This RILS Project was very fun. As I looked at all of my classmates projects I was excited to see what everyone had done.
Cricket Johnson is and art teacher in Georgia. She found a really neat Web 2.0 site that allows participants to draw full colored pictures while recording each step. It was really fun. Her project could have taken about ten minutes. However, I kind of got carried away and spent an hour playing with the program. See my responses to her RILS project at this link.
Drew Fulton is at the cutting edge of Web 2.0 design. He and his partners of Canopy In the Clouds created a fascinating site that allows kids to virtually visit the Rain Forest of Costa Rica. Drew is very talented. If a teacher where to ask me about ways to teach the water cycle, I would send them to this site first. It is excellent. Please see my comments on his RILS project at this link.
Edmodo.com has become the central classroom management system for room7 at my school. Room 7 is my classroom where I teach a group of 4th graders, and use this powerful website to run my class. The features at Edmodo.com not only keep my class organized, but ithey provide a Facebook type of safe social media access just for my students. The reason I like it is because the possibilities for developing and delivering exciting content and projects for my students and parents to interact with seem endless. I can supervise and control everything that my kids have access to. Edmodo.com provides access to parents so that they can both see their students grades in the grade book, check in with the class assignment calendar, and leave me any correspondence they wish. Below is a short video that I created to show dramatic highlights of just a few of the great features this free website has.
For my final project for the Emerging Technologies in a Collaborative Culture class I am taking at Full Sail University, I was charged with creating a Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS). My job was to find a web 2.0 site, find out everything I could about it, and create a lesson plan were I could have students interact with the site in a creative and collaborative way. The participants I worked with did an awesome job. Please find below my RILS lesson plan, as well as pictured links of my participants project videos.
Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario
Greg Havens
Overview:
As a teacher of fourth grade students, teaching academic language requires students to understand new words, or words that are hard for students to master. For this activity we will focus on one type of academic vocabulary, which can be categorized as a word that is used exclusively within an academic domain. For example, a statistician may use the words, mean, median, mode, standard deviation, or outliers. Or, a chemist may use the words proton, neutron, nucleus or electron.
This activity will draw upon the specific words used by professionals in specific fields. My target audience for this specific activity will be students in the Full Sail EMDT course. Their task is to think of one word that they use in their professional environment that is specific to their domain or field. Their job will be to create a video using iMovie that is between 30 seconds and one minute. Students are asked to think of the word, give its definition and talk about how they use the word, or how the word is important to their professional life. In other words students will make a videos that teach the other students how to use their specific word in the correct context. Then, the participating students will respond to what they learned in a safe class based social network site.
Materials–
1. Mac Book Pro
2. iMovie
3. A personal Viddler Account
4. A personal flicker Account
5. Access to the Internet.
6. Access to my group Edmodo account at edmodo.com Access Code: 3n4euw
Objectives : Students will create a 30 to 60 second iMovie that defines, describes uses for and gives insight on an academic word that is important to their profession. Students will then post their video onto their Viddler account. Then they will embed their iMovie inside of my class social network account, and comment on each others videos. Finally, students will learn academic vocabulary from each other and comment on how they would use the words they are learning about.
Procedure –
a) Opening Activity: Students will be sent a link to a Viddler.com video explaining the overall concept of the project and how to get started with edmodo.com.
b) Body of the Class:
1. Students go to edmodo.com and open up a student account using Access Code: 3n4euw
2. Students watch the Academic Language Assignment Video to get directions on what to do.
3. Students create a 30-60 second video describing a content specific word they use in their professional lives.
4. Students can refer to the Rubric created for the project in the Library section of our Edmodo.com site. page.
5. Students will post their video on the appropriate assignment page in edmodo.com
1. On Tuesday of Next Week students will check back in edmodo.com to see how they did based on a five point rubric I created on rubistar.4teachers.org
2. Students will also watch two videos from other students and post a response to those video’s on how they have used the word taught in the video.
4. Web 2.0
imovie
viddler.com
edmodo.com
flickr.com
5. Social Participation/Social Learning– Students will teach each other new technical or academic vocabulary. They will first create a short presentation video on an academic word they use professionally, and then will comment on each others video on how they would use each others word.
6. Making Connections– Making Connections–With each submission students demonstrate their knowledge. When multiple students demonstrate different idea’s and concepts they add to a global conversation. Students can watch each others videos comment, critique or disagree. Using edmodo.com naturally pulls students into a global conversation. Since edmodo.com is designed to allow teachers and students to connect globally with others, I am sure it will find a significant place in the broader global educational environment.
8. Create/Produce – Students will create a 30-60 second video as an academic word expert.
9. Assessment: Rubicon.com; Students will be evaluated on their videos based on video presentation with regard to how professional the video looks and its effectiveness. Student feedback will not be evaluated for this round.
10. Reflection:
a. Student Reflection- Students found this assignment very easy to do. All of the participants were able to start and edmodo.com account, join the EMDT group, watch the video assignment, and create their videos successfully. All four participants received a 5 out of 5 points for creating a successful academic vocabulary video and submitting it back to the edmodo.com site grade book.
b. Educator Reflection: This was a very fun and engaging assignment. Students were able to create a video that shares a vocabulary word that they use in there everyday professional lives. Three exceptional students told us what their word was, gave us the definition and also gave us an example of how they use these words everyday. It was excellent. One way that this project could be taken further would be to have other students comment in blog form how they also use these words, or what type of context they have heard these words before. Please see the three examples of videos that participants made and embedded into edmodo.com.
If Disneyland were an LMS site, its name would be Edmodo.com. I first started using Edmodo.com last year as a social site for my students. It is set up to look a lot like Facebook. However, after looking into this amazing classroom application, I can see that it is much more than just another Learning Management System. Edmodo.com in my not so humble opinion has the possibilities of helping me break into an entire new area of providing my students and their parents with an engaging and completely unique learning experience. I easily see this powerful social/LMS site becoming the main hub in which my students engage their learning. In this blog I would like to discuss with you just a few of the many unique features that I found amazing, and how I think I can use them to support a high level of engagement for my students. Even though Edmodo.com looks like a very simple to use LMS, with social networking and class assignment capabilities. The way it allows my kids to reach out onto the web, and thus the world, is just mind blowing.
Embedding in Every Direction.
Instantly embed from the application.
The first exciting feature that this LMS has is what I call two-way embedding capabilities. That means that I can easily embed any type of data, media, or any other file I would like to present to my students. I can embed video’s, mp3’s, Prezi’s or any other asset I need to teach my kids. I can embed them as just regular assets or as assignments. However the excitement doesn’t stop there. My students can also link or embed any media that they would like. Last year I discovered for example that my students could embed a Prezi assignment that I gave them. Also, while watching a training video on YouTube, I learned that many Web 2.0 applications that kids use on the internet have built into them an embed to edmodo button. So all kids have to do is create a project, press the embed button, log into their edmodo.com account, and their assignment or project is automatically entered into our class Edmodo site.
Google Docs Compatible
Another completely amazing feature Edmodo has is that it is completely Google Doc friendly. If I want to assign a writing project to my class, and allow them to work in cooperative groups, all I have to do is create the group in Edmodo and send them the link. As a small cooperative group they can all work together to draft a perfect paper. Then, when they finish, all they need do to turn in the assignment to the grade book is embed the link, and it is turned in. I can then go into their project and correct it or even make suggestions so that they can continue to work together on it.
All In One Capabilities Edmodo.com is completely changing the way I teach. It is allowing me to communicate with my students, parents, and other teachers from around the world. Within this amazing website, I can run my gradebook, give out differentiated assignments, post all different types of media, communicate with parents, including translating letters to non-english speaking parents by embedding Google Translate. I can captivate and re-energize those students who have previously been turned off to education. And keep everything nice and organized within my personal account. As a teacher I have always struggled to keep myself organized while trying to push the envelope of student engagement. But for me, now, at this stage of my teaching career, I can now call Edmodo.com, Home.
I am so excited to be doing this RILS project. School starts in three weeks and all of my plans are coming together. For my ETC final project I wanted to do a test run on how I can use Edmodo.com as the central hub, so to speak for my CBR project. My CBR plan is to have students study and practice using academic language in conjunction with various Web 2.0 tools. Last year I started using Edmodo.com as a social network with my class. However, I know that the Edmodo.com is so much more than just a Facebook type of website for kids. So, for my project I am planning on testing all of the different aspects of Edmodo to see how I can use it as a Learning Management System. For this project I will be asking my colleges in EMDT to enroll as students in my Edmodo.com course. I will then embed a few short instructional videos and assignments for them to complete, and repost in edmodo.com. Once they have complete their project I will grade them based on the rubric I created on rubistar.com, The Rubric will be posted in the Edmodo.com library. I will then ask them come back in a few days after I graded their papers and entered them in the grade book section. At this time I will also ask them to respond to a few students projects and also take a survey that I will generate inside of edmodo.com to find out how it went for them. Think of this as a dress rehearsal for my upcoming school year. I am so excited. In my next blog I will tell you how it went. Stay tuned.
If you would like to participate as a student in my Edmodo RILS you may click on this link, edmodo.com. Sign up as a student and enter this group code 7yapij. This will put you in the EMDT group.
Have you ever been teaching in that place where you know the only thing that is holding your students from truly owning what it is you are trying to teach is understanding the academic language in English. As a teacher in the central valley of California, I face this challenge every day. Often when I am teaching a concept, English Language Learners often look at me with those glossed over eyes telling me they don’t have the slightest clue what I am talking about. My classes usually consist of only twenty percent of my students speaking English at home. The other native languages in my class consist of Spanish, Hmong, and Cantonese. Often what keeps my students from reaching proficiency is understanding the academic language. If I could just teach them in their native language, I know they can break through that academic barrier.
Well, that time has just arrived. I have been scouring web 2.0 and looking for ways to reach my ELL’s and a possible solution has been right under my nose. Google Translate is a program designed by Google that allows over 40 languages to be translated in any direction.
I discovered this by following a friend on Facebook who lives in Israel. He often publishes his comments in both English or in Hebrew. Well I don’t know Hebrew so one day when I was looking at the drop down menus on the Google search engine I noticed the Translate program. I had always wondered what my friend was saying in Hebrew so I just took one of his status updates on Facebook and pasted it in Google translate.
My frind lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was asking in Hebrew: מיער, ורוצהלבואלאכולאיתיגלידהעכשיו? When I put it into Google Translator I found out he was asking; “Who is up and wants to get ice cream”. I cannot wait for my students and I to find uses for this application in the classroom. I am so pumped. So with that in mind, I would just like to tell you; Merci d'avoir lumon blog.Restez branchés pour plusde cesgrandes trouvailles. Lemonde se rétrécit.
After realizing that iMovie is my go to video editor, I began to see there would be times when I would want a much more diverse video editor. Part of Full Sails Launchpad package equipped me with the Adobe CS5 bundle. In that suite is the ever so powerful After Effects. Learning this program will take my videos to a whole new level.
I was really turned on to After Affects by one of my group project partners in a previous class. He made us an introduction that was so incredible that I decided that I needed to learn how to use the program. Unlike iMovie After Effects is going to take quite a while to learn. After all, I believe it is one of the most widely used programs for special effects in all of professional video.
This week I watched the first two After Effects apprentice lessons. They took about 4 hours each and I was able to work along with the videos. There are a total of 8 courses to complete. I also went to Adobe TV to learn how to make video introductions. It is an amazing program and I am looking forward to learning all about it in the weeks to come.
As I sat through the iMovie tutorial on Lynda.com, it hit me that this program has much more under the hood than meets the eye. Before when I was using this program many of the cool features seemed intuitive enough to just dive right in.However, once I started to watch all of the in’s and out’s of the program, I decided to make a list of the top 3 coolest things I didn’t know about iMovie.
Number 3- The advanced editing tool is awesome. This tool has to do with adding video from your event browser to my timeline by just dragging over the clip that I want and releasing it. The clip will automatically be moved to the end of the time line. If the clip needs to go to a place other than the end of the time line I can just drag it there after I add it to the timeline. This will be a major time savor.
Number-2 All of the organization tools for organizing clips is something that my computer was desperately lacking. As I have been working through various projects for my Full Sail EMDT program I have accumulated hours of video clips that I have not organized. Using the organization tools that come with iMovie will allow me to organize clips into categories that I an use later, as well as a place to put future clips for future projects. In the past I have found myself spending hours looking for footage that I can use. This will cut down on my work time substantially.
Number 1- The coolest thing I learned about iMovie from the tutorials is the fact that when I am done editing and producing a video I can finalize the project within the program. When I am ready to render my video, I can just hit the finalize button and it will render the project in all types of formats; computer, 720p, mobile, tablet, etc.
I movie is a very powerful video editor of quick production of school videos. I can see myself using it quite a bit.
When I realized that for this assignment that I would build on my skills in regards to i-movie, I quickly thought I would try to learn about a more advanced video editor. The reason for this is that I feel i-movie is intuitive enough to work in without having to go through a whole formal training. My ego told me that I should spend time learning about a more sophisticated video editor, or maybe even Adobe After Effects so that I could really show off. I began to watch the Lynda.com training on Premier Pro and realized that there are many great features in that program that allow for superior editing, I could do some really cool stuff. However, it seemed to be getting very complicated and would be great if my main job was to become a video editor. However. My job as an educator calls for a quick editing software that is easy to use on the fly. So I felt torn between the two worlds of editing. Should I just do the assignment in i-movie, and learn about all of the ins and outs of the program, even though it might not be able to do all of the things that I want it to do, or should I dive in and take the eight hour training plus about 20 hours to practice everything it teaches, so that I could learn more advanced techniques.
As I began to ponder my approach I started to look into other video editors and found that Apple just came out with the redesigned from the ground up Final Cut Pro X. Many users are quite upset that they completely re-designed it from the ground up to look more like i-movie. I on the other had couldn’t be more thrilled. Apple has made the decision for me. If Final Cut X is set up like I movie with added advanced features, then I will learn all I can about I movie and go with Final Cut Pro in a few months when I can afford the upgrade. Furthermore, instead of taking the time to learn about Premier Pro, I would rather take the time to learn all I can about Adobe’s After Effects to incorporated superior effects and just import them for now to i-movie. So, with that said the following blogs with be about my adventures in i-movie, and After Effects. Stay tuned. . .
One Web 2.0 tool that I have found, and am ready to take straight to my class next year is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) called Myna. It is a very easy to use audio recording program that allows students to use up to 25 tracks to record messages, podcasts, readers theater, read aloud or any other aural presentation students might want to create. The program is part of the digital creation bundle on a website called aviary.com.
Like so many new great cloud based programs, the folks at Aviary set up a class account for me for free. This means that my students each get there own account to create different types of programing.
The way it works is students can call up a recording window that will allow them to talk into a usb microphone that goes straight into the cloud. The program takes what the student inputs and records it onto an audio track. Students can then use a variety of audio effects such as reverb, chorus, delay, and pitch change to augment their recordings.
Myna also has a complete set of open source audio loops for students to use to put many different types of background music to their production. I can’t wait to teach my students how to use this program and see what they come up with. Students can store up to 2gigabytes of information on Myna as well as download their final projects.
Two students creating a read aloud podcast.
They can also link their projects to our class Edmodo page. My Challenge Based Research project is centered around students creating projects using academic language. I can see this program quickly becoming one of their favorite. I know it is one of mine.
Hello, My name is Greg Havens, and I teach fourth grade in Modesto California. I am so excited about my Challege Based Research Project. For the past several years I have been very frustrated with the way education has been going. When I first started teaching 17 years ago, teaching was an art. We spent a lot of time discovering who our children were. My colleges and I tried our best to provide a safe and positive learning environment for students. Especially those who didn’t always fit the norm. We worked hard to develop the whole child.
Then, with the advent of the standards and accountability movement, It seemed as if we stopped connecting with our students and began to try to mold them into something we wanted them to be, instead of what they were. Over the years I found myself increasingly frustrated with trying to teach to a set of standards in a process that had no personal connections with my kids.
Now however, I feel the pendulum is beginning to turn back. For my CBR project I will be working with my kids to develop different Web 2.0 strategies that help them to develop their academic language. These tech tools in my opinion are just what my kids need to be successful. It has been my experience over the last few years that my kids get most excited doing projects in our computer lab. Everyone is always engaged and they are all done well. So now that the pedagogical pendulum has paused for the moment, maybe it is time to start looking in another direction.
So, with that said I am looking forward to using this blog post to investigate different web 2.0 tools that my kids and I might find useful to use in our classroom, and also in life.
This RILS Project was very fun. As I looked at all of my classmates projects I was excited to see what everyone had done. 
Drew Fulton is at the cutting edge of Web 2.0 design. He and his partners of Canopy In the Clouds created a fascinating site that allows kids to virtually visit the Rain Forest of Costa Rica. Drew is very talented. If a teacher where to ask me about ways to teach the water cycle, I would send them to this site first. It is excellent. Please see my comments on his RILS project at this link. 
