Exploring Media and Student Voice - From iMovie to Facebook

I had the privilege to participate in another Oregon Migrant Leadership Institute for high school students. We use videos and media as springboards to discussion surrounding the migrant population, leadership, goal setting, challenges, and more. Two college mentors facilitate discussion and lead participants in using iPads to create their own videos in a few hours. Check out the big ideas and videos in the dropdown menu we use for springboards to conversation. The Tech Activities serves as a guide for our process. Once participants complete a video on the iMovie app, it is uploaded to a Facebook page.

Here's 2016 Session 1 page and 2016 Session 2 page. A big shoutout to all of the OSU college staff who make the OMLI a meaningful experience! Thanks to Jose Perucho for this overview video of session 1.

Migrant Youth Voices on iPads and Blogs

I presented at NCCE 2014.  The basic concept of the presentation is giving underrepresented students a voice, bringing out the super hero in them, and allowing them to speak on topics of interest to them through the use of emerging technologies. The inspiration of this presentation is from the Oregon Migrant Leadership Institutions (OMLI) I've participated in at Oregon State University for the past five summers.  The presentation gives high school participant examples from the OMLI and reflects on tech integration from the perspective of a learning educator.

http://prezi.com/ontt6uhguty1/migrant-youth-voices/

Here are related posts about the OMLI experiences.
Giving Students a Voice with iPads and iMovies
Student Voice with Tablets vs Pens
Summer Camp Experiences Recorded with Weebly, Animoto, and Educreations

A Different Kind of Normal

I love the view out of my window today.  Each gust of wind whisks a cascading twirl of leaves that settle in my yard, beckoning for my kiddo and dog to rake and splash them about before packaging them for compost.   Beyond the beauty of the fall, I love my view outside and inside my window because it is my view. Mine. I have chosen it and make it my own on a daily basis.  I invite people I care about to fill the space about me and to create and share my view.

As much as I love returning to my view, I find value in traveling. It’s a process to see beyond the first glimpse that a new view offers—to peer deeper into the everyday lives of the people who inhabit the space, the space they invite me into.  The sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes; they all contribute to the reality of my growing worldview.

I recall the first time I saw a favela in Brazil. It was almost too much (no it was too much) for my aspiring middle-class, twenty-something, American mind to process.  Also imprinted upon my memory is a moment in Bolivia while crossing a bridge-- my experience up until that point in time told me I traversed over a garbage dump; but a glimpse of an orphaned street child huddled into a drain pipe cemented the realization it was a home to someone. It left me numb and silent.  I searched the procedures-- the laws that didn't allow me to adopt that child, or another little one half-wrapped in bright colored, dingy llama wool peering up from under a bridge.

Years later, after seeing countless similar views, my mind still doesn’t process these sights.  It doesn’t because it’s simply not fair, and I should find it unsettling!  Yet, I now realize the people inhabiting these spaces have unique voices that reach beyond my silence.  Beyond. Silence. Mine.  Kids in poverty. Their voices reach beyond anything we pretend makes sense. 

Simultaneously, I never cease to be amazed by the juxtaposition of joy and rich culture that is experienced within these spaces.  Through reading; discussion of space, design and architecture; traveling; and technology, I continue to expand the view beyond my window. 

Ingenious Homes in Unexpected Places is a TED Talk by Iwan Baan that recently expanded my view. It is something you must watch! Through photography, he shows how people build homes in unlikely places.  I continue to reflect on Baan’s phrase, “a different kind of normal.”

Bann’s talk reminds me of The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra in Paraguay, where three of my favorite people in the world live.

It also brings up connections to James Mollison’s photography in his books, Hungry and Where Children Sleep.   (Hint: Use the “next” button to view Mollison’s photos. They are worth it!)

The related issue of poverty is NOT a problem that only exists outside of my home country.  All I have to do is look beyond my window’s view within my state, within my neighborhood. Some of the struggle of families in my own back yard are highlighted in the documentary,  American Winter, that follows eight families in Portland, Oregon. 

This has direct implications for us as educators.  Here’s some information from the program I work in about cultural and linguistic diversity in Oregon’s schools.  These kids and families ARE our community. We ALL have a responsibility.

It’s not enough, but through technology, I am slowly finding a way to both hear and give voice to those in poverty, to those who don’t have access to the basics such as clean water and food, yet whose voices capture the complexity of the human spirit in music, art, compassion-- found in spaces they make their own.  Their voices shape my view and push me to look at a different kind of normal.

Quick Byte: Google Science Fair 2012 and TEDx Women Winners from 2011

Encourage students to enter Google’s Science Fair.  It’s the world’s largest global online science fair in its second year.  It’s open for kids ages 13-18. The submission deadline is April 1, 2012.  They are accepting submissions in 13 different languages.  Click here to read details.  Here’s Google’s official blog post about the fair.  There are some nice prizes including a scientific trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Explorer.  Last year, Google received some criticism from The New York Times implying that it was a marketing scheme.  Here’s an interesting article from MindShift addressing the topic.

My interest in the fair was initially sparked when earlier in the week I watched TEDx Women with last year’s young women winners Shree Bose, Naomi Shah and Lauren Hodge.  “You go girls!” was the first thought that came to mind as I watched the excitement in these young ladies’ voices as they presented their scientific findings.  So, if you don’t advocate for the Google Science Fair, at least pass on some enthusiasm for science and the belief that young people can achieve amazing things by showing these role models in the below TED Talks video.

Teaching With TED Talks

I love using TED Talks as springboards into discussions or projects with my adult English language learners.  Some of my personal favorites are ones that have visuals, art, or music.  Besides being intrinsically engaging, they make differentiating easier due to the universality of the topics. 

This Ted Talks, Stories Cut from Paper by Betrice Coron, could be fun to use in class.  Watch it, read suggestions for using it, and explore some related Ted Talks links.

TED Talks lend themselves to dogme language teaching opportunities and authentic uses of language.  Another way I might use this in an adult ESOL classroom would go something like this:

1. Watch the video together with subtitles on.  (Possibly have a list of vocabulary pre-selected that teacher pronounces before watching and class discusses what they already know about the words.)
2. Divide the class into small groups or partners and have them separately interpret an assigned section of the video.  There could be some guidelines outlined in a checklist such as: teach us new vocabulary from your section or related to your section, interpret the art in your section, relate the art to something else you have seen, read, or experienced, etc.
3. Small groups present, teach their sections, and facilitate discussion.  Discussion could be extended in writing on a class blog.
4. Watch the complete talk together again as a class.
5. Extended learning with an activity that promotes students telling their own stories in creative ways. (See Rives Tells a Story of Emoticons.) Again, I would use guidelines in a rubric or checklist and have this part of a project.  It could be possible to incorporate all modes of language—reading, writing, listening, and speaking in the process.

Below are some of my other favorite TED Talks on the arts (often integrated with science) that lend themselves to dogme language teaching or projects that allow students to bring in their voice, experiences, and make connections.   Many of them are challenging for intermediate to advanced ELLs, but in my experience if scaffolded, some interesting sometimes unexpected conversation arises.  Others lend themselves perfectly to discussion based upon the visuals or music alone.

• Augmented Reality, Techno Magic Marco Tempest July 2011 (5:45 min)
  
• Art Made of Storms Nathalie Miebach July 2011 (4: 19 min.) 
• How I Became 100 Artists Shea Hembrey  March 2011 (16:48 min.) 
• A Virtual Choir 2000 Voices Strong Eric Whitacre April 2011 (14:35 min.) 
• Ze Frank’s Web Playroom  Oct. 2010 (18 min) 
• Rives Tells a Story of Emoticons Oct 2008 (3:15 min)

Don't miss Huff Post the Best of TED 2011 countdown.  Feel free to explore my past posts on TED Talks.  What are some of your favorite TED Talks for classroom use?  What are some ways you use them in the class?

Robot Heart Stories and Other Global Collaborative Projects

Over the past few weeks, I have browsed global collaborative projects out of curiosity.  What ways can classrooms use technology to gain a wider global perspective, to share, to connect, to learn together?  How are these types of programs shaping education? Are there ways of allowing kids and adults who speak different languages to work together?  If there are, are they only for the privileged?  How will these types of programs shape the way those who participate in them view the world and its possibilities?

With these questions and ideas in mind, I stumbled upon a project called Robot Heart Stories.  It is an experiential learning program and is an example of how transmedia storytelling is connecting geographically separated and linguistically different classes in education.  Watch this video clip. 

Robot Heart Stories from WorkBook Project on Vimeo.

Read the Robot stories here.  View the robot’s journal here from Montreal to LA.  Wow, even a quick scan of these materials showcases collaborative, creative learning across the content areas in French and English!

How interesting!  I’m not sure what this means, but I think it indicates the times are a changing. <3

Here are some links to other collaborative projects on our Ed Sites tab.

• Digiteen and Digiparent 
• ePals Global Community 
• Flat Classroom Projects 
• iearn 
• Kidlink  
• Skype in the Classroom  
• Youth Voices
• The Happiness Project

Happy global collaboration!

See, Feel, Hear, Touch, and Capture Vocabulary

Like so many of you, I’m always on the look-out for interesting ways of teaching vocabulary.  From math, to science, to English, etc.—each content area has vocabulary words that we introduce.    In the ESOL/Bilingual Ed courses I teach, we look at ways of integrating both the everyday language, which helps give our students a voice, as well as the academic language embedded in meaningful contexts that they need in academia.  How can we help our students see, hear, feel, touch, and maybe even smell or taste new words?  How can they record and share their learning?

Check out Shelly Terrell’s slide share.

Visualizing Vocabulary with Your Students

Shelly’s slide share is packed full of ideas, so I’m using it as a springboard for this post. 

• Some of these are tried and true no tech suggestions with examples like word walls (slide 7), which can also be done with online stickies like Linoit, Primary Wall, etc. 
• I’m off to look at the voicethread (slide 10) because I have used voicethread with vocabulary and beyond with success in the classroom and am really excited about the new voicethread app.
• Several of her suggestions such the word cloud Tagul (slide 12), Word Stash (slide 19-20), and Wordia (slides 21-24), I have blogged about and/or are found on our student’s tab.  There are also a lot of additional vocabulary games and sites on our student’s tab to explore. 
• Triptico (slide26) is a new one that I recently downloaded and am in the process of experimenting with.   It contains several useful tools like word magnets, what’s the question, and more assessable via your desktop.  It’s a fun way to involve the whole class in learning vocabulary.  Parts of it remind me of Classtools.net which I also use for vocabulary plus.
• Type in a sentence or story, and Flickr Poet  (slide 27)  produces it in picture form.

Scroll down through some related posts, videos, and examples I have made on vocabulary.  They include developing vocabulary with word clouds, online dictionaries and my vocabulary class Glogster.  In passing, I will mention that it amazes me how the sites I use continue to improve and many new vocabulary related sites continue to pop up.  For example, shortly after posting about Lexipedia, I discovered Visuwords.  Personally, I find all these sites worth exploring because they can be used for various purposes or with different age groups. 

Met Ed (Applications):  The sites within this post can be used alone within a lesson. They often work well with class discussion.  Many of them can also be used independently by students or as resources.  In addition, they can be used as a springboard for creating your own versions with the technology available to you or sometimes even with no tech.  For example, I love the videos on Wordia, but not all of the words my students need to search are found there.  I’d love to have my students take words from a unit of study and create their own picture gallery, videos or other type of media that we can then share with upcoming classes. 

Share your ideas (low tech or high tech), favorite sites, and experiences of teaching vocabulary either by commenting or emailing us.   How do you make vocabulary come alive?

*A thanks to Shelly Terrell for her slideshare and many amazing things she shares.  More to come in a future post about the many contributions Shelly makes to ed tech and my personal learning.

What is Standard English and Related Questions for Teachers

What is Standard English?  What are the various perspectives of it? How can it act as a gatekeeper?  Do our views of it shape how we approach language learning, teaching, and assessing?  How do these types of discussions fit into critical pedagogy?  These are the types of questions my College of Ed course have discussed. Watch the following engaging short videos and read the article about Linda Christensen  to continue reflection on these and related questions.

Punctuation Saves Lives

Language (See my previous post about Stephen Frye’s video here.)

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.

Discussion: How do the views voiced by Linda Christensen in this article on the National Writing Project site tie into the discussion? How can bringing in the everyday language in ways such as this site called Pop Lit  relate to teaching academic language and content?  Continue the discussion by sharing your thoughts or related links.

Tech and Ed Play With Web 2.0 Tools: Part 2 Jing and Other Screencasting Tools

Jing is a screencasting tool with tons of creative potential in education.  It belongs both in the hands of instructors and students across content areas and ages.  This post briefly highlights Jing and other screencasting tools as a part of the Tech and Ed Play With Web 2.0 Tools series.

Getting Started With Jing:  Last year, I was a guest blogger at the Teacher Challenge blog.  Here'sa LINK to my post. It’s where I suggest going to get familiar with Jing!  It walks you through downloading it, gives examples of how I use it as a self introduction, to return feedback to my students, and more. 

More of My Jing Examples:

How-to’s and diections:  Most of the video recording I do on this blog is with the Pro version of Jing, such as this video about online timelines like dipity.  I also find it useful for describing weekly expectations and assignments in my online classes.

In the hands of students: Here's another post about a project from my adult ESOL vocabulary class.  Within a matter of minutes, students created a Jing video using my laptop.  Their example is embedded in the Glogster along with more of their creations, but it can also be accessed via this direct link.  Oh, and I can’t make a post without highlighting my favorite use of Jing created by a 4^th grader.

Other Screencasting Tools: There are also a growing number of similar free screencasting tools. A few of them are highlighted under on my screencasting page.  I have found that my students who want to work from home don’t always want to download Jing onto their computers, so these offer some alternatives.

Here’s an example of a similar screencasting tool called Screen-O-Matic combined with Go Animate that one of my former College of Ed students, Jessica Coleman, created about SLA.

 

Screencasting Apps and Additional Resources:  It's also great to see some similar screen capturing apps for ipad such as Screen Chomp and Show Me.   As these become increasingly more functional, they allow us to use iPads in digital storytelling, etc. with relative ease.  One of my favorite ESOL bloggers, Silvia Tolisano, who blogs at Langwitches offers a lot of examples and step-by-step guides for using screencasting tools in the class.  Check out her blog and search for screencasting tools, digital storytelling, and ipads. 

Discussion:  What experiences do you have using Jing or other screencasting tools?  Feel free to share links to your creations or contact us if you would like to use this blog as a platform to share some of your students’ creations if appropriate.

Happy screencasting!

Quick Byte: One Day on Earth 11-11-11

Participate in this global collaboration by uploading a short video clip on 11-11-11, or just enjoy the One Day on Earth project 11-11-11.  Watch this video trailer to learn more.

Don't miss the 10-10-10 Geo Map!  Click on a country of your choice and zoom in to watch a video or two.  I viewed a few from some places I have traveled, and a flood of memories reminded me of the injustices of the world juxtaposed against indescribable beauty.

Keep your eyes on this site.  I will share it with my Exploring the World class!  It promises to encourage open dialogue on topics of social justice.  How can you use it in your classroom?

Quick Byte: The Global Education 2011 Conference Nov. 14-18

I continue to be intrigued by the number and quality of online free virtual conferences.  The Global Education 2011 Conference Nov. 14-18 looks promising!  Watch this trailer video here.  The keynote presenters include Howard Gardner, Ed Gragert (Executive Director of iEarn USA), Alan November of November Learning and others.  Here’s a complete list of keynote speakers and their bios.

The conference mission statement begins as follows: “The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for building education-related connections around the globe while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity. “ Read more of the mission here. It sounds promising for educators K-20 and perfect for those of us involved in my field of ESOL/Bilingual Education.

Here’s the link to the sessions and schedule.  It will be held on Blackboard Collaborate.  The conference hashtag is #GlobalEd11.

This is another conference founded by Steve Hargadon.  Explore the Global Education site to discover more opportunities.

Happy learning!

Try Blogging with 180 High School Students. It Works!

Imagine 40 computers in use.  The tip tap of typing fills the room.  Partners in the front read aloud their writing to each other while editing.  Two classmates in the back chat about how to get started on their posts.  A staff member reminds a student of the resources available to find a synonym.  Both English and Spanish bounce around the room. This is in part what Kacey and I experienced at the Oregon Migrant Leadership Institute (OMLI) where about 180 high school migrant students blogged.

The past two years, I have developed the institutes’ blog and lead the students in blogging.  In addition to working with the participants, I have had the pleasure of working with the college-aged staff.  It is simply amazing to watch the college students mentor the high school participants.  The seized learning opportunities and transformation of the students and staff is inspiring.  Every time I partake, I receive more than I give from this amazing group of young people who have so much to offer society and our future.

During the 2010 OMLI sessions, we started small scale and were in a small computer lab, but we grew  this year.  There was limited time to blog—four, fifty minute sessions.  The sessions consisted of basic blogging instruction, technology discussions such as digital footprints, and writing instruction.  They offered participants a taste of what it is like to be in a university lab and exposure to the writing process.  Perhaps most importantly to students, they were able to record some of their experiences and thoughts.  Take a look at some of their work in the links that follow!

Session 2: Thank you for your patience and persistence as we problem solved when the network was down on the last day.  You demonstrated leadership skills by sticking with the blogging experience.   

Session 3: It amazed me how concentrated you were on writing and producing your best. You had some amazing uninterrupted time to write due to your dedication.  Your developed writing with details and description, given your time constraints speaks for itself.

Kacey graciously filled in for me in my absence during session 1.  Here’s a comment from her.

Session 1: Thank you for your hard work in your first adventure in blogging.  I learned a lot from you and hope to hear how things are going.  

Staff: We both thank you for helping with technology questions, the writing process, and commenting.  We also appreciate reading your point of view on the staff blog!

Our take aways:  We both had fun exploring blogging with a group of this size.  Cheridy also experimented more with Picasa, setting up and managing multiple blogs, and Prezi.   In addition, we were reminded of the importance of having a low tech plan B, and glad when one kicked in when the Internet was down one of the sessions!  Just try blogging without Internet.

Listen up participants!  The teacher in us will say it one more time:  "I" doesn't want to be small.  Don't hurt it's feelings.    Don't forget to use your resources. For those of you who expressed interest in continuing blogging, email us your blog url address if you keep it up.  Happy blogging! 

TEDx Redmond: It Doesn't Get Much Better!

Last week, my TCE classes explored the importance of setting high expectations for our students. This is also a topic Kacey and I have discussed as well. Do we give students enough responsibility and trust? Do we give them the necessary tools and empower them to take learning in their own hands? Do we allow them to have a voice? What would happen if we did more of these things? Perhaps TEDx Redmond offers us a glimpse of the possibilities.

Watch some of the excellent TEDx Redmond video clips of children and young adults talking with passion. Bob Sprankle has made them easily accessible on his blog Bit by Bit.

Watch this video of Perry Chen entitled For the Love of Movies! It will be obvious why I chose to highlight it.



I also recommend Cayle Diefenbach's talk Preserving Heritage.




TEDx Redmond was initiated by Adora Svitak. You can listen to her interview podcast on Seedlings show 94. Check out the line-up of TEDxRedmond speakers.

Happy viewing!