Video on a Chromebook - No Problem!

More and more schools are equipping students with Chromebooks as another tool in the toolbox of the 21st Century educator.  Making use of the webcam is something that kids love to do but using it requires opening up app and resources that are not always the best for kids under the age of 13. While a resources like WeVideo is great, it has many steps and is not one I would consider to be a simple solution for a teacher that wants to do a simple one-take video.  So, I went searching, and I found it!

Clipchamp is a web-based service that is great for kids as  the videos that you make never leave your computer, there is no needed account to set up and it is free!  Students can record up to a 5 minute video using ClipChamp.  Once the video is recorded they can either download the video to their device or they can share it.  Sharing the video give them options to send the video to Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook or.... GOOGLE DRIVE!  Yea!  How perfect for schools using Chromebooks! ClipChamp is also available as a Google Chrome App in the Chrome Web Store here.


Simple directions for using ClipChamp are here:

Clipchamp is marketed as a video trans coder or converter so  you will notice that from the home page there are two options:

For classroom use and to simply record a video:

1. Go to ClipChamp.com
2. Click Record Video 
3. Click to Allow the browser to access to webcam and microphone
4. After the 3, 2, 1 countdown, record the video
5. Once you are done, the screen will change to a green color and you will notice two buttons for "Share Video" and "Save to Computer"
6. The "Save to Computer" will save the video 
7. Hover over Share Video and option of:  YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and Google Drive appear in the drop down menu
8. When you allow ClipChamp to save to the Google Drive, you will be given options as shown when saving.  Complete the form and Publish!

From Google Drive the video can be shared with only certain people.  The integration with Google Drive is key here because it allows students the opportunity to create a simple video and share it with their peers or teacher.  Another great tool to help kids show what they know!

PowToon That!

PowToon announced today that they are giving away $10 Million of classroom accounts for the school year!  How cool is that?  Wondering what PowToon is and why you might want to sign up?  Read on....

PowToon allows you to create great animated lesson plans and presentations that are fun and engaging.  All the animation tools are right there in the dashboard to get you started in creating great videos.  The dashboard will guide you through the process of creating the videos.  Once you finish you can download the video to keep forever or push the video to YouTube.  PowToon is a great alternative to PowerPoint or traditional slides.  Give it a try!

With this great FREE gift from PowToon you will get:

• The Complete Slides pro package
• 24/7 premium support
• HD video for teachers
• Up to 60 students having access for free
• up to 15 minute videos + presentations
• Royalty free styles, tunes + images

As I know it always comes up, the statement below indicates that they are COPPA compliant.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We are in complete compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). We do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products, and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years or older.

Teacher Created Media-Rich Lessons

This week I had the opportunity to engage in some great discussions with some great educators about the use of podcasts, vodcasts, screencasts, and the creation of flipped lessons.  Some of the discussion called for defining each of these terms, and it brought me back to geometry classes in which we evaluated if every square was a rhombus.  While I don't think that educators need to get hung up on the similarities and differences of this media knowing about them is important.  We need to know when we use each tool and how we can do so with great integrity. If we teach through video in the same manner that we teach live in the classroom, we will miss the mark. Planning and being sure to select the correct media for each purpose is key as we create.   We need to always be mindful that we should not be after the cool factor but to strive for excellent lessons that result in optimal learning.  

Not too long ago I led a Flipped Classroom Study with educators and we studied the book, Flip Your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.  This easy to read book provided early adopters with a path, purpose and direction for creating these lessons. Our group created, evaluated and refined various forms of videos created using a variety tools.  Some were screencasts, some vodcasts but all were made using the principles we studied, outlined, and agreed upon by our group to encourage and maintain quality lessons.  Our group evaluated lessons made by other individuals and really looked into the do's and don'ts of creating quality media for instructional purposes.  For the most part, video creation and selection seemed to be best over audio for various reasons.  As I have reflected on this recent conversations, this study group's work, and additional research I have done, these points seemed to emerge:

Planning

Consider your Purpose ~ Are you using this method because it is something that will enhance the learning experience?  From the learner perspective, will the process of rewinding, fast forwarding, reviewing, etc. add to the lesson?  If you are going to do the same task in person and it is not interesting when you do it in the classroom, then it will be even less interesting in audio or video.  

Consider your audience ~   Just like writing an essay, creating media for instruction requires you to consider your audience and their needs.  What format should the media be in?  Do the students have the ability to even get to the media?  Is a podcast, vodcast, or screencast the best resource? What ways can they consume the content?  

Write a script/build slides ~ Know your objective for the media you are creating and don't allow yourself to get off task.  Make sure you are teaching the lesson the way that you want it to be.  Use the appropriate vocabulary and terms.  Having a script and main ideas for each image, drawing and gesture help to make interesting videos.  A script forces you to make you point and be clear while winging-it allows us to drone on without the same focus. You need not read it verbatim, but be sure that you have determined what is important to say.  Allow for spontaneity and humor, but remain clear

Practice ~ This is your chance to shine, so practice. Make sure you are very familiar with the content and script so that you have less likelihood of verbal stumbling that can be distracting.  Know how to use the technology tools you want to use and be sure that they are useful and not distracting.  

The Production

Be Interesting ~ Animate your voice as if there really are students in the room.  Say it all with a smile but don't overdo the enthusiasm and make the inflections natural.  

Keep it Short ~ Make sure you teach one topic per video.  If you have more than one topic you will get more mileage by splitting videos.  A learner will remain focused for about 5 minutes.  

Cut to the Chase ~  Only record what is needed.  It is much better to suggest to the learner that before they view the video they have read content than to show the page and read it to them.  Instead, summarize what they should have read and suggest that if they have not, they should pause there and re-read.  

Annotate ~ When possible annotate or write rather than have the information already on the page. This adds interest and personality.

Reduce Clutter ~ Be sure you don't record with toolbar showing and other clutter on the page.  You don't want the student focused on the the next tool in the toolbar rather than the content.  

Always Strive for Quality ~ Make sure that the work is easy to see, read and hear.  Nothing is more frustrating than having the desire to learn but the quality of the recording getting in the way.  

Copyright - Follow copyright laws in each and every production.

The Product

Share ~ Make sure the place that you share your content is accessible to all those who might need to see it wherever they might be.  Just because you can click the link and see your video, doesn't mean that your users can too.  Use Google's Incognito mode to check your links.

Instruct ~ Teach your students and parents how to view this media.  Many teachers develop viewing guides.  One idea WSQ - Watch, Summarize, Question outlines how students manage the information.  Other important element is teaching kids that they can pause, rewind and rewatch.  This might seem obvious, but is worth reviewing.  If the media is not too lengthy then students are more likely to re-watch when they need to relearn.  

Watch and Learn~ Watch your own video and those others make.  You will be much more critical of your own mistakes, but consider what you can learn from making each lesson and keep notes so that the skill will grow from video to video.  While it is an exercise to teach your students, many teachers find they become better teachers by watching themselves teach.  Don't pass up this opportunity.  

Collaborate on Completion ~ Have a trusted colleague watch you video.  It’s possible they may see something that you do not and have ideas for the next one.

Overall, the process becomes more and more natural as you work through it.  You don’t want to get stuck on the technology and flipping lessons is not about the videos but the quality lessons.  

Shoot*Edit*Share with Loopster

There are some really great ways in which you can make use of video in the classroom.  I have shared posts about many tools that will support Flipped Learning such as the Movenote post last week.  I went on a hunt for a different type of resource that would allow a user to create a video much like iMovie would.  I wanted something that would allow the user to import video, edit using audio tracks, add text, transitions and publish a quality video and... free.  I believe Loopster might just be that tool.
Loopster, available in an online or iOS app ($2.99) is clear in their terms about using video of students under 13, but does not restrict students under 13 from creating an account.  Interestingly, the policies do indicate that they do not collect information about a person under 13 and if they find they have, they will delete it.  Considering I have to give name and email to create and account, I would say that this would be a teacher not an under 13 student tool.  The account creation was simple, quick and the how-to video pops up to help a person learn to use the tool.  Even without watching the video, it seemed very intuitive and I had no difficulty creating a video.  There are over 600 sound effects and audio clips to be added, great transitions and text allows for easily adjusted font, colors and other controls.
Upon uploading a video to Loopster, the tool warns the user that your content is only going to be stored in your account for 30 days.  The warning makes it clear that they are not about storage, but the tool itself and that they need to be selective for the account to remain free.  Videos can be 10 minutes long and posted to Facebook or YouTube easily from the page.  Permissions are very straight forward and simple to adjust in this tool making it a great classroom video tool.

To see how Loopster works, check this video tutorial out:

Loopster.com - Free Online Video Editor

Movenote - 10 Reasons I love it!

A few weeks ago some good friends shared Movenote with me at the ICE conference in IL.  I was thrilled with the tool and have been trying to find the time to get a blog post out about it.  Then Movenote was featured in the DEN March Madness set and again, I thought, "I have really got to share this one".  Today is the day!
Movenote is a tool that can be added to Chrome, used online or even through gmail that allows you to capture and record and instructional video with inset video from your webcam.  Movenote is awesome for many reasons.  Here are my top 10...

1. It is FREE!  It is a simple process to get signed up.
2. The tutorial videos are short, sweet and easy to follow as you can see from the 40 second intro video here.
3. Another reason I love Movenote is that it can be used on a Chromebook with students! In fact, Movenote also has a great video on this that would be great for students.  The video is linked here (See what I mean in #2 ?).  
4. Movenote will access Google Drive to load content.  This makes it easy to make a video from anywhere!
5. Movenote assists with that challenging "Allow" microphone and webcam access request that many kids miss when trying to use a tool.  Movenote's page actually shows a large red arrow pointing to the toolbar.  Great thinking!  
   
6. Movenote can be added to Gmail making it super easy to send a Movenote video right from your email window.  This is so cool!
7. Movenote allows you to add annotations to the slides you present.  
   
8. You can share a Movenote through email but also on a website, SMS, Google Drive, Facebook, etc.  The Gmail feature is super cool. Check it out here.
9. Using Movenote with students a teacher could easily create a quick tutorial for a task that students might need to review multiple times, send instructions to a substitute, or engage students in a fun lesson starter.
10. Using Movenote as a student the possibilities are endless!  Students could create a video to demonstrate understanding.  Students could share a video to help other students understand a process.  Students could share a video to demonstrate ability to speak another language  in a foreign language class.  The possibilities here are endless!

Give Movenote  a try!

Engage kids with a Spotlight on Strategies from Discovery Education!

I am frequently told by teachers that they love the Discovery Education content and the video segments provide for quick hit media which engages students in the content in a form that they enjoy.  While short videos are great, even they can become "just the average part of the lesson" when used often.  Did you know there there are many other forms of media available in the Discovery Education service available to you?  In addition, there is an entire series of lesson plans to introduce you to different instructional strategies for using this media.  These ideas will help you keep the spark and interest in the media that you choose for the curriculum with which you are working.
After logging into Discovery Education, navigate to the feature section called, "Spotlight on Strategies".  This section includes strategy ideas in lesson format with easy to use instruction for many types of media.  Give the lesson, Sound Check a try to integrate the use of the many sound effects into a lesson to add interest and trigger memory for students.  Or, try the Table Top Texting lesson for a time when you are showing a longer clip to keep students engaged in the media for a longer period of time.  These are just a few of the many strategies you can find in the SOS section.  Each one contains a downloadable PDF that if full of ideas and extensions for the great ideas.  You can even download a folder that contains the whole batch.  If you are interested in trying one or more out, let me know as I would love to team teach it with you!  Check them out and check back often as this is a frequently added to section in your Discovery Education subscription!
Check out of the samples included below:

Take a Risk and Feel the Glory!

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was able to get to the ICE conference in Illinois this past week.  One of the best keynotes they had was George Couros from Alberta, Canada.  His has a great blog here.  The blog is definitely worth checking out and very inspiring.  George shared a lot of great information about taking risks and being willing to embrace change.  His personal story included an image of his father on the boat immigrating through Ellis Island from Greece.  He joked, although seriously, and queried the audience of why was it we get hyped up about small changes in life today when there are people out there who took up real change like his father and others like him on the boat.  The presentation was uplifting and inspiring.  One video that he shared really struck with me was the one below.  It is a video taken of a child's first ski jump.  What makes this video so fantastic is that this child audibly narrates their misgivings, fear, and apprehension as the child approaches the jump, anticipates as well as celebrates the finished jump.  There is so much to think about and reflect upon personally  after seeing this video.

Enjoy the video below and feel free to share in the Comments your reflection...

Help Your Parents ... or Yourself!

I have spent the last few days at the Illinois Computing Educator Conference and the Illinois Google Summit.  I have a ton of resources that I am excited to bring back but an easy one to share and blog about is the Teach Parents Tech site.  This site is a parody for those people that frequently find they are in the position of helping parents learn tech.  It is easy to use, full of helpful topics, and not necessarily just for kids who want to help frustrated parents learn about tech.  I think we all might find something here.
The landing page allows you to select and personalize the video and recipient messages.  Once complete, it looks like this:

You then enter the email address you want to send the video to and off it goes.  the recipient gets a very similar message with the videos embedded right into the email.  Each video is about 30 seconds long.  There are many videos that any of us could learn from.  Easy, simple resource for not just parents.

Global Wrap for Current Events

Knowledge and understanding of current events are an important part of being a good citizen.  As adults, most of use dislike the feeling that there is something going on in the world that we know nothing about. Wouldn't it be great if kids would have that same feeling and be driven to know the current events of the world in which they live? Through an account with Discovery Education, you have access to the Global Wrap, a resource that will allow you to instill that drive in your students.   Global Wrap is featured on the Discovery Ed homepage after you log in.

Sometimes what's in the news is not always appropriate for the age of students you are working with.
Discovery's Global Wrap is organized so that you can show segments or the entire Wrap.

 This allows you to be able to select the news you want the students to view or see the entire news in one whole video.  You can also chunk it out to allow kids to view and experience a little each day.

Ideas for Classroom Use

• Have a Current Events Day of the week.
• Assign a segment to different groups through the Assignment Builder and have them share out.
• Build a writing prompt about different segments to encourage deeper thinking and responses about the media
• Have students select one topic/segment and then have them report out about that particular topic

Screencastify - Screen Casting on the Chromebook

A new tool being discussed in many places I read is Screencastify.  This great, easy to use extension allows for easy screen recorded videos or screen casts that can be done on a Chromebook.  I have been considering creating a tutorial to this, but was beat to it and lucky for you, this one is better than I could have done!  (Additionally the author, Chris Betcher, has a great accent that is much more enjoyable than my voice.)

There is a lot of great potential for using screencasting with kids.  I wonder about students screencasting to explain their thinking and then sharing that screen cast with their teacher or with other students. There are many great reasons to screen cast with kids.  Capturing elements of a lesson, a series of steps needed for learning or to get to a location online, as a recording of a visual that needs audio like challenging pronunciations, or even as a screen capture to record a student's progress as a way of building a digital portfolio.
Look for Screencastify in the Google Chrome Web Store here!

Quietube for Chrome

Quietube is a Chrome Extension that only appears when you need it in the OmniBar or Address Bar of Google Chrome.  It is a great resource for teacher that show videos through YouTube and want to "quiet" the page for students by removing ads, distracting sidebars and unexpected video suggestions.  This Apps can be found int he Chrome Web Store here.  When on a page that you can use the extension, a small icon  appears.  Clicking that icon will open a new page in which your video will play without all the distracting ads.
This is a simple solution for focusing student attention on what is important in a simple, easy way.

Olympics Theme - DEN Connects

As the world tunes into the Olympic Games this week, a group of fantastic STAR Discovery Educators has been working on the DEN Connects site to build an Olympics theme that will assist you in making better use of the resources found in the Discovery Education subscriptions you have while learning about the Olympics.  There is an added bonus to this site as you can "connect" with other classrooms across the country to share learning.  The DEN Connects site is broken into several easy to read and navigate parts.   You will find:

• Mini-lessons - based on a 20-30 minute instructional time rich with media and integration strategies.
• Student Digital Dives -  A scavenger hunt prepared using Discovery media and focused on the topic of the month (Olympics).
• Content Creation Challenge - A challenge to inspire you to try something new with your students.   This month it is a Paper Slide Video which many of you have worked to complete in other areas in the past.  I'd love to help with these! 
• Class-to-Class Connections - This part of the Den Connects site give you an avenue to make a connection with another class and share learning ideas and experiences.  Make use of the Google Hangout feature and make a new classroom friend!  

If you want to plan ahead, there is a new DEN Connect theme each month and you can count on these amazing DEN STAR Educators to come through with awesome content and ideas for you to use. Upcoming themes will include Habitats, and Weather/Natural Disasters.

Interested in doing any of these activities or need help with adjusting any of these ideas to your classroom curriculum?  Let me know!  I would love to help.

Interested in being a STAR Discovery Educator?  I can help with that too!

SnagIt Extension for Chrome

TechSmith, the company that brings you the full screen recording and editing solution Camtasia, also makes Snagit, a smaller version of Camtasia that is great for smaller screen casting and collaborating.  What is really exciting is that TechSmith has come out with an app and extension that will allow Chromebook users to use Snagit and make it easier for all of us to enjoy the benefits of this great tool from the ease of a Google App or extension.  The app and extension can be found in the Chrome WebStore. TechSmith also has a great video about Snagit added below.

A Champion for Every Student!

Being a champion to each and every student each and every day is a great goal for each of us for the New Year.  On this last day before break I know that many teachers are tired, ready for a break and have given 2013 their all because you are CHAMPIONS!

Have a great holiday break and enjoy this message:

Peanut Gallery Silent Films

Peanut Gallery, a fun Chrome experiment lets you explore with new technology using the old fashioned media - silent films and text cards.  You launch Peanut Gallery, select a film to use, allow the use of your microphone and explore.  As you speak the actions of the film, the computer translates your speech to text and places them in the movie.  A variety of movie scenes make this a ton of fun.  When your movie is complete you can retitle the movie, and collect the URL of the movie you have created. Peanut Gallery would be a great activity for kids to use to explore characters, settings and new vocabulary.  Have a little fun with the Peanut Gallery!

Google's introductory video is here:

Using KHANACADEMY for Practice - Guest Post

The following is a guest post by the talented Nancy Dohr. She and several other teachers at Bay Lane have been using this tool and I was so impressed with their use, I had her do a guest post. If you or a team of fabulous Muskego-Norway School educators are interested in sharing a tool, resource or strategy, let me know we would love to share your technology use directly from the classroom here! Thanks Nancy!


Need more targeted skill practice for your math students? Look no further as the KhanAcademy for math is now available. Use khanacademy not only for video tutorial support but now for skill practice that students can work through at their own pace! using their school gmail accounts, a teacher can create a class for students to join. This allows you as a teacher to see the following things about your individual student: Time spent practicing, Topics struggling with, and Topics Mastered. In addition it allows you to make recommendations to specific students on the tasks they should be working on or need more practice. This is currently being used by several Bay Lane teachers.


In addition to managing individual students, you can get an overview of how your class is doing by looking at the skill progress  on the coach page (if you have a class). Simply click on the different colored bar to get a more detailed look for groupings of students.







Student Views:

This is the student homepage. It gives students topics to practice in order. If you recommend a topic it automatically goes to the top of that list. Students get instant feedback by trying to get the mission progress on the right of their screen to be all dark blue.

This is the view as if you are walking through a lesson. It allows for support at the child’s need. It has a hint and video option to help the child complete the task if they need it. It also sets a goal for the student to get 5 in a row.

Google Story Builder

Google Story Builder could be a great way to make creative videos.  It will create a video of what it might look like if several people were editing a document at one time.  you can do fun things like creative names for individuals to personalized or add interest.  It could be used to demonstrate an idea, introduce a topic, show a side of a character that might not otherwise be seen, etc.  Some ideas for students might be:

Using Google Story Builder:

• create a conversation between a modern day character or persona and a historical figure
• create a conversation between two characters in a story you are reading
• create a conversation between two characters in two different stories
• demonstrate a made up or real interview a famous person or character 
• demonstrate proper behavior by showing a conversation in the lunch room, classroom, bus or other common school location
• demonstrate or explain a scientific or mathematical process to another individual through speech
• create a conversation in another language you are studying
• explain or define in the conversations a topic from content in any class

Story builder is a great tool that can easily be incorporated into any classroom to add some interest. Here is a great tutorial on Google Story Builder using Charlotte's Web.

Background Music for Projects

About a month ago YouTube launched a great resource for educators.  They added a music library from which you can preview and download background music for movies, projects and general use.  The policies for this library of music allow you to use them for creative purposes as they are Royalty Free.  From the Google Blog:

Any YouTube creator now has access to more than 150 royalty-free instrumental tracks you can use for free, forever, for any creative purpose (not just YouTube videos). You’ll find a link to the library in your video manager and you can browse the tracks by mood, genre, instrument and duration. The tracks can be downloaded as 320 Kbps MP3 files."  

The library can be found that this site.  I listened to a few of the tracks found and could instantly think of some great classroom connections.  There is no doubt that some of the best videos are made even better because of the music track beneath the video.  YouTube explores just that in their blog post about this new resource.  I am wondering what creative educators and their students making use of these soundtracks might be able to use.

Video Notes App for Google Drive

This is a super exciting tool to use with Google Apps for Education accounts!  VideoNot.es is an app that is added to your Google Drive.  Once you add this app to Drive it allows you to launch the VideoNot.es extension, add a video link and take notes while watching the video.  The notes are linked to the spot in the video that you found the information or comment you are taking notes about.  

From what I hear about the test samples on the Smarter Balanced Assessments, this tool becomes a great resource for experiencing some of the similar test questions that were seen on those that piloted the test.  Let's take a closer look.

To Add this App:

1. Add the VideoNot.es app by either going to the link here and clicking Connect to Google Drive. Another way to add it is to click the RED Create button in your Google Drive, Click "Connect More Apps" at the bottom of the window and search for VideoNot.es in the search bar of the apps for Google Drive menu.  
2. Once you have added the app, when you click Create you will notice that VideoNot.es becomes on of the Create options within Google Drives' menu.  To explore VideoNot.es, click Create then VideoNotes in that menu list.
3. When you open the Video Notes app the screen will appear like the one shown.  Simply enter the video's URL in the space indicated and click Load Video.
   

     4.  I tried this to see how it worked and it was awesome.  I loaded the sample video to test it and see how it worked.  It was perfect.  The notes link to the video so that if I click on any note I take, the video is automatically advanced to the place in the video where I took that note.  All the notes are saved in Google Drive and it prompted me to use the app to open the notes.  Like all Google Drive files, it is share-able and therefore a collaborative document or file.  

Think about how this might change the video experience! This is an amazing tool to make a static individualized learning experience of watching a video a truly interactive learning opportunity!   When we start looking at the SAMR Model Technology Integration this app would be one that would be in the highest level of Redefinition or doing a task previously not possible because of the technology.  This would fall into the highest level not because of the ability to note-take but because you can share the notes, replay them and the tool advances or rewinds the video to the place in which the notes were taken.   Give this tool a try!