Ask The Owls

Ask the Owls is a new service for teachers to connect with students online.   Ask the Owls is set up so that any teacher who has a background in any area can share that knowledge with the world in an online virtual classroom.  Signing up as a teacher will get you the designation of an "owl".  Once you are registered you will need to create a short course description that will be shared with the community.  You will also need to upload your handouts for the course and then schedule a time for the class to meet.  To teach a class you will need a webcam and a microphone.  During the broadcast of your class there is even a chat box so that your "students" can use it while you are presenting.

If you are looking to share your course on Ask the Owls you can choose to keep it private for just your students or you can open it up to the public.  For those of you looking to learn rather than teach you can search the community listings and sign-up for as many courses as you like as long as there is space available (currently the max is 10).

Now What?

Ask the Owls seems to be a great way for teachers to learn some new skills (summer pd?) or share their knowledge with others.  This would also be a great way for someone who is tutoring students outside of school to manage the transportation issues that sometimes get in the way of meeting up in person.

Ted Ed

Ted Ed is a collection of educational lessons created by educators and then animated by professionals.  These lessons can be searched by theme (e.g. inventions that shaped history) or subject (e.g. mathematics, social studies).  In line with the idea of the flipped classroom, all videos are accompanied by a lesson which the students can watch prior to coming to class in order to be prepared for the activity or discussion.  With registration, you can share lessons with your students and then view their progress or as student you can track your learning from lesson to lesson.  Each video lesson on Ted Ed is accompanied by a Quick Quiz with multiple choice comprehension questions, a thinking question which is open-ended to help students think more critically about what they have watched, and further resources which help students to explore the topic further.  One great feature of Ted Ed is the ability to "flip" the lessons by changing up any of the associated content including quiz questions and resources.  You can even grab a video from YouTube (including your own) and create a lesson using the Ted Ed site.

Now What?

Ted Ed is a great extension of the original Ted Talks website where innovative ideas are born and bred.  Using Ted Ed teachers can create an environment for their flipped classroom or self-created videos.  Although the site is new, there are plenty of lessons already to search and with the ability for users to add to the community it promises to only get more and more impressive.

Present Me

Present.Me is a new beta website where you can upload your PowerPoint presentations and then record audio and video using a webcam to present your presentation.  I think Present.Me is a pretty cool site if you are into the whole flipped classroom thing.  Present.Me could also be a great tool for use in the differentiated classroom where you have students working in small groups on different mini lessons.  Creating a presentation on the site is very simple.  First you upload your PPT file and then you record your slide by slide narration using your webcam.  I really found this site to be easy to use and like the idea of creating a lesson that students could follow independently.  Check out the "presi" that I created on primary and secondary sources below...





Now What?

If you are someone who doesn't mind being in front of the camera like me you can really get into the idea of presenting your presentations for students to view inside or outside of school.  Present.Me is a great way to help students who miss class and also a time saver for you as a teacher once you have your lessons created.

Show Me

Cross-posted on Free Technology for Teachers

As the technology integration teacher for Seymour Public Schools in Seymour, CT, I get to spend a lot of time exploring new tools which make teaching and learning more engaging and ultimately more successful for students.  Earlier this year, I discovered one of these tools called Show Me, which is an online learning community for students of all ages.  My initial thought was that it was just another Khan Academy.  The difference, I quickly discovered, was that on Show Me you can also create your own lessons...not just watch.  This makes Show Me a very powerful educational tool.

As a student looking to learn about a particular topic you can search Show Me by topic and subject.  As a teacher, you can create your own videos or assign one from the community for students to view.  If you would rather share your knowledge with your class (or the world) a la Khan Academy, you will need to download the free iOS app.  Currently there is not an app available for Android device but Show Me has plans to develop one in the future.  Once you have created something on Show Me you can share it with the world or keep it personal.  Sharing is made easy with one click posting to Facebook and Twitter as well as through the use of the embed code for websites.

Moving foward, Show Me seems to be in the initial stages of building a database of SAT preparation videos.  This would be a tremendous resource for high school students and also can be used as an exemplar for how to create an effective tutorial on Show Me.  On the website there is also a link to their blog called the Show Me Voice which has some great information for teachers looking to integrate Show Me into their classroom.  I found a “How To” section and some featured videos from the public community to be very useful.

Using Show Me, teachers and students have the ability to both teach and learn from the community of videos.  Used as a student directed activity, Show Me empowers students to think about a topic and how it should be presented.  As educators, we know that the highest level of understanding is achieved when a student knows the material well enough to teach it.  Show me give students that opportunity through the use of technology.  Below is an example of a simple lesson on the parts of the tuba created by a Seymour High School student in @Brandt Schneider’s class:

Now What?

If you have some iPads in your classroom it’s time to get recording!  Use Show Me to assess your students rather than using a paper and pencil.  Creating an account on Show Me is free and will have you up and running in seconds.  A tip for beginners is to use a stylus with the iPad to have more control over your drawing.  Also, In order to create more advanced videos you can pause your recording and then clear the canvas which will simulate a multi-page file.  Have fun!

Learn Zillion

Learn Zillion is website similar to Khan Academy where teachers can assign video lessons for students to watch in order to learn a concept.  Learn Zillion is a little different however in the fact that the lessons are organized by the Common Core Standards only in the area of Math.  Browsing the site, I noticed that the videos were of excellent quality and each lesson had an accompanying lesson plan in MS Word and MS PPT.  As a teacher on this site you can create a class and invite students (students need e-mail address to sign up).  Once you have a class setup, you can then select one lesson or create a playlist of lessons on a certain topic broken out by the CCS.  At any time you can review your students progress and completion of assignments and even download the data to a .csv file in MS Excel.  In the near future, Learn Zillion will even allow parents to track their child's progress so that they can work with them at home as well.

Now What?

Unlike some other educational bloggers, I don't believe that the flipped classroom is the answer to all of our education issues.  I do however believe that Learn Zillion is an excellent tool to be used in addition to what is already being done in the classroom.  I really like the idea of instruction being differentiated as students fill in their own gaps in learning.  I also see value in the fact that the teacher can create a playlist for students in a certain skill and have them complete the lessons at their pace.  This would be an excellent way for teachers to track their students progress and assign meaningful lessons that match their specific needs.

Show Me

Finally an app for all of those Missourians who need to be shown how to do something rather than told.  Show Me is actually a chip off of the old Khan Academy block where anyone can be a learner.  The difference is that with Show Me...anyone can be a teacher.  The iPad only app (for now) is based on the idea of the interactive whiteboard and creating with a finger or a stylus.  Check out the sample lesson created by a student at Seymour High School (taught by @brandtschneider) about the parts of the Tuba.





Now What?
Show Me could be used as an assessment/presentation tool for students with Ipad access or if you are lucky enough to have a class set of iPads like Allison Sheridan at LoPresti.  As a basketball coach, I can see this being used to breakdown plays and go over offensive and defensive sets.