to use. Let's put the two together and make "lessons to go", or save some lessons from year to year. Save time. Save money.

Working on the Teenage Clock

Some of my kids work strange times and hours. Just like me! I have been using a new hand-in "bin" on my virtual classroom. It is set up so that students can submit their homework via attachment to a folder, providing me with a self assessment. I comment back, and check it off. With each checked off assignment it is moved to the "done" folder and kids read the feedback. It has made my workload with marking so much more manageable, with no cluttersome papers. But, I wish I didn't get all the assignments at the same time.

So perhaps I should let the kids work and turn in work at their own pace. This would mean I wouldn't get 120 assignments in at the same time. This makes me think of some more advantages too...

I could show the kids the whole curriculum, and tell them when the term ends. Then, I tell them to get to work, and be there to provide support.


What about more self-paced learning. To prevent speedy workers from doing poor work, I need to:

1. Provide samples of different qualities of work (just in my first term of the job, so second, third and fourth term will get the benefits of the examples I get from the first term)

2. Provide a minimal amount of acceptable work to shoot for, and tie the quality and quantity of assignments done to grades in a really easy to follow formula (2 required assignments and 1 extension for every section).

3. Create screencasts of my lessons with something like Jing. This allows students to learn at their own pace.

4. Identify the weak students, or students who cannot keep themselves on pace. Teach them to set their own goals and monitor their own progress.


How can I do this? Perhaps I need to set a goal of one screen cast a day for the next two weeks. That will take me to the end of term 1, and get me ready for term 1.

I have never done a self-paced program before, so let's see what happens.

Heard it through the grapevine - Science 9

Oh I heard it through the grapevine, I think I'm teachin' Science 9...for summer school. I have a degree in Biology, and I think that I will do well with this course. I will be teaching students who didn't pass during the regular year, and so I have to cover a year's worth of Science in one month. Hmmmm...so what is the best way to cover some very abstract science concepts with struggling students?

The Superintendent for the Coquitlam School district, Tom Grant, took time out of his schedule to email me a list of free printable worksheets for a variety of high school subjects. Well, he didn't send it to me personally, but rather to all the principals, and my principal in turn passed it on to me. These great high school resources are found at teachersupport.ca. Turns out that although teachersupport.ca is an Ontario based educational website, it closely aligns with the NEW science 9 curriculum. How lucky is that?

My plan for each lessons will be to create each new lesson to be of the same format as the next.

1.) Have the students copy out the learning intentions for the day. Make sure they understand what it means. Put it on a blogsite made just for this course.

2.) Pre-teach the vocabulary (as much as possible) before beginning the lesson. Don't do all the vocabulary, maybe just 5 words per lesson. The goal is that they pass. Keep these 5 posted through the lesson. Refer to them - have the students make a "Woot Woot!" sound (or something) when we say the word reading aloud from the text so that it is fun and they are actively looking for this word. Perhaps even throw candy at them for being the first to locate these words in the text, and put it into their own words. Put these 5 words a day on the blogsite.

3.) Whenever possible, show a short 1-4 minute video from YouTube explaining the content. Embed the video in the course blogsite.

4.) Read the text. Answer questions from text, or fill in blackline master. Link to blackline master on blogsite.

5.) Students turn in short blackline master assignments or multiple choice / short answer assignments during class. Homework assignments only once every couple of days. Complete in class assignments are a must in order to pass.

6.) Give the class red, yellow, and green signs. When doing lesson, reading aloud from text, students hold up signs at the end of a subtopic or concept.

Green = I get it

Yellow = I sort of get it

Red = I don't understand it.

Greens help yellows, and I help reds. People need to get up and move. This will precede "complete in class" assignments. Off task behaviour = go work by yourself as you are interfering with other people's education. Summer plans are jeopardized by these actions. So are next year's plans.

7.) Have the students repeat the learning intentions for the day before they leave the class. It is their ticket out the door.

8.) Allow students to make comments or ask questions about homework on the blogsite. Specify what kinds of questions get posted, who will answer them, and how they are answered.

I will need a computer or laptop, and a projector. I will teach much of my lesson from the projector, and the day's notes go onto a blog for the end of the day. Stay tuned to see if I am actually teaching this course.

I'll take some YouTube to go, please

My iPod touch. Has there ever been a greater sign that a woman loves her man than electronics? Yes, but only if you include shiny electronics! A word of mouth company (Matchstick) contacted me through my blog here, and have asked me if I would test out a product for one of the companies they represent, Energizer. The product is called Energi, and it is a portable iPod recharger, running on two double AA rechargeable batteries. I think the iPod touch burns more energy on wireless video streaming. I was listening to a David Ford song on YouTube while doing the dishes, and after listening to some other songs, I had drained a lot of battery. Fortunately I was home to charge it up.

But what about when I am out, and teaching with my iPod. Lets say I am in a wireless area, and I have the ability to stream videos from YouTube to my iPod, and play sound out of some portable speakers. Then I can take kids on field trips to places and show them even more enriching content on site. What if I was at the Vancouver Aquarium, and the staff gave me temporary permission to use my iPod on their wireless network. Then we could walk to somewhere like the frog exhibit and read the signs, see the frogs, etc. But, I could also show them this video:

By going to the page in YouTube and clicking on the "more info" link, I could read out some really important facts about the global crisis of the loss of many species of frogs due to human impact on the environment. Having a source of power to ensure I can show the kids this video would be crucial. So would getting permission to be on someone else's wireless network, but hey those guys and gals of the Vancouver Aquarium are all about the learning, so I bet they'd do it in a heartbeat.

If you want to check out this video yourself, it is content put on YouTube by the Vancouver aquarium here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence

Gladiators, dinosaurs, and a three headed dog named 'Fluffy'

Here is a sample of my students' stop motion animation project. We used StopMojo (a free for educational use program) and a fairly inexpensive webcam. They wrote the script, they placed the characters. I helped install the program and showed them how to use it. I am very proud of their work, and I think they are too. It is a story of a Three Headed dog attacking ancient rome. Several gladiators and a trained dinosaur meet their end until a brave man with a boat oar vanquish the three headed dog (named 'Fluffy'). Ok, the dinosaur was not historically accurate, but we didn't have the right lego set with us, and the kids were mostly just learning how to use the program to make a movie. Soon, we will edit the movie with something like Windows Movie Maker (because we have it already), and add sound effects, music, and subtitles.



Battles in Ancient Mythology from James Gill on Vimeo.




To get into the movie, you must enter the password "Fluffy." Normally I don't provide passwords but this shows how you can use Vimeo.com to create embedded movies with password protection. With informed parent consent, I think I can start making some student videos, and embedding them on my secure-virtual classroom (a SharePoint website which is password protected also).

The "Hey Joe" technical support line

We are always our own best source of help and technical support. I am not speaking of the royal "we" here, nor do I mean "we" as in us as individuals. I mean we as groups of teachers. I think we need to create a grassroots movement of technical support. Before any of us writes a work order up, or calls someone in the IT department, we often look for someone nearby and ask them "Hey Joe (or Joanne), how do you...." What if we took a more proactive approach to technical support.

When people ask me how do you ________(perform some task on a computer) , now I take a few extra minutes and say to them "I am happy to help you, but can we do this at my desktop computer?" I have downloaded a free program called CamStudio. When I show someone how to do a task (once I have figured it out), we "screencast" it. This is where we make a screen capture video, which we narrate using my computer microphone. Then we save the file on our school server, and upload it to YouTube. Now whether you are at work or at home, you can access the video. Also, if anyone else has the same question, they can see a video on it.

My goal is to inspire other staff members to screencast when they know how to do a task that someone else has asked them about. I haven't had any takers yet, but I have noticed some staff members helping others with computer tasks. I think this is encouraging. I think screencasting is the next step in ongoing professional development in computer education.





This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.