I’ve posted three examples of Flowgrams my students have created as part of their studying the U.S. Bill of Rights (and similar documents from other countries). In their short presentations they highlighted what they felt were the most important human rights.
Larry
1 comment November 23rd, 2008
Hi, Everybody,
I wanted to let everybody know that i’ll be posting some student presentations at the Student Showcase blog next week sometime. However, as an experiment, they will be presentations made with a web tool called Flowgram and not Voice Thread. Flowgram lets you leave written comments, and they’re planning on adding voice comments, but they haven’t gotten to that point yet.
In order to leave comments in the Flowgram itself you have to register with Flowgram. But, if your students want to leave comments on the presentations, they can just use the Edublogs comments section by writing their name and their email address. They don’t have to be registered with Edublogs in order to leave a comment on posts in our blog, though they have to be registered and logged-in to participate in the Student Forum.
Each Flowgram will consist of about seven slides with text and audio narration. Student will be sharing what they’ve learned in our study of the “first” Americans and European explorers. In addition, they’ll be sharing about their own ethnic culture and which early settlers most reflect their family’s reason for coming to the United States.
I hope that is clear. Let’s see how it goes.
Larry
1 comment October 15th, 2008
I thought people might find it useful to see, in writing, the sequence necessary in order for students to post in the Student Forum. Pau and I (Larry) are just beginning to use it — since my US History ESL students are just now learning about Columbus and the conquistadors, they are going to write questions about them to Pau’s students in Spain.
First, each student needs to register at the Edublogs homepage, just like each teacher did. They should click the box saying they just want a user name. They should also make sure the “remember” box is not clicked.
They will then receive an activation code at their email, which they should click on.
Then, when they want to post on the student forum, they should first go to the Edublogs home page and sign-in. Then they go to the Student Showcase blog and click on Student Forum. They then click on the the “thread” of conversation they want to participate in, or start a new thread, and start typing.
If they want to make a comment on presentations that are posted in the body of the blog by individual classes and do not want to leave an audio comment on that Voice Thread, they can just leave a written comment in the comments section of that presentation and do not have to be signed into Edublogs.
Some teachers have checked out the Vaestro audio chatboard I’ve set-up. I think that works very well, too, so am interested in having my class engage with others if and when you’re interested.
Larry
6 comments September 24th, 2008
As everybody knows, we have the Student Forum set-up on this site where students can communicate in writing with one another about different topics.
I’ve also been experimenting with an audio chatboard — basically the same thing that we have in the Student Forum. The difference is that students leave audio messages instead of written ones.
Here is the link to a Vaestro Channel Sister Classes audio chatboard I’ve set-up just as an experiment.
I thought it be good if teachers could experiment with it. I’ve left one message. You can listen to it without registering (it’s free and east to register), but if you want to leave a message you have to sign-up. You would listen to the message by first clicking on my message and then clicking the play button on the upper left. Then, if you register, you click on “reply” on the upper right and start talking into your computer microphone. You can also leave a written description of your message.
This is just an idea. I personally would like my students to get speaking as well as writing practice. Even if only one or two other classes wanted to try it, too, I thought it might be worth a shot.
However, if people feel like it’s too much, or too complicated, I would understand that, too.
1 comment September 10th, 2008
I thought it would be helpful to write a short piece here about the mechanics of posting.
When you want to log on to post something on either the teacher or student blog, or if you want to approve a comment from a student (all blog comments are moderated), or if you want to delete a comment that was made in the Student Forum (remember, those are not moderated), just go to either blog and click the link that says “Log in” on the right column. You will then be prompted to type in your Edublogs user name and password. If you have registered with Edublogs and sent me the email address you used, then I have already added you to both blogs as an editor.
After you log-on, go to “Write Post.” Write your post, and then click “Publish.”
Only you can post a student presentation on the Student Showcase. Students can leave written comments on the blog, and audio comments on a Voice Thread, without being registered at Edublogs.
Remember that students must be registered at Edublogs, too, in order to participate in the Student Forum.
It’s easy to embed a Voice Thread presentation, or any other web presentation, into a post. Just click on “HTML” and paste the embed code that your presentation has.
Here is a Tutorial on how to embed Voice Threads (or anything else) into a post.
Here is a tutorial on how to use Voice Thread.
Please leave any questions you have about any of this in the comments section of this post.
12 comments September 7th, 2008
Tibor raised an important point in his recent email to us — it’s clear that moving to an online social (educational) network will serve us all better in the long-run. Obviously Ning is the ideal choice. Unfortunately, my District’s filters continue to block images from Ning, including the CAPTCHA that you have to copy in order to sign-up.
So, since I’m the “problem,” it appropriately is my responsibility to find an alternative.
Here are the alternatives I will be looking at:
Brica Box (it’s brand new this week and looks promising)
Crowdvine (where I opened an experimental network for us a couple of months ago, and it looks pretty good)
All of them are free, and it only takes a minute or two to start a network. They all have most, if not all, of the same features as Ning. I think three of the main criteria I’m looking at are:
1) Are they unblocked by my District’s filters? Several are fine, though I still have to check on a couple.
2) Are they easy to use?
3) Can you easily embed slideshows and videos?
I’ll look at them more closely over the next month. If anyone else gets a chance to check them out please let us all know what you think.
Larry
15 comments March 17th, 2008
Today Edublogs announced a big improvement that allows much easier embedding into blog posts, and increases the number of things that can be embedded. You can read about it here.
Basically, now all you have to do is click on the code bottom and paste the whole embed code in the post and you’re done. I’ll be trying it with a VoiceThread later on Monday.
Larry
2 comments March 16th, 2008
Edublogs just created a great new tool — the ability for each blog to have forums. You can see a short screencast about it here.
Of course, let’s first get our introductory projects up on the Student Showcase blog and see how that goes. I’m recovering from the flu now, and for sure will have everybody listed on the Showcase blog as an editor by this weekend. This Friday or next Monday my students will begin working on their VoiceThreads for sharing.
If all these first projects go well, we might want to consider setting up a forum or two on the Student Showcase blog as a next step.
Larry
2 comments February 25th, 2008
This is going to be a short post on some tools I think we might want to consider having our students use.
For slideshows that our students are going to create and post, and on which other students would then comment, I’d suggest One True Media (without student audio) or Show Beyond (with student narration). I’ve found Authorstream easy to upload PowerPoints.
VoiceThread is obviously ideal. However, it’s blocked in by my District now. I’ve been working on that, though, and I should know next week if they’re unblocking it.
Of course, each class doesn’t necessarily have to use the same web application to create their presentation. As long as it’s easy to access the comment feature and not blocked by any of our schools, we each could possibly use the one we prefer best (though there certainly would be benefit to our students if we did use the same — it would be less for them to learn).
Mixbook has some kind of collaboration feature that allows people to work on developing the same slideshow at different times. Depending on how our working together goes, that might be interesting to explore further down the line.
Rita has experience using blogs and podcasting with sister classes, and those are certainly tools we could consider.
I really like Daft Doggy Voice Recording as a super-easy way for students to communicate with each other, too.
We could also, at some point, include considering developing a closed social network for our students. Ning is one tool (see Steve Hargadon’s list of classes using Ning). Unfortunately, for now, my District blocks Ning (but that, too, might change next week).
Tibor has had a good experience with Mixxt, which is similar to Ning. I’ve also been checking-out Webjam, Spruz, and Big Tent.
Well, I’m done with posting here for the weekend. I’ll look forward to reading your comments.
30 comments January 19th, 2008
Theme: Blix by Sebastian Schmieg. Hosted by Edublogs.
