Month: September 2013
Students and Teachers as Makers: Apps to Present and Share Lessons and Learnings (Part 2)
In Part I of this post, I introduce the web-based application Present.me as a potential tool for you and your students to create video presentations, tutorials, and lessons.
Two additional tools my students and I enjoy are ScreenChomp and Screen-cast-omatic.
ScreenChomp (available in iTunes) is-in essence- a white board that you can record. Teachers utilize ScreenChomp to record their drawings, diagrams, or text on a whiteboard or customizable background with audio explanation and guidance. You can pause the video, insert photos and PDFs, change the background, erase, and then publish as a link or save to your account to share with students. Want to be really efficient with your time? Connect your iPad to a project with AirPlay mirroring through an Apple TV or a VGA adapter so you can record the demonstration or lesson while you are teaching face-to-face. Then, post the link of the ScreenChomp for students to review.
Check out the developer Tech Smith’s website for an overview of features.
Ideas for students:
- Demonstrate a process with a “think-aloud” like solving a math problem or conjugating a certain type of verb in a language class.
- Respond to a picture or prompt by annotating and talking about their responses.
- Crate a video lesson for their classmates on a focused topic or skill like mitosis vs. meiosis or allusions in literature.
Screen-cast-o-matic is a free web-based tool you can use to screen capture your desktop on a PC or Mac. Click on the screen recorder button on the website and a dotted-line box appears that you can re-size to create a record window on your screen. This is my go-to tool to create quick tutorials for technology topics ranging from citing sources in databases to creating a Google Doc. The free version does limit the recording time, but in general tutorials are under five minutes, so I haven’t had a problem there.Students and Teachers as Makers: Apps to Present and Share Lessons and Learnings (Part I)
Thinking about “flipping” your classroom? Looking for tools your students can use to demonstrate their learning? I’ve become a fan of three simple (and free) apps that you and your students can easily use to record and share tutorials, lessons, and demonstrations.
Present.me
For those of you who miss the face-to-face quality of in-class tutorials and instruction, this website might be just what you are looking for to create and share tutorials or presentations with your students while maintaining that human and personal aspect. Present.me allows you to create presentations with slides and video, slides and audio, or just video. Upload your existing presentations, PDFs, or pictures and then record a video where you explain or teach in a split screen. Feeling a little camera shy? It’s just as easy to record audio alongside the slides as video.
Check out the fractured fairy tale book talk for my example and Present.me’s own list of simple tutorials.
The free version allows you to upload content and record video, audio, or video-only. You cannot download the video and save as a file with the free account, but you can embed the video in a web page or share through social media sites and the direct link.
A few things I learned while making my own Present.me:
- Write your content first if starting from scratch–If you have an existing lesson or PPT, then it should be relatively quick to create your own explanation or to record the lesson you are accustomed to. If starting from scratch, I definitely recommend writing a script, first. The better Present.Me videos do have more of an “off-the-cuff” feeling. I wasn’t quite there with my first attempt, so I split my screen and had a script up that I read from while clicking through the slides.
- Practice your timing before you record–I think I took something like 8 recordings before I got to the final version. Many of the deleted versions were due to clumsy fingers. When you record video or audio alongside slides, you have to click to advance the slides while you record…takes a couple of practice rounds to get used to, but then it’s a synch.
- If you video, use a high(er) quality camera–I went with the built-in camera on my iMac, but will try using my webcam next time. I wasn’t too happy with how pixelated the video came out, and there was a slight delay in motion with the audio. But, that’s a nit-picky thing.
Ideas for students:
- “Me-Presentation”–this platform lends itself well to a little bio about yourself or even an alternative to the paper resume.
- Explanatory/ Process–Students could create a presentation aimed at explaining a process or concept that utilizes examples or diagrams.
- Digital Storytelling–What if students narrated their own stories alongside a visual storytelling technique? We’ve been using MovieMaker, iMovie, and Animoto for digital storytelling, but those tools eliminate a lot of the power of students’ own voices when telling the story. Why not allow them to tell the story alongside the story for a dynamic narrative experience?
Fractured Fairy Tales–Cyborgs and Zombies and Witches! Oh, my!
Prime time television is ripe this Fall with fairy tale spin-offs. ABC’s Once Upon a Time is a mash-up of some of your favorite heroes, heroines, and villains! This Present.me features popular Young Adult novels with a fairy tale twist in conjunction with our English I classes experimenting with their own fractured fairy tales.
Looking for more fantastic ideas for your teen readers? Visit
Media Mania—Magic and Mayhem: Mesmerizing Fairy Tale Retellings for Teens at SLJ.com for Joy Fleishhacker’s list of top pics.
What’s your favorite fractured fairy tale?
Reel Reading For Real Readers–Ask the Passengers
Today’s Reel Reading for Real Readers highlights Ask the Passengers by A.S. King. The titles that appear at the bottom of this glog all touch upon LGBT themes and issues–but here’s my challenge for you: don’t keep these books on reserve for “those teens” who might be experiencing issues and conflicts of their own. I feel like sometimes we reserve LGBT booklists as bibliotherapy for gay teens. I’m a full believer in books as instruments of healing, but I’m also a big believer in the power of books to introducing teens to choices, lifestyles, and experiences that they may never have themselves, but when learning how to be empathetic, they would benefit from reading about. What I particularly love about these books is that they include a complex cast of characters, representing diversity fully and with intriguing situations and conflicts.
If this girl had a wishbone…what would she hope for?
It’s Monday! What are you reading?
A face, masked in cobalt feathers, has been haunting my reading life for a couple of years now. I think the first time I encountered it, I was browsing the teen section at the local book store, my soy chai latte in hand. I picked it up that day, ran my fingers over the images of the feathers thinking that I might feel their soft, glossy texture. I remember a tangible chill that ran up the length of my fingers and the length of my arm. Then, I put it down.
Since that day, the enigmatic mask and daring gaze caught me now and then as I straightened shelves, pulled books out of the return bin, and even placed it in to the hands of one of my avid fantasy readers.
“Have you ever asked yourself,do monsters make war, or does war make monsters? I’ve seen things, angel. There are guerrilla armies that make little boys kill their own families. Such acts rip out the soul and make space for beasts to grow inside. Armies need beasts, don’t they? Pet beasts, to do their terrible work! And the worst part is, it’s almost impossible to retrieve a soul that has been ripped away. Almost.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone and its sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight completely captured my reading imagination, leaving my heart hurting for the present political and humanitarian situation in Syria, and compelling me to get my hands on my own wishbone.
This YA fantasy series by National Book Award author Laini Taylor is Romeo and Juliet, Aida, and Paradise Lost--but it also reads, to me, as a marvelous commentary on contemporary tensions and turmoils filling the CNN and MSNBC newsfeed this past week.
I do not pretend to understand, nor have I really sought understanding in regards to the present situation in Syria. It honestly hurts my heart to do so. When I find my mind grappling with the myriad of political commentary, ethical analysis, and presidential criticism, my son’s face surfaces in my mind, and I freeze at the thought of the world that he is inheriting.
Karou, the heroine of Daughter of Smoke and bone finds herself in the middle of an ancient battle between good and evil–but, of course, who the real demons are is in the eye of the beholder.
Here’s the thing that I love most about extraordinary Young Adult works–they allow teens to explore, experience, and process situations and questions in a safe context. Many teens will gravitate this series for the unmistakable star-crossed lovers and first love; but, many–I believe–will find that this little work of fantasy has a lot to contribute to in the way they choose to respond to their generation’s greatest conflict: hate.
(Re)Inventing the Librarian 