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!