EduCreations - You + your whiteboard...in a video!

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned that I was featured in my technology coach's blog, Little Bytes, about how I've used EduCreations with my students. In case you didn't get a chance to look through my colleague's blog, I'll do a little write-up about it here as well.

EduCreations is a free app for the iPad. It has some capabilities as a web tool without needing an iPad, but because it involves "drawing" on the screen as if it were a whiteboard, it works best with a touchscreen device rather than a mouse. When you open the app it looks like this:

EduCreations turns your screen into a whiteboard as you can see above, and records your voice as you interact with it (notice the "record" button in the upper right-hand corner). In this way, you can explain a concept or lesson by drawing on the board and explaining it while EduCreations records it. It then turns your lesson into a hyperlink, which you can post on your website for students to access or send it to them directly in an e-mail. It allows you switch ink colors, type, and import photos which is helpful for any visuals you plan to use besides what you "write" on the board. There is also a rectangle button in the lower left-hand corner which allows you to switch the background to graph paper, lined paper, or a coordinate grid.

Here is an example in which I actually explain how to use EduCreations using the EduCreations app :) My colleagues asked me to make one for them!

I've embedded an example below so you can see how I've used it for my own students:

Here is a link to my school website, where I have several other lessons posted for my students to use. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from students and parents talking about how helpful they have been! I've had students use them to review a concept one more time before a quiz, and I've also told students who missed an important lesson due to an absence that they could catch up on notes from the lesson explanation. Now if only I could take an entire Professional Development Day to create one for every single lesson....

I have experienced a few drawbacks so far, but I still find it to be a very useful tool. You cannot edit the audio in your explanation, since it's supposed to be your "real" explanation as if you're actually in class. If you mess up while speaking, you have to start over, including whatever you drew on the board. I try not to let this tempt me into starting over and over each time I stumble on my words or say the wrong thing, since I mess up speaking in class all the time - think of it that way :) I also seem to have trouble with the app itself saving my lessons. Sometimes I'll have to log in on the website itself to find them and get the link. Has anyone else tried this?

VoiceThread - the World Language teacher's answer to assessing speaking!

As a World Language teacher, speaking is usually the weakest of my students' skills. This is mainly because genuinely "thinking" in the target language is one of the last skills that is truly mastered when learning a language. Students find it difficult to string sentences together with careful planning on paper, let alone quickly & right off the top of their head! With this in mind, World Language teachers are often looking for new & convenient ways to get as much speaking practice in as possible. The problem with this is assessment. Personally, I've tried two different methods of grading students' speaking abilities. One is pairing them in partners and giving them a communication activity. While this is good practice and kids tend to enjoy it, I can only walk around the room and hear snippets of their conversations, which is fine for a quick 10-point grade but difficult to grade with a full rubric on pronunciation, fluency, etc. The other option is calling them up one by one or in pairs/small groups and grading them on a project such as interviewing one another, acting out a dialogue, etc. I do this occasionally as well, but it eats up so much class time!

Enter VoiceThread. As you may remember from our brief class discussion on it, VoiceThread is a free program that allows a teacher to post a picture, video, or audio file, and have students respond to it with comments.I recently tried this with my 8th graders learning the future tense. I posted a question in French, which asked "What are you going to do over April vacation?" and students had to respond with a sentence in the future tense, such as "I'm going to travel to Florida with my family" or "I'm going to go out with friends." Below is a screen shot of what this looked like when I tried it with my students. The picture in the upper left-hand corner is my question, and each block with a symbol is a student's response. The picture I used in the center was just to give them a clue about what the question was asking, but you can also make the photo (rather than your own comment) the central focus. For example, when my students start past tense, I plan to post a picture of a scene and ask them to describe what happened. Listen below to hear my question and the students' responses!

 

One of the coolest things about the program is that there are several options for how students can post a comment. The easiest one is to click "record" and use a microphone, but several of my students said they did not have one at home. Another option is a to click the video camera and record a video response using a webcam. A third (and the coolest) option is to click the telephone button on the left. Students can enter their phone number and have VoiceThread call them! When they pick up, an automated voice says "Hi there! This is VoiceThread. Leave your comment at the tone, and when you're done, hang up." (or something like that). I tried it and it worked perfectly. How cool is that?! Students can also type a response, but since I was using this program to assess speaking I did not allow them to use this option.

While I think the program in general is basically the best thing since sliced baguettes, the free version does have quite a bit of limitations. I was told upon signing up that I would be limited as to how many posts I could make, but had no limit on how many I could comment on. I plan on getting around this by using my many e-mail addresses to create posts ;)  The problem that upset me the most upon trying it out with students was that each free account (which is what my students each signed up for) was only allowed 3 minutes of comments via telephone. Because I didn't realize this right away and couldn't warn them ahead of time, some students recorded themselves, didn't like how they sounded or messed up their pronunciation, hung up and recorded it again. Several used up all 3 of their minutes on their first try :( My department chair is looking into purchasing the school license for next school year, which comes with 60 minutes to distribute amongst your students (still not a lot, right?? I actually e-mailed to complain). Despite its limitations, I still think this is worth trying. It can really be applied to all subject areas, and is great for kids who struggle with writing/handwriting, or are nervous speaking in front of the class. What do you think?

My Digital Story (finally!) - "La Cuisine Française"

Alleluia, praise the Lord - IT'S DONE! As much fun as I did have putting this together, I did not anticipate how time-consuming it would be to get the timing, narration, music, transitions, etc just right. It's also my own fault for being a bit of a perfectionist.

Let me warn you that my video is a bit long. I know we had a 3-minute limit, but mine is 4 minutes. I felt that since I actually intend to use this with my students, I needed to include all the necessary info pertinent to their unit on food, which makes it a bit longer than originally planned. However (if I do say so myself) I think it's pretty engaging and doesn't drag too much ;)

Here it is - enjoy! Hope you're not too hungry after watching!

Socrative - Better than Senteo!

Recently, my colleague and I have been using the website Socrative to do reviews and even real quizzes with our classes. As part of our BYOD initiative, most students have some sort of device with internet on it, whether it's a smart phone, laptop, tablet, or iPod. Teachers can create a quiz, then go to t.socrative.com to start it. Students go to m.socrative.com and log into your "room number," a random six-digit number assigned by the website. Once signed in, students can take the quiz on their own devices. Teachers can choose a "student-paced quiz," which allows students to answer questions at their own pace, or a "teacher-paced quiz" which allows the teacher to send questions one at a time. Here is an example of a Socrative quiz I did just today with my class.

Students were given this sheet - a conversation missing several vocab expressions:

Students then answered questions one a time on their own devices:

I chose a teacher-paced quiz, so I sent the questions one at a time and students answered. Socrative shows the live results, so for example, on one question I saw that 6 students chose an incorrect answer. I was able to address that with the class and we discussed why it was not the best choice. This was great for our quiz review today!

Give Socrative a try!

Text Messaging Students??

Ever had a class leave the room, then suddenly remembered you forgot to tell them something? Or that you assigned the wrong homework? How about when there's a snow day and you just KNOW kids are going to come in and say "Well we didn't know the quiz would still be today!" Because this happens to me frequently, I was excited when I heard about a number of programs that allow you to message students while keeping all numbers private. After talking with colleagues and doing some experimenting, I decided to give "Celly" a try with my classes. The program is very similar to Twitter, but it allows you to create groups called "cells," which is helpful when I only want to send a message to one class, or only to parents, etc. Celly allows me to send a message to any individuals who have joined my "cell." I have one cell set up for each of my 8th grade classes right now, but plan to expand to my other classes and perhaps parents in the future.

I told all students to bring in their cell phones and to make sure they had EITHER a cell phone that could use text messaging, or a device that could download apps (iPad, Kindle fire, etc). I did not have any students who had neither - shows how prevalent technology is now!! Students had to text a number with the name of the "cell" I had set up for their class (or they searched for the cell name within the app). Celly would prompt them to enter the password I had set up, and then they were in! We did a test run and all students were able to receive my message.

Celly allows you to set up your own preferences in terms of what you want "cell members" to be able to do within the group. You can have students "chat" with one another with or without teacher moderation, you can allow students to only message the teacher, or you can set it so that the teacher can message students but they cannot reply. Right now I have it set so that students can receive my messages and send messages to me if they have a problem, but not message each other. I made it VERY clear to students that only expected them to contact me if there was a question or problem. Below is a screen shot of what I see on my phone when I use the Celly app:

The bottom two are messages I sent to my students. The top block is a message from a student earlier that day. I was able to click her message and select "private message" to reply to her without replying to everyone. So far I LOVE this program!!

BYOD: Bring Your Own Device

Our new school initiative, BYOD (not as exciting as BYOB) has been in the works since September and has finally become "official." The program allows students to bring any electronic device that might have applications to help them with daily tasks in class. Kids with laptops, iPads or other tablets, e-readers such as Kindles, and even smartphones, have begun bringing them to class and are now using documents on their devices to take notes, write down homework, and do in-class research. I've mentioned this in several comments on other blogs, so I thought I'd put up a post about it, explaining what it looks like in my classroom.

I have one student who brings a laptop, but most bring tablets and phones. Students are sometimes your best resource in finding a new app to use for educational purposes. Many of them found their own app versions of digital agendas for keeping track of homework & upcoming tests, flashcard apps for studying, and for my class, an online French-English dictionary to help with writing. Here is an example from my own classroom. Students were doing an activity in their textbook working with partners. About half used pencil & paper while half wrote their answers into their device:

I have not had any problems with texting or any other inappropriate device use at the middle school level. I have at the high school level, but no more than usual! A colleague of mine put it in perspective for me when he compared it to a student doing his science homework in your French class. You don't confiscate the binder and create a new "no science binder" policy, you simply tell the student to put it away. I have had to tell a student "we are not using our devices right now, you should only be listening" but it hasn't needed to go further than that. So far BYOD is much more of an asset than a liability!

Here is a link to the Cheshire BYOD Resource Center

I "dig" Diigo!

I believe I have finally arrived at a place where I'm remembering to click the "Diigolet" button, rather than instinctively going for the "Bookmark" tab. I was reluctant to get on board, but I have to admit Diigo is way better! I like that I can easily organize everything so that if I am trying to remember that blog I saw on iPad apps for Education, I don't need to sift through all my bookmarks at once. I can click on the "iPad" label I've created and only look at the few pages I have saved that have to do with iPads. Bookmarking on Firefox does allow you to make folders, but I never remember to. This is much more user-friendly. I also love how it "suggests" labels - I assume it's based on the wording on the page? Half the time I don't need to create any more labels than what it's suggested for me! Here is a link to my Diigo page - it's a bit sparse right now but I plan on using it a lot more!

My Animoto - "Expressions Avec Faire"

My Animoto will be used with my 8th grade classes when we learn the verb "faire." "Faire" is the verb "to do" or "to make" and it used in a TON of expressions in French. Sometimes it is difficult for students to understand why expressions that use "faire" in French do not always translate word for word. For example, in English we say "go on a picnic" or "have a picnic," but in French they say "faire un pique-nique" (do a picnic). Therefore, I get questions like "I want to write that I'm going on a picnic this weekend. How do you say 'go?'" I have to explain that it is not worded the same way. This is a good way to introduce the verb and how it's used. After we watch the Animoto, students can answer the question at the end about what they noticed about the expressions and their meanings - HOPEFULLY they will pick up on the fact that the translations in English did not always use the word "do" or "make!"

I can't believe that RSS really stands for "Really Simple Sindication"

I literally thought Judy was joking when she said what it stood for ;)

Acronyms aside, I had previously considered myself a "pro" at all things Google, and I must sheepishly admit that I had never even heard of Google Reader, nor did I know that there were tools out there that sent information to you. The only similar concept I had experienced were those annoying e-mails you get from websites that had asked for your e-mail address if you had clicked "continue" too fast before you realized you hadn't unchecked the box that said "I would like to get e-mail updates about news and special offers." Therefore, clearly, I had never considered it an asset to "subscribe" to something for updates until now! (Except Groupon - Groupon is awesome)

I excitedly told my husband about it, and to make myself feel even more out-of-the-loop, he already knew about it and used it regularly. His favorite blog, Barstool Sports, comes regularly into his Google Reader, and half the time if I hear him laughing from another room, it's because he's catching up on its latest updates. (BE CAREFUL if you choose to check out that particular blog - highly inappropriate and NOT safe for kids!!! I purposely chose NOT to include a hyperlink).

I have now subscribed to several blogs, including my colleague's blog "Little Bytes" that I included in a previous blog post. Now the next step is remembering to check for what's new!

Farm Animoto - great idea!

I have been looking at Animotos made by pre-school or young elementary school teachers because they are usually used to introduce basic vocabulary words. Although my students are middle & high schoolers, I introduce basic vocab in a very similar way. When I checked out Nolia's Blog, however, she had something different that I also want to use. She created an Animoto about a class trip to the farm. I think this would be great for the upcoming field trip I will take with my students to Quebec. Parents send their kids on these immersion experiences, and I'm sure they hear some stories from their kids, but as we all know, teenagers don't tend to "gush" to their parents about all the cool experiences they had. Putting together a short Animoto with pictures and blurbs about our experiences would be a great way to let parents know about the experience their child had (and precisely what they are paying for!). My husband chaperoned this trip with me last year - below is a picture of us at Montmarcy Falls - a partially frozen waterfall in Quebec City.

Check Out "Little Bytes" - A Colleague's Tech Blog

The former 7th grade Social Studies teacher at my school was appointed to a brand new position this year : Technology Supervisor. My colleague, Scott Conway, has created a tech blog called "Little Bytes" for his co-workers to follow, keeping us up-to-date on what new tech tools are out there and how other teachers in the building are using them, updates on our technology policies, etc. . Scott is fantastic at what he does and does a great job explaining a lot of these tools. While it is specifically directed toward teachers at my school, don't hesitate to check it out anyway. I'm sure you'll find something useful there!

I'm actually proud to say that I made it onto Scott's blog in his post "Teacher Showcase." Since the World Language department was granted iPads this year (YAYY!!), I had been playing around with different apps and tools. I found a great one called EduCreations that I have been using as supplementary material on my website. Instead of explaining it in this post, click here to check out Scott's explanation of it. He also has a link to my website where you can see some examples.

Classroom Blogging and Multiple Literacies

This article was well-organized in that it listed the NETS standards along with things that real CT teachers are doing to meet them. This is great for those of us who are unsure how to incorporate technology effectively into our teaching, or may think we are but are still somehow not meeting standards.

I love the example given under "Writing Across the Curriculum and Multimedia" of the students doing "news casts" for their classmates about topics they are learning in class. I could easily do this in my own classroom, whether in English about a cultural or research topic, or in the target language using basic phrasing on topics we are studying such as weather, food, etc.

What really excited me was the use of Skype mentioned in the article. Students took part in a Skype Literature Circle to discuss and get excited about reading. The website gives a quick video showing the end of a Skype call. It's easy to see how excited the kids are to talk to someone about their reading, and it's not hard to imagine how this might encourage a struggling reader or a student who does not like to read might get pulled in through the dialogue via Skype. Personally I have been in search of a way to use Skype with my students. I REALLY hope I can connect with a French-speaking classroom somewhere someday! I know my students would love it.

Animoto uses?

I watched Beth's animoto at Staying Alive in Room 5. She used it to introduce new vocabulary which is exactly how I plan to use it, so it looked like a good start. I really liked her demonstration of the two meanings of homonymns with pictures, and animoto was a great tool to put it in. I'm actually really looking forward to playing around with animoto and finding uses for it in my classroom.

Personally, I plan on using Animoto for introducing French vocab at the beginning of a unit, and then talking about the definitions and differences in expressions with my students. I'm racking my brain for a way to give students the opportunity to use it themselves. Any ideas? My colleague does a whole section of the year where she has small groups of students teach a unit themselves, but my curriculum doesn't really allow for that. I'd love to find ways for students to use it but in my subject area that can be a bit difficult. Class tends to be quite teacher-driven because students are obviously still learning the beginning stages of language acquisition. Any brainstorming ideas are welcome!

Blogs vs. Wikis - A Matter of Preference?

I had done very little with Wikis before this class, although I had heard of them and knew roughly how they worked. The video we watched in class explaining how they worked "in plain English" was eye-opening. Even though they told me what I already knew, the creator put it in such a way that showed me I most likely could use these relatively easily and effectively. I may even create a Wiki with my sisters to plan my parents' 30th wedding anniversary party :)

As for use in my classroom, however, I have to say I am much more partial to blogs. Its incredibly structured format give students very clear guidelines on how to use it and what we're using it for - and we all know how much kids NEED structure! The possibilities with wikis are endless, but that's what concerns me. Students who are still learning technology are often overwhelmed by the possibilities and don't know where to start. That being said, I can see its use within a classroom, if a teacher is present to guide students through its use and give them very explicit instructions, starting them off with basic structured tasks. I may be exploring this more in the future!

Twitter in the classroom

I love the idea of using Twitter in the classroom, simply because I feel any connection you can make in the classroom to students' lives outside your room, particularly their ever-important "social lives," the more enthusiastic they become about school in general. While I don't feel Twitter is a great venue for my beginning French classes, for reasons I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to share something my colleague has developed in some of his lessons.

My colleague across the hall teaches 7th grade Social Studies, and because we leave our doors open (and he is incredibly loud), I typically overhear his entire lesson. When I heard him do this, I ran across the hall to ask him about it. Instead of using Twitter as the online tool that it is, the teacher took advantage of the fact that almost all students know Twitter, understand how it works, and are familiar with its features (hash tags, "what's trending," etc).

When his students are learning a new topic in class (for example they just began their unit on religion in society), the teacher will have them do an "exit tweet" on their way out. The question will be something like "What religion are you most interested in learning about and why?" Students will then write on their exit slip (keeping their response under 140 characters of course!) an answer to their question, as well as one or two "hash tags." A sample response might be:

I can't wait to learn about Hinduism bc they have many gods. #hindu #polytheism

This particular teacher has a whole section of his board where he lists "what's trending" after looking over students' responses and hash tags. Cool, huh??

Blogging - Sadly, not for my class

Now that I am officially enrolled in this course, I need to catch up on my blogging!

Richardson's discussion of how prevalent technology is and can be in education was interesting. Although I consider myself relatively advanced with my use in technology, I do tend to pick a few tools that I like and stick with them. This allows me to use these tools to their full potential, but sometimes I forget to stay current on what new tools are coming out and give them a chance.

This year I did decide to try blogging with my students, and quite honestly I decided I did not like it. However, this is not blogging's fault ;) I teach introductory French, and to have students who are barely learning to string sentences together blog with one another in the target language was just a goal that was just a tad out of reach this time around. I tried one in English in response to a video we watched in class, but that seemed a little superficial for middle school/high school students. I may have them blog more in-depth in English about some culture-related topics in the future. We shall see!

Feel free to click here and see the blog I tried (and abandoned) with my students. If you have any suggestions for salvaging the idea, I'm all ears!

Introduction to ME

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Cristin Kochanowicz, and I am a middle and high school French teacher in Cheshire, CT. I am originally from Hamilton, NJ, and graduated from Fairfield University in 2008, when I decided to stay in Connecticut and accept a teaching position here. I recently married my college sweetheart in July 2012, and we currently live in Plainville, CT with our kitten, Phoebe.
 
I'm finishing my master's degree here at USJ with a concentration in Educational Technology, and will (hopefully) graduate December 2013. I love doing scrapbooking and other crafty things, so naturally I am completely addicted to Pinterest. I'm also passionate about incorporating technology into my classroom. I use my SmartBoard and iPad daily during class time, and am always looking for new ways for students to interact with technology to improve and encourage learning.