Cool Tool - Streamus

I always enjoy attending NCTIES and this year's conference was no exception.  It's always a great opportunity to learn from other professionals around the state and share successes, failures and the newest ways to use technology in your classroom.  Anytime I can take away a tool that can help in the classroom, as well as my personal life, it is a bonus.

Streamus is one of those bonus sites that has applications in and outside of the classroom.  Streamus is a Chrome Extension that allows users to stream audio clips that are pulled from YouTube videos.

Classroom Uses:

• Classroom environment
• Content Enrichment
• Pacing
• Creativity
• Writing Prompts

Personal Uses:

• Creating awesome playlists

"Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."

-Ludwig van Beethoven

Enjoy!

Tyler Callahan

Moore County Schools

Digital Integration Facilitator

@STEM_TC

Make Beliefs Comix

Are you looking for an innovative way for students to summarize information, practice new vocabulary, work on conversation skills or collaboration skills? Make Beliefs Comix may be the tool you are looking for!



Make Beliefs Comix is easy to use and engaging for students. After you choose the number of panels you want to create, you can begin adding your content. Start with a background or background color. Then add characters, speech bubbles, thought bubbles, objects and panel prompts. Add your name and a title before you share it. Your students will amaze you with their creativity!

– School Library Journal (January 9, 2013): "One of the true pioneers in the field, Bill Zimmerman launched MakeBeliefsComix.com only a few years ago, and now it's in use in countless classrooms, libraries, and technology labs throughout the world. Not content simply to provide one of the premier 'comics generators' available, Zimmerman and Make Beliefs are constantly coming out with new, highly topical templates as well as free printables (now numbering 350!) that allow educators to help kids write comics without a computer in sight."

 -- Connect the Pop Blog by Peter Gutierrez, School Library Journal (January 9, 2013)

"This website is great! My students have had fun using it. We used it to summarize the different types of waves associated with an earthquake."

Student Work

21 Ways to use MakeBeliefsComix.com


5 Steps To Get Started

Open the website: Make Beliefs Comix


1. Choose the number of panels for your story.

2. Highlight a panel. 
      *Choose a character - be sure to check out all the options for that character 
      *Press enter to add the character to your panel. (You can add more than one character per panel.

3.  What is your character thinking or saying? Add a thought or speech bubble.

4. It's never too late for a background or some objects. 

5. Proof and add your e-mail information. 

FEATURES

You can change the number of panels at any time.
Items can be scaled, moved, flipped, and layered/ordered
Can edit before finalizing
Option to print
You can send the file to more than one person 

The only drawback that I can see with this tool is the inability to save partially finished work. I have used this with 6 - 8th graders. They love the tool and have worked diligently to complete all assignments. 

Collaboration Cool Tool

RealtimeBoard for Education

Good Looking, Powerful, and Chrome-Ready Mindmapping

In my research to write this article (Cool Tools for Collaboration) I saw tons of workspace apps for the iPad and Chrome. They all give the students a virtual space to collaborate with similar features. The Apple Apps were more pleasing aesthetically and easier to teach with than the Chrome alternatives with which I was familiar. Chrome apps had a little more functionality than the Apple Store offerings, but those are typically more distracting than helpful in the classroom. I like the versatility of Lucid, but the design space is clunky. The Chrome version of Popplet is attractive, but lacks function and has lost the trust of our teachers because of some connectivity issues.

In my search to find something easy to use, powerful, and attractive for my Chromebook users I stumbled upon RealtimeBoard for Education. It is already loaded into the Moore@Schools Webstore and ready to use now.

RealtimeBoard EDU supports single signin with edu gmail accounts.

If allowed to do so it will also link to Drive like Lucid (very handy) and collaborators can be located and added through gmail. The user can also add an extension to capture whole or partial screenshots that will be automatically added to the RealtimeBoard Library (handier than I originally thought it would be).

RealtimeBoard EDU has a great, clean space for the students to collaborate synchronously. It utilizes pretty common features for this type of program including drawing tools, shapes, connectors / arrow lines, and text boxes. The types of shapes & text bubbles are far fewer than Lucid but more than adequate for our needs.

RealtimeBoard EDU Lucid

Students can embed video as with Popplet using the URL. Additions to those common tools include very easy to generate tables and charts (pie and various bar graphs).

Students communicate in the workspace by generating post-it type notes, screen-share or by the onscreen “board chat” feature.

What is unlike similar applications? RealtimeBoard lets users import entire documents, pictures, screenshots (very easy if you add extension--not currently in the Moore@School WebStore).

As students analyze these pieces and begin to see how they work together they can organize or combine the elements to convey a larger story.

Student/students can save their work to Drive, download as PDF, add the instructor as collaborator, or send them the link. This many ways to submit make it quick and easy.

I really like the application at this point and I am happy to have an attractive alternative for my teachers. I anticipate this will be a big hit. Instructionally it could be modified to fit most assignment types and levels of Bloom’s framework.

__________________________________________

Ideas for Instruction:

Science: Lab & Experiment Reporting, Categorization

Social Studies: Biographies, Primary Doc Analysis, & Complex Cause-Effect

Math:Terminology, Illustrations of Real World Application of Skill

ELA: Character Development, Thematic Strands in Story, Types of Poetry, Mood/Tone/Theme

Foreign Language: Cultural Elements, Dialectic Variations, Topically Related Verb/Nouns

_______________________________________________________________________________

If you have found any other great alternatives or have something to add to the discussion here just post a comment below.

Will Herring, MEd-IT NBPTS

Moore County Schools, IDI DIF

wherring@ncmcs.net

@WilliamHerrin16

Zaption - Make Educational Videos Interactive

Have you ever had that moment in your classroom when you're showing an educational video with your students and you have a few friends who are tuned out and missing out? As I was browsing my usual online PD spots I stumbled upon a new tool that has a lot of promise. Zaption is a free resource to create and share interactive videos with your students. 

Zaption lends itself perfectly to those teachers who want to flip their classroom or create a more blended learning environment. Using this tool, teachers can use videos from YouTube, Vimeo, PBS, National Geographic or upload your own from your computer or webcam. Zaption then allows its users to add images, text, drawings, open ended and multiple choice questions, as well as check boxes to specific points to your selected video. Once you've made the videos more engaging for your students, you then publish them and retrieve the link to share with your students. 

After your students complete the video "tour" you will be able to retrieve the data from their responses to deliver more individualized instruction based on their results. Zaption is a great tool for differentiating your lessons by creating "tours" that are designed to meet the needs of your learners.  Zaption also offers a paid subscription that opens up more features to its users, such as creating student groups to track progress, more interactive elements, and more tools to manage your content.

Teaching Transformations in Math Using Webcam Toy

We've all caught students taking those funny pictures using the Chrome App, Webcam Toy. Now you can use that App in the math classroom. I helped a teacher use Photo Booth on the Macbook Air to teach reflections, rotations and translations in her math class. The students used this program and added special effects to their pictures to demonstrate each transformation concept. I wanted to find something similar to this on the Chromebook. The special effects that are available in Webcam Toy will allow the student to demonstrate each concept.

Effects that can be used in Webcam Toy:

• Reflection - left mirror, right mirror, bottom mirror, quad mirror
• Rotation - kaleidoscope
• Translation - quad cam, split screen (ok...this may be a little harder to see)

Teaching Story Development to Digital Natives with StoryJumper

Teaching Story Development to Digital Natives with StoryJumper

StoryJumper www.storyjumper.com

It’s Thursday and that mean it is time for Chromebooks in Education to highlight a Web 2.0 cool tool for student production. A partnership teacher and I were preparing lesson concepts for next year when we stumbled across StoryJumper. As I write this, my mind is racing with applications for this web tool.

The graphics are a little crude, but that isn’t necessarily a drawback. The attempt (and the fear of potential failure) to achieve professional / polished work can be intimidating for students that aren't tech savvy. That anxiety stifles students’ creativity in my opinion. A sloppy looking platform gives students the freedom to get past the details and into the meat of the learning objective. Additionally, the interface of the program is simple and students will not be bogged down in the navigation or manipulation that can be common with products like Prezi.

Graphics from: www.storyjumper.com

The images available within the program lend themselves to fictional or fantastical tales; great for the younger audience. However, when needed students can supplement the library stock with uploaded images. As a result the application is useful to all grade levels.

The StoryJumper site is going to increase the learning and literacy skills of all grade levels (but not in the same way). Younger students will love working with graphic manipulatives in their story. It will encourage their creative instincts while they develop their 21st century skills including digital learning, critical thinking, decision making and communication. Older students will have fun with those features but also be cognitively ready to take advantage of the programs’ story development aids. The program offers stimulation to most learning types; tactile, logical, linguistic and spatial learners.

What I was most impressed with was the length to which the developers went to to make this website classroom ready. First, this website will work on any browser. That consideration isn't as important in Moore County, NC because we have great hardware in the hands of our students (HP Chromebooks), but it may be a relevant consideration for your LEA’s situation. Second, teachers’ accounts are free & they can set up “classroom” lists with students, usernames, and set time limits for in-class work (students have the option to create "at home" accounts to show their creation to their parents or work from home). Third, there is a one-click button that will create “getting started handouts” for each student with their personal log in information. Last but definitely not least, scaffolding and differentiation have been built into the program! Click on “Help” and find the link “download worksheet”. Seen below, the worksheet walks students through all the steps of character and story development.

TIP: If you are not in a one to one environment, students can complete story worksheets  & storyboards ahead of time to maximize time on task when you have hardware access.

Graphics from: www.storyjumper.com

I love this website and I can't wait to start using it in MCS classrooms next year. I see this fitting perfectly with our ELA, History, Foreign Language, and Science instruction. If you can think of anything else, put in the comments box below and share with our PLN. 

Read Graphite’s review here:

http://www.graphite.org/website/storyjumper

Read Common Sense Media’s review here: 

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/storyjumper

Will Herring

Digital Integration Facilitator

Moore County Schools

wherring@ncmcs.org

@WilliamHerrin16