The Uses of Video Conferencing

I feel that video conferencing can be useful, both among colleagues and in the classroom with students.

For teachers:

1) Allows for better productivity: Video conferencing allows for everyone to meet at the same time without having to travel (for example, to a PD opportunity). By minimizing travel time, more time is left over for productive activities that would not have been possible had travel been necessary.

2) Better interschool/interboard communication: Groups of teachers from around the city/board/province/country etc. can work as a team to share more ideas with one another. More ideas = better teaching opportunities.

For students:

1) Distance education is facilitated: Students are able to access lectures, study materials, and even talk one on one with instructors. This can be extremely useful for ILC and eLearning type courses, as instant feedback and information can be provided.

2) Sharing Information is easy: Most video conferencing software can be used to provide real time, relevant information, but also as a method of file sharing.

3) The classroom can be geographically limitless: Students can interact with other students, teacher, researches, professors, and locations all from the comfort of their computers. Gone are expensive field trips, as video conferences can learn at the click of a button.

4) Active participation is encouraged: In order to gain the most from a video conference, students need to do a certain amount of pre-learning. This will enable them to be better researchers, communicators, and thinkers. In all, they will become better interactors.

By minimizing the amount of time required to access resources, content, and people, video conferencing can be a benefit to the classroom – providing more time to actual use the resources, which is something where many teachers often find themselves lacking.

Presentation Tools in the Classroom: Part Deux

A variety of different presentations tools are becoming reasonably prevalent in the classroom. I see very few teachers using Powerpoint as their only tool, relying on several other types of software as well.

Naturally, presentation tools have their advantages and disadvantages when used as a teaching tool, both from a teaching perspective and from a student perspective.

Advantages:

From the teacher's perspective...

1) Presentations are easier to follow. If students are provided with a printout of slides, they can spend more time listening and less time writing - only writing key points or anecdotal information that they can reflect on later.

2) Increased student involvement and interaction. Since presentations often display a large amount of multimedia, including text, video, audio, and photos, it allows teachers to share the most recent information in a way that is more appealing to students.

3) Shared workload. Teachers can work together to create presentations, or use presentations that have already been created.This can allow students to be exposed to more than one point of view. Sometimes, a different voice or lens is all it takes to bridge the gap between not understanding and understanding. 

From the student's perspective...

1) Helps a variety of learners. Many of the tools make it relatively easy to record audio. This can help students who are auditory learners. As well, the incorporation of other media (video, photos, etc.) can help the visual learner, as they can see exemplars and worked examples that can help them through particularly difficult concepts.

2) Typically web based. This can be useful both when students are creating presentations, but also viewing them. When creating, presentations can now be cross-platform, which allows students to access their presentation from a variety of sources, including at school, at home, and potentially on their tablets/phones. When viewing, teachers can share lessons using a file-sharing system or website, which makes content available for students when they are away from class.

3) It can be purposeful for oral presentations. Students find, reflect, and interpret information, and use presentation tools to create something new. This allows for an opportunity for meaningful collaboration, as the finished product can be shared with others (social media, or in the classroom)

4) Teachers can share the workload of creating presentations, or use presentations that are already available. Teachers can share lessons and presentations simply using a file-sharing system or flash drive. Teachers can share the workload of creating presentations. Furthermore, a student seeing more than one teacher's presentations is exposed to more than one point of view.

Disadvantages:

From the teacher's perspective:


1) Neglect of interaction. If the teacher has not spent enough time learning the material in the presentation, they will spend more time looking at their presentation than they do engaging with the students. This can turn what was meant to be interative into more of a lecture.

2) High speed. If too much information is being conveyed, it can be difficult for students to keep up. Teachers will need to ensure they leave time for students to reflect, and time to gauge student understanding.

3) Not useful in many situations. When a subject is complex, it is difficult to summarize using 'bullet' points. Sometimes this is not enough to support their idea or demonstrate the complexity of what it is they are trying to convey.

From the student's perspective:

1) Clutter: A presentation that uses too many animations or visuals distracts the audience from the information that is being conveyed.

2) Focus on the medium: Sometimes, students spend too much time focusing on making it look 'cool'. They need to realize that presentations tools are just that - tools, and need to realize that the presentation, and not the visual, is what is the most important part of the task.

While there are certainly disadvantages, I think that many of them can be avoided with proper consideration when a teacher is presenting, and properly informing students of the purpose of presentations for when they are using presentation tools. If this is done, then presentation tools are an effective, engaging, visual, and often times fun way of presenting information.

Presentation Tools in the Classroom

Recently, I took a look at a few of the slightly less popular presentations tools out there. I wanted to gauge what was available to look at what separated them from the common (Google Powerpoint, Powerpoint, OpenOffice) presentation tools that are available. Here are the ones that I found most intriguing. Empressr –

1. Empressr is a free web based slide show presentation program, similar to Powerpoint. It is simple to use, although I did find it more limited than other presentation tools that are out there (no templates or themes). The upside is that it is extremely easy to embed video and audio, which is something I found a bit more difficult in Powerpoint (I had to change video properties to embed my Youtube video in my blended learning letter, in fact). As well, the app has an ability to be shared across multiple social media sites, which can be useful if students are being asked to share their presentations.

2. PowToon - PowToon is an online tool that lets the user create an animated story for presentations. Rather than being limited to bullet points and animations, students can make flash style movies and presentations. I liked PowToon because it was easy to use (I think it would easy to use even for younger students), but it provides a certain visual factor that other presentation software doesn’t. There are several styles that PowToon offers – marker style, label style, picto style, and even animated styles, which I think were all pretty neat! I could definitely see younger students enjoying this software, as it is visual, and allows them to create presentations that are just more fun in general, but can also result in an end product that looks professional. As well, the PowToon software is free, so long as you are willing to allow for a PowToon watermark in the corner of your presentation.

             

3. Present.Me - Present.Me is a for pay website that allows the user to add a narrative to their presentations. It allows users to upload slides from any other presentation software (Prezi, Powerpoint, Google Presentation, etc.) to their website and then add a video and audio narrative to their slideshows. I found it useful because it allows your audience to see both you and your content at the same time. I tried a free trial, and I liked it, because I feel like sometimes when people are using powerpoint, they read from their slides rather than presenting, and I think that present.me allows people to actually present instead, which adds a bit of engagement to the mix. I also liked that you were not limited to doing one take of your narrative – if you mess up, you can trim off your mistake and start from where you left off. I liked this in comparison to a whiteboard software like Educreations, which I have previously reviewed, that would require you to get it right in one full take. The downside, obviously, is that present.me can be expensive, however if you had one account for your department or school, it could certainly be useful. As well, this would alleviate the difficulties around presenting for students with anxiety issues - they could record themselves presenting, instead, and this would still meet the expectation of having to present.

4. Knovio - Knovio is a similar tool to Present.Me, except that is it completely free. It also allows users to turn their Powerpoint slideshows into video presentations, assuming the user has access to a webcam. I tried using Knovio for a classroom activity where I was not able to be in class, and I thought that it was effective. The quality of the presentation was not fantastic, and had a habit of blurring a little bit if you don’t sit super still, or you move too much during a lesson, but otherwise it is very user friendly, allowing for you to make corrections in a similar fashion to Present.Me. The biggest downside to Knovio is that unlike Present.Me, it only accepts Powerpoint files.

        

I liked all of these tools for one specific reason – they are web based. Students and teachers alike can access their presentations from any computer that has internet connectivity. I find this useful, as you will not be tethered to one device, which I find extremely limiting in this day and age.

Letter to Parents - Blended Learning

May 1, 2014

Mr. Chris Graham

Program Leader, Mathematics

Lockerby Composite School

1391 Ramsey View Court

Sudbury, ON

P3E 5T4

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that as part of my instructional strategies this year, I am planning to teach parts of my class in a blended format. Below you will find a brief description so that you will have an understanding of what my blended instruction will look like. Keep in mind that the blended format is something that many schools already have in place, and it is becoming the standard for what students can expect if they continue on to post-secondary studies.

The goal of teaching in a blended format is to combine the best parts of online instruction and in-class instruction to best meet the needs of my student body. I intend to offer a variety of online learning activities, to be completed at home, and use classroom time as an opportunity to provide extra instruction or direction for students on an individual, per-their-needs basis. I feel that this will allow my students to accomplish more during their instructional time, and also have a better comprehension of the material at hand.

Obviously, the caveat here is that, in order for a blended learning environment to be successful, there are a three major necessities:

·         Students must have good regular attendance at school

·         Students must have access to a computer with web access

·         Students must work to the best of their abilities both in class and at home

If you do not have a computer and web access at home, there are several computer labs at Lockerby Composite School which are open after hours, and the Sudbury Public libraries and their hours can be located here: http://goo.gl/FIMBTh.

I have attached an example of a blended learning activities that I intend to incorporate into my MPM1D (Grade 9 Academic Math) classroom on the following page. It is an activity that has been modified from the eLearning Ontario LMS, which all of my students will have access to. The activities on the LMS typically provide an overview and expections, but I would just like to show you the content, for now. I feel like it incorporates the blended learning format and the use of technology reasonably well.

If you have questions or concerns about how I intend to incorporate blended learning into the classroom please contact me at grahamc@rainbowschools.ca.

Yours Sincerely,

Chris Graham

Integers Sum

Get out those algebra tiles again and let's see what happens when we start putting the red tiles with the blue tiles.

If you were to take one of each and put them together, what would happen?

When you have one positive and one negative, they cancel each other out and the result is zero.

This is called the zero principal. Zeros occur when you have the same number of negative integers as positive integers.

Each positive tile cancels out a negative tile and the result is zero.

Now, let's see what happens when we take different integers and add them together.

Adding Positive Integers

For this part, just use your red tiles to show the following scenarios:

Adding Negative Integers

For this part, just use the blue tiles to show the following scenarios:

Adding Positive and Negative Integers

So far, you may think working with integers is straightforward. Well, it's about to get more interesting! Let's take a look at what happens when we add both negative and positive integers together.

Are you getting it? When you add negative and positive integers, you can get either a positive or negative answer. It depends on which number is bigger. For example, when you add (-3) and (+5), the five is bigger, so your answer will be positive. If you add (-6) and (+3), your answer will be negative because 6 is bigger than 3. Do you get it?

If you are still having trouble, the following video might help.

 

Audio / Podcasts in the Classroom

One of the focuses at my school is that we are a STEP (Science, Technology Education Program) school. We look at using technology and hands on learning on a regular basis in a variety of different manners. Below are a few of the ways that I have seen the use of audio and/or podcasting used at our school, or at other schools in my board that I have had an opportunity to see/hear. 

1) Jing – while Jing is really an image/video capture software, the science department at my school has also been incorporating audio into the mix. Specifically, one of my teachers has used Jing to record his computer screen, but also his narrative, so that students can review an explanation over and over without having to contact the teacher directly. 

Here is an example of how he has used it in his classroom: 

http://ww2.rainbowschools.ca/~luomat/FOV2-00128520/FOV2-00145951/FOV2-00145952/S0716037E-0716037E.5/p.50%2310.swf

2) Book Chats (podcast) – students in our English classrooms have been using Podchats to discuss books. These can happen as whole class events, small group chats, or even independent podcasts. The topics vary, but are often related to a book that they are covering in class: which characters they like/dislike, imagery or themes from the book, or they can even discuss the plot of the book itself. Teachers have found this to be successful in their classrooms, as it gives them an opportunity to assess students using conversations rather than product. 

3) Interview with a Boomer – our history classes often do a podcast that they refer to as ‘Interview with a Boomer.’ Students are directed to find and interview a baby boomer – someone born in the baby boomer generation, so typically a parent, grandparent, family friend, teacher or administrator. They are told to have ten questions to ask the interviewee, of which some are prescribed, and some are their own. This is a unique activity because it allows students some creativity over the questions they ask, and every answer is going to be a bit different.

4) Vocabulary – our French department has students create podcasts that include new vocabulary words that they have learned. They are required to make sentences or be conversational with their podcast, which helps them practice their language skills in the classroom. An example of something similar can be found here: http://www.princetonreview.com/vocab-minute.aspx (note: this is not from my school, as I do not have any content to share)

Finally, the example below is not something that we have incorporated at our school, but it seems like an interesting idea that I might like to incorporate into a class in the future.

5) Communication with parents, students, and other teachers – Teachers could broadcast a monthly update to parents, teachers, and students about the types of math lessons and activities that will be the focus of the coming month. They could also include important dates, homework and major assignment reminders.

Assessment Tools in the 21st Century Classroom

Here is a link to a collaborative Google Powerpoint that lists several different assessment tools for the 21st Century Classroom.

Educational Tools in the Classroom: Apple TV

3) Apple TV

Our school recently made a purchase of a set of 20 iPad 2's, and then the next year followed it up with a purchase of 20 iPad minis for use in the classroom. While there are a lot of apps and pieces of software that have been useful for use with the iPads, I have found no better tool that aids me in the classroom than my Apple TV.

Previous to purchasing my Apple TV, I had been having a difficult time showing content from the school iPads on my projector. I tried using various mirroring software like Reflector, but because my school is an old concrete building, and these programs rely on strong wifi connections, I had a lot of problems.

These problems were solved with my purchase of an Apple TV. The nice thing about Apple products is that they seem to integrate fairly well together, so bundling my Apple TV with the iPads in the classroom worked fairly seamlessly.



There are several reasons why I feel the Apple TV is an excellent tool:

i) It is cost effective. With budgets being reduced in education at most schools in Ontario, providing a smartboard can be extremely expensive. In comparison, an iPad/Apple TV combination can be fairly reasonable.

ii) I can use it as a portable whiteboard (with whiteboard apps on the iPads): Students are often reluctant in my classroom to come up to the board to answer problems. I have found that this is mitigated with the Apple TV/iPad combination, as I am able to pass the iPad to a student (with a stylus) and have them provide me with answers on the spot. As well, I can have the iPad passed from student to student, which gives everyone a chance to participate. The other reason I like having a portable whiteboard is it means that I no longer have to have my back to the class, which provides me opportunities to manage my classroom in a better way.

iii) I can use it as a way to display student content. When students are working on the iPads, it can be a great teachable moment to have students use Airplay to display what was on their iPad onto the projector screen. Often, when I have my classes doing group work (or EQAO styled problems), I will see something that might be useful for the class to see. When this happens, I can stop the class, and let the student Airplay what they are doing for the whole class to see. This provides opportunity for discussion, collaboration, and peer feedback, which I think are great.

In my opinion, if you are looking for a cost effective, efficient smart board system, the Apple TV/iPad combination seems like the way to go.