App of the Week: Anchor.FM

Anchor is a new social media platform where the discussion happens completely in audio recordings. Users get 2 minutes to introduce their topic and then anyone listening can respond with a 1 minute recording.  It's sort of a mix between blogging, twitter, and podcasting.  Here's my first go, I'd love to hear what you think.  Let's make some waves!
 

Sharing a video from your Google Drive

Here's a quick video that I made to help if you are sending links to a video that you have saved in Google Drive to make sure that everyone can view it.

Minecraft for Reading Comprehension Research Study Results

I've finally completed my research paper and case study of using Minecraft to develop reading comprehension.  I had a great time conducting the study and was quite pleased with the impact the activity had on the students.  Although the p value did not determine that the intervention was statistically significant, most likely due to the small sample size, the students in the class that used Minecraft on average scored 10% higher on a 15 point comprehension test than the students from the class that used a traditional sequence of events graphic organizer to retell the story.

The most important factor that I saw when observing the students using Minecraft was their engagement level.  The entire class was immediately engrossed in the task from the word go.  They intuitively organized themselves divying up tasks, communicating progress, and researching actual building in Johannesburg.  No one asked them to do this.  They did it because they were interested and wanted to make it the best that they could.

Here is a part of a group's retelling of the Journey to Jo'Burg short novel that they read using Minecraft.

If you would like to read the whole report here is the link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwl5ppTDoTVWNVVsRlR1S0I4X00/view?usp=sharing

Professional Development on the Cheap and on the Web

In looking for the best practices in Educational Technology I've come across two websites that have been excellent in developing my knowledge and understanding of technology integration. These two tools are Google for Education Training and EdWeb.net.  These are fantastic resources to better your teaching practice as well as strengthen your resume.

Our school has been in the process of "Going Google" for a little while now and the expectations for us to be working more and more using Google Apps along with our other software are rising.  Google has created an easy to follow curriculum that covers each of the main areas that teachers can use Google Apps to enhance learning within their classroom.  Each of the lessons are between 5 and 15 minutes to complete and many include step by step videos to help you master each skill.  

 From every lesson I have gained at least 1 thing that has made using Google Apps more accessible and effective.
After completing the lessons, for a small fee of about 100$USD you can take an exam to become a Google Certified Teacher, which would would be highly desirable to many schools.

I'm not really sure how I came across EdWeb, but I must have subscribed to their postings at some point as they send me once a week the schedule for their webinars.  When I see a topic that I am interested in I reserve a spot for the scheduled time and EdWeb sends me reminders of when to log on and join the live webinar.  In the live webinar you have the ability to post comments and questions to the presenter as well as all of the other participants are online.  If you happen to miss the live session you can watch the recorded video at your own convenience.  Each session is around 1 hour in length and totally free.  After each webinar you receive a certificate of completion.

Along with the webinars EdWeb is a social network bringing a community of educators together to share their experiences.  

Stay Calm and Just Keep Learning

  

ONLINE TIMELINE

Poppy's Timeline 

If you are looking for an alternative for the static, hand-drawn, poster-board timelines of yesteryear here is an excellent option for your students.  TimeGlider

I found that some of the other online timeline creators were not that user-friendly, crashed, or lacked in their capabilities.  The free version of TimeGlider is sleek, user-friendly, and has a lot of capabilities.  The paid version has even more, but is unnecessary for most purposes.

One of the biggest issues I was having with other web-based timeline software was that they would only allow you to upload photos that were being web-hosted by another program(Flickr, PhotoBucket...) and not from your files on your computer.  Since I don't have a web-hosting photo program it made creating a timeline quite difficult.  TimeGlider allows you to upload from either a web-host or from your own computer.

The other big benefit is the ease of linking youtube or vimeo videos to your  timeline.  However it only displays as a link.  It would much cooler if you could imbed the video into the timeline.

Another nice feature of TimeGlider is that once you have created the timeline you can share it publicly either in a link, as in the one at the top called Poppy's Timeline, or imbed the timeline into your website or blog as seen at the top.  The only real issue I'm having with this is to see the pictures in the embedded timeline the reader has to drag the bottom line, that says "this is the image lane" up

 Happy Timelining!

Wow Google is Cool!

Before coming to Brasil I had never used the Google Apps to any extent other than doing Google Searches ("Just Google it" is the now definitive ending to any disagreement).  It seems that a lot of people are in the same boat as me.  I have been spending some time going through the brilliant and easily accessible tutorials of the Google suite through Google for Education.  There is so much more that can be done than finding out what the one armed drummer of Def Leppard's name is.

I'm not sure which came first Google Apps or Google for Education, but Google Apps are suited perfectly for use in schools.  The abilities to collaborate, communicate, organize and inspire are all tied seamlessly together.

The Core Apps of Google are built on the need for collaboration and they are a good place to get started using Google.  They are:

Google Drive

Google Docs

Google Calendar

Google Sites

Gmail

and Google Search

In subsequent posts we'll look at the ways to use these different apps to enrich learning, engage students, and organize everything.