Streamline and Rainy Day Recess

One of the most dreaded phrases in teaching is "rainy day recess". Whenever I heard that phrase I would either plan to give my students free time or I would show a video.

At the start of the year I make my own rainy day video file using resources from Discovery Streamline.

In the short (5 minute) video above I walk you through the steps of how to search and download videos appropriate for a rainy day recess from the Streamline site.

Setting up a "rainy day recess" video file is easy and can be done one weekend afternoon. Once you have the videos downloaded and saved you have it for the coming years.

This is also great for computer lab teachers/assistants to have in the event of a computer malfunction during lab time (which happened recently in one of our schools :)

BrainPop

BrainPop is an educator tool to help enhance instructing in the classroom. Topics are divided by subject. Search for a topic you want, i.e. Christopher Columbus, and students get a short video with cartoon hosts Tim and Moby about the subject. Following the video you can give a quiz on the subject - either graded or review (and bonus you can integrate with the Promethean ActivExpressions and votes!).

I first saw this in an 8th grade math class and even though I had heard the lesson, when I saw it reviewed by Tim and Moby on BrainPop the lesson "clicked".

You can sign up for a free 5 day trial through their website. There are several "free" videos you can access as well.

My team (fourth grade teachers) split the cost with our state money - approx. $45 each (otherwise a classroom subscription would be $195). You get three logins and even though there were four of us, we never used it at the same time so it was never a problem.

Definitely a resources I would check out.

ActivExpression with BrainPop

This is a quick tutorial that I found on YouTube that shows how to use the ActivExpressions with BrainPop.

Animoto - General Information

I am a huge fan of the Animoto website. I used it frequently in the classroom to showcase field trips, specific projects, and for end of year projects. It is great for parent presentations! It is very easy to use with lots of options, including the ability to upload video clips.

The sample above is a long video (under the 10 minutes max) that I made by stringing and saving three songs together in MovieMaker. We showed at the end of the year awards ceremony to rave reviews.

Math - Animoto

This is a copy of a math project that was done with Mrs. Maroney's fourth grade math class at Mossy Oaks Elementary. We broke her students into three groups. One group went with the teacher, another group went with the math coach, and the third group went with me. This made the project very manageable.

I used my personal camera and the other two groups used borrowed grade level cameras.

We started at the school's math word wall and looked at all the terms we could use. This gave students a good starting vocabulary. The math coach put together forms that the students filled in as they took turns taking pictures. They had to list the picture and the math association with it. The students in the group rotated the camera. Each group took a certain area of the school (my group had the hallway, library, and large playground).

I put the pictures (79 total) into PowerPoint, which allowed me to write on top of the picture and put in the outlines (I saved the final project as a jpeg and uploaded to Animoto.com - a subscription to the site is $30 and completely WORTH it! I think they have a free educators license but I purchased it for personal projects) . In hindsight I should have had the students do the part in the computer lab involving PowerPoint. I think they could have handled it and it would have been more meaningful and taught them some of the features in PowerPoint. Oh well...next time :)

All in all the project turned out well and the student enjoyed being out of the classroom.

Video - "How To Download Resources Packs"

Short four minute video on how to download, save and open resource packs in Promethean Planet.

Promethean - ActivExpressions Setting up Database

Promethean - Self Paced Questions for ActivExpressions

Promethean - Nine Ways to Reveal Answers

Click on the play button above to watch an embedded video from YouTube on nine different ways to reveal an answer using ActivInspire.

YouTube Downloader

I use a YouTube downloader quite a bit to download songs or snippets of videos related to the subject I am teaching. There are several kinds of YouTube downloaders but I like the one here.

We (the teachers...not the students) have access to YouTube at school however it is dicey at best to try and stream from YouTube. If there isn't enough broadband width the video will stop and start as it buffers. Sometimes the advertising bar along the bottom pops up with inappropriate ads for the classroom. The YouTube downloader eliminates this and is easy to use.

I always use it at home since my internet is faster. Above is screen shot of what it looks like on my desktop and as I open it up. I simply copy and paste the address of the video I want to use and tell it where to download it on my computer. It will download it as an MP4 file. I can play an MP4 at school but most of the time I convert it to a WMV (Windows Media Video) so I can embed the video in my Promethean flip charts. To covert it you would use the same YouTube downloader and tell it to convert the video (look at the screen shot above - under "what do you want to do?" you have two choices "download" or "convert").

Most recently I downloaded several video/songs from YouTube that were made up to teach the scientific method. I had taught my version of the scientific method (with fun hand gestures) and then showed students all the other versions I had found. They had to compare my version with those from other teachers. It was great to show that students all over the country, and across grade levels, were learning the same thing.

Start with Just One Thing

JustOneThing

Tags: Web2.0 classroom technology

This was a great two minute video that really drives home that teachers don't need to be an expert in technology they just need to be willing to try just one new thing.

Next Blog Button

The first year I introduced my fourth grade students to blogging I was operating a pilot program. I had to meet with several district personnel to outline how I was going to blog, benefits to students, etc. Once I had approval I was pretty much on my own with the understanding I was going to document and share my year with other teachers.

I decided to use blogger despite the multitude of other blogging platforms out there because it was fast to set up and easy to use and I wanted to get started right away.

Mid-year an article was written about our adventures in blogging and teachers who had been thinking about blogging wanted to jump in.

The district decided to make an official blogging policy for the new year and the first change was that we couldn't use blogger. When asked the biggest concern was the "next blog" button across the top. Apparently if you hit it enough times you will eventually be taken to an inappropriate site (I have not tried it but I have no doubt that it is true).

This led me on a search as to how to get rid of that "next blog" button. Finally I found this great online article that very clearly explained how to get rid of it. I've used it on this blog, since it will be linked on my district website but left it on my Science Notebooking site to show viewers what it looks like.

If you are planning to use blogger.com in any educational setting, or if you know children will be using your site, go ahead and remove that "Next Blog" button for peace of mind. It is easy to do!

Screen Casts

I recently found out that my favorite online screen recorder (Screen Toaster) has quietly gone away. I used the recorder to make several screen cast videos and now, sigh, I'll have to re-record.

What is a screen cast? A screen cast is a recording of your computer screen. It allows you to record what is happening step-by-step on your computer (above is a snapshot of what the recording software looked like when I was ready to start recording). This allows you to create video instructions for your targeted audience.

I've used screen casts on my Science Notebooking blog to show viewers how to format Word documents to fit into a notebook format. I have also made them to put on my school website to show parents how to access and use Compass learning at home.

I am now on the look out for a new (free) screen casting site. Luckily I came across this online article that gives several options to replace Screen Toaster. Right now I am trying out Screen-O-Matic and I will report back once I have played around in it a bit.

Promethean Planet - Downloads for Everyone

There are approximately 284 resources packs that teachers can download from Promethean Planet.

Not every resources pack can be used by every teacher however there are a few that I would suggest as being a good dowload for all. They are as follows:

Bullets, Buttons and Arrows

Fun Backgrounds

Fun Backgrounds 2

Frames and Signs

These are fairly generic and can be used to enhance your flipcharts no matter what subject you teach!