Exploring Social Justice with Storybird

This is the second in a series of two posts where in a brief assignment, my students explored Social Justice integrated with technology and I share their results with a wider audience.  (Take a look at the first post on Thinglink accessible here.)  This post highlights Storybird, an online visual storytelling site. It had been a few years since I played with Storybird, and I was happy to see the teacher account now includes ways of managing classes and assigning projects.  Check it out!

Here are a few of my students’ creations and thoughts about Storybird:

http://storybird.com/books/some-girls-6/

“I really enjoyed using Storybird, even if it did take me a bit longer to finish than I would have liked. The artwork available for use is simply amazing, and if you use the right search words you can find exactly what you need. I loved being able to customize my own story, and this could be a great tool for a specific problem or occurrence in your classroom. My story was pretty simplistic, hoping to be for a younger audience; however, it is about celebrating our differences. It's pretty superficial but with more time and using more resources it could be great! Enjoy :)”  (EN)

http://storybird.com/books/what-happened-to-our-food-and-homes-by-kl/

“I really wanted to create a story about how humans affect animals’ environment for young elementary students. I wanted to show students that people do affect others by their actions by showing how we affect pandas, foxes, rabbits, and polar bears. There is a little bit of a science part to the story because people do affect the environment with global warming.”  (KL)

http://storybird.com/books/the-spotted-bird-family/?token=vz8s66cbmv

“I liked using Storybird http://storybird.com/teachers/ to create my book because you can choose an image style and they give you a wide selection of images in that same style to use as your book illustrations. Sometimes, however, the images did not really fit what your image of the right image for the page should have been, so you have to be flexible. I was surprised how easy it was, but coming up with the content to put in the book was a little more difficult. I found my book turned out pretty superficial and with a lot more time, I would have liked to come up with a more intricate story that delved a little deeper into social justice issues, tackling some of the Bomer & Bomer article points. However, I think this would be a great way for ELLs to simplify what they have learned into a short story, concreting their knowledge and using language to describe what they learned. If they did a screen-cast or presented it in class, that would also give them speaking practice too.” KG 

Thanks to my students for their work and willingness to share!

Exploring Social Justice with Thinglink

This term, I assigned a short mini assignment for my students to play with some technologies that can be easily used in Digital Storytelling, working with English Language Learners, and in exploring topics of Social Justice.  We have also been talking about the power of visuals and video.  They had several choices, but most of them chose Thinglink, Storybird, or Tagxedo.  This is the first in two posts that will highlight these sites, showcase student creations, and look at potential uses.  (Access post two about Storybird here.)

Here is a past post I wrote about Thinglink that discusses what it is.  Be sure to move your mouse over the picture and click on the dots to discover the links.  Explore some of my students' creations and read their reflections.

Women’s Suffrage

Children Living in Poverty

 

“Once we saw the example in class, I had a ton of ideas in my head of what I wanted to do. I chose to do child poverty because it is an issue that cannot be brought up enough. I focused a lot on the United States because most people don't realize how bad this issue really is.  Children deserve better than what we are doing, and it needs to be brought to the attention of others. I chose to do five different links on the picture of a child who is clearly struggling. One link that I chose to use was the NCCP website, which has state information, data tools, and news about child poverty. The second I used was a link to a Youtube video that gives some basic information and then had a very sad piece of children talking about what it is like to be hungry. The third link is the No Kid Hungry site. It discusses the problem, solution, and how to take action. The forth is a made of 35 countries and shows the poverty rate in each country. The fifth is a link to the Voices site which has articles and facts about child poverty. This was a really fun assignment and I thought it was a great way to learn about some new technologies! Some of these sites could be used to talk to older grades about this issue and what we can do to help make a change. This site could be very fun for students to make their own with many different topics. I plan on using this again in the future!” KW

Positive Body Image

“I decided to create a story about positive body image because I really enjoy talking about body image and find it very interesting to learn about. I think that it is important for students to know what positive body image is and that every individual is beautiful no matter who they are. Talking about this topic can be applied to any grade level and can open up the door to talking about how the media's representation of beauty is distorted because of the use of Photoshop. Teachers can also talk about how society creates this notion of beauty that is unrealistic as well as talking about stereotypes that are associated with body image. The goal is to give students the resources to have a positive body image of themselves and teach them not to base judgment on how another person looks.“ LW 

Civil Rights

 

“Using this tool would be easy for any subject. I think that students would find this useful for research projects. I think that I may use this as a resource in student teaching, as well as my remaining college courses!!” MF

Lyndon Johnson

 

“I used Thinglink because it is a very interesting concept and has so much potential for all grades. I love history, especially the Kennedys, and so I decided to use a picture taken after JFK was assassinated and LBJ was being sworn in. I can see how this would be interesting for students because they can easily find out additional information just by following the links on the picture.”   KC

Thanks to my students for their creativeness and willingness to share!

The Teachers Should See This: Let Them Own It

My class watched Alan November’s TEDxNYED and had an engaging discussion on it.  I pulled out a few of the main concepts and quotes they selected to discuss.  My young guest blogger then helped me create the below video using Camtasia and Flickr Poet. Enjoy!

With all of this whirling about in my brain, I enjoyed a Seedling book talk on chapter 2: “Students as Tutorial Designer” of Alan November’s book, Who Owns the Learning?  Here’s a link to their chapter 1: “Welcome to the Digital Farm” book talk.  It's all good stuff!

Can you guess what’s next on my ed tech reading list?  Happy watching/reading!

(This post was co-created with my young guest blogger.)

Ed and Tech Play With Web 2.0 Tools Part 3: VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a handy, easy-to-use tool in education with potential for digital storytelling and beyond.  It can be used to hold debates, explain, describe, persuade, etc.  It allows participants to interact on one platform in five different ways: writing, recording audio, doodling, video, or phone.   My online class will soon be experimenting with VoiceThread (VT).  I’ve used it in my College of Ed classes, a middle school classroom, with my adult ESOL classes, and at a personal level for several years now; I continue to see its benefits.

Getting Started and Examples in Education

I presented on VT back in 2007ish and hadn’t returned to the how-to’s since.  I was tickled pink to find that they still have their original (updated) directions. If you don’t get anything else from this post, do yourself a favor today and watch slides 5 and 6! (Use the arrows to access them quickly.) The first avatar still cracks me up.  What a great example of digital storytelling!

Viewable in a lovely world where I never age is my first attempt at a VT. I was surprised when a year after creating it, I returned to it and discovered people from around the world had responded.  It was memorably one of my first “ah ha” moments that this thing called social media, multimedia and digital storytelling had a bright future.  Embedded below is one my kiddo created years ago explaining her learning from a travel experience.

Wondering how to use VT in your content area?  Here are examples from various content areas and age groups aggregated on the VT site.   Search VT within a defined field to see how other educators use them.  For example, in my field I search for ESOL, ESL, EFL, ELL, assessment etc. Michelle Pacansky-Brock is a great resource to follow on Twitter or at Teaching Without Walls as well.

Ways I have used VoiceThread and things that have worked for me

Set-up: A. Use ones already created. (Do a search by browsing on VT.)  B. Make my own that I use either in the classroom or have students respond to.  C.  Guide students in making either a class, group, or individual VTs and in responding to each other.

Instructions/Purpose: It is important to have a clear set of instructions and purpose for the VT assignment. 

Storyboard/Process:  When students create their own VTs, I often have them storyboard their responses first.  This works well in a process oriented assignment.  For ELLs, it gives them the opportunity to use all modes of the language: reading (if they did research on the topic), writing/editing, speaking, and listening.  I provide checklists and grading rubrics with expectations along the way.

Collaboration: I have experimented using VT when working with multiple sections of a class.  I teach two sections of one class, and the students never see each other, but they are able to correspond, discuss questions, etc. via VT.  This also works in online courses when students enter VT from around the world.

Things I have learned as I’ve used VT

Privacy settings: I need to be mindful of students' comfort levels and privacy.  At this point, I do not have any VT that my students have made to share in public because as a class they opted to keep them private for various reasons.

Comfort level: I once had a middle school student who did a phenomenal job on a VT.  He was engaged in a way I hadn’t seen him engaged before.  He put a ton of effort into his VT, from the writing process to recording his voice several times.  When we got ready to share with the class, he hit “delete.” It was beyond his comfort level to share with others.  I think this is important to honor and another great reason if it is a project to be assessing with a rubric and/or checklist along the way.

Recording Issues:  The reality is that the tech doesn’t always work.  With best efforts, particularly in online courses, some students have hardware limitations and experience difficulties recording audio/video.  This is where the writing option comes in handy.

Potential I see in VT beyond what I have done 

Portfolios: VT could be a portfolio for students to showcase their work and reflect. 

Global Collaboration: VT could be exciting to work in a more global way with other classes.

Course Development: It could be fun to add to the same VT with subsequent classes.  This could work great with vocabulary.  Students in Spring term class create VTs for vocabulary on chapter 1 and Fall term create them for chapter 2, etc.

Get started with the free version of VT.  So far with planning, I have been able to use only the free version.  There’s an app for that.  Last year, VT introduced an app.  It’s straightforward to use and allows students yet another way to be mobile with their learning.  

How do you use VT?

Happy VoiceThreading!

Ways to Use Thinglink in Education

Visual literacy is an emphasis in ESOL. The visual aspect helps language learners develop vocabulary and much, much more.  It is also beneficial for many learners.  As an online instructor who wishes to bring more meaningful visuals into the classroom, I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for visuals for adult learners as well.  There are many online options available to us.

When Tech:  Thinglink Education is one option with a lot of potential.  The ThingLink Education site describes it as an “Easy-to-use editor, teachers can create immersive and engaging experiences by adding tags to any image in a few minutes: Create authentic, valuable, and rich interactive stories around historical events using media (video, sound, photos, written words, etc.) found online. Annotate graphs and timelines. Record an instructional message to students inside an image. Embed interactive images into student blogs. Enable students to curate content inside an image to demonstrate understanding of a topic."  

At ISTE, I received a free upgrade to the educator’s account of Thinglink Education, which took me from 50 pictures to 500.  

Met Ed: It may be no surprise that Pinterest is a great starting place to see the potential in education.  Explore the pictures at Thinglink Education on Pinterest. It will take you a few clicks to be able to interact with the picture in its intended way.  (Wave your cursor over the Thinglink and click on the circles.) I found this interesting one there by Mr. Loret’s World History class that demonstrates how students are using it!  Here's another Thinglink jumping place to gather ideas and examples.
 

 

Above is my first try with Thinglink. (Wave your cursor over the words, and click on the circles.) It’s very basic, but it shows me the potential firsthand.  I made this in Tagul and uploaded it to Thinglink.  I’ll use it to introduce a few options of online timelines my students can explore for an upcoming course.  It only took a few minutes to make.  I can imagine linking to videos I upload to You Tube or audio instructions I make on SoundCloud.  There are many possibilities.  With an assignment on theories of SLA, students could link to credible articles, videos, etc. that discuss and describe the theories.  Students could even have a “debate” starting place with the words “yes” and reasons on one picture and “no” and reasons on another.  They could then debate away, either by recording their voices and linking to Vacaroo or SoundCloud or simply by writing reasons on the picture and debating in person.  Thinglink has an option to invite others to work on a picture collaboratively.  There are a ton more possibilities, ways librarians, musicians, and others are using it too.  This Wired article gives an overview of a few.

Happy Thinglinking! 

Popcorn Maker

This TED Talk with Ryan Merkley called, Online Video--Annotated, Remixed, and Popped,  caught my attention. And I'm glad it did!  Watch the short five minute talk to see why. Ryan describes Mozilla's Popcorn Maker.

Watch Popcorn Maker in action as it pulls in information from across the web and augments to another TED Talk that brought a smile to my face today-- Science Is For Everyone with Beau Lotto and Amy O'Toole.

Give Mozilla Popcorn Maker a try.   It's in beta, but looking promising and pretty simple to use.  In a few minutes I pulled in a You Tube video I created and augmented to it with a map, link and annotations.

Met Ed:  The potential applications for tools like this are numerous in education.  What can be done by the average bear like myself leaves me amazed.  Just think what the students can do given some guidance and purpose.

Fun with Typografit, Flickr Poet, Vizlingo, and More for Jan 31st EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival

This is my “fun” contribution to the Jan. 31st EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival hosted by David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0.  In deciding what to contribute, I came to the realization that so much is fun to me, particularly when it includes technology that spurs critical thinking and discussions that my students connect with.   Have fun with a few of the sites and ideas I enjoy, and consider taking my “challenge” at the end!

A.      9 Simple free web 2.0 sites

TYPOGRAFIT and STORIES IN FLIGHT: FLICKR POET

When Tech:  Type text into Typografit or Stories in Flight: Flickr Poet and create something like the image above.  It's fun!  Give Typografit a whirl here and Flickr Poet a try here. Create a word picture and share it.  

Met Ed:  In ESOL or language, students can type in sentences in Typografit and then discuss punctuation and spelling. One of my classes typed in short paragraphs that used our vocabulary.  They then discussed the pictures and how closely they reflected their writing.  Sometimes the pictures were quite different than they expected, and this led to some interesting discussion.

Flickr Poet suggests typing in poems or music to visualize them. I couldn’t resist and typed in a poem from one of my favorite poets, Since Feeling Is First by E.E. Cummings. I then captured it using Jing; it’s viewable here.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have students write poems, use Flickr Poet, and then use a screencast such as Jing to record music that captured the spirit of their poems or their voices reading their creations? Of course, they could just simply read or discuss the results if a low tech route is preferable.  Any of these are bound to be fun and lead to language acquisition. How can Typografit or Flickr Poet be used in your class?

VIZLINGO

When Tech:  Type text into Vizlingo and create something like the video I made below.  You have some choices of videos to include in your final product.  You can even upload your own videos.  Create and share a video here. It’s almost too much fun!

Met Ed:  This can help students visualize vocabulary as well.  It can lead to some interesting discussions about idioms and multiple meanings of words.  Here’s a great post by Nik Peachy that explains it.  Don’t miss Nik’s suggested activities for using it. How can Vizlingo be used in your class?

*A word of caution is that not all the pictures generated on these sites may be appropriate for younger learners.

See more suggested sites on a recent post called, Six Fun Educational Sites.  It highlights Wonderopolis, Shel Silverstein, One World, Many Stories, Geo Greetings, Draw a Stickman, and Balloons of Bhutan.  Explore more fun educational sites on our Ed Sites page.

B.       A few past fun posts that I have done with students’ help.  The potential of fun is unlimited when tech and creativity are at play and the products are shared. 

• Who thinks SLA theories are fun?  I know I do and didn’t think they could get much more interesting until teachers in my College of Ed course helped me create this post using fakebook, Prezi ,and online comic strips.
• How can vocabulary class be spiced up?  My adult ESOL class showed me when they pulled together a Glogster mashup highlighted in this post. 
• Again, although browsing dictionaries is a delight, my adult ESOL students show in their reviews in this post how online dictionaries can make one fall in love with words and definitions in a new manner.

A thank you to David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0 for hosting this carnival.  I highly recommend checking out his site and its many resources!   Oh, and writing this post was a blast!  

Challenge for both of us:  Either A: Use one of the sites in this post and blog about it.  Or  B.  Use one of these sites for educational purposes, drop me a link to one of your creations, and I will compile them together some fun way that I share on this blog.

Happy creating!

Prezi, Online Comic Strips, and Fakebook Integrated in SLA Assignment

Have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone as a student?  How about as a teacher?  I received a lot of comments such as the following from my online College of Ed students, “I stepped outside of my comfort zone in doing this assignment, and I’m glad I did.”  This echoes my sentiment in assigning this assignment. 

Assignment Background: The basic idea of the assignment was to spend an hour playing with technology and demonstrating knowledge of our second language acquisition (SLA) weekly readings.  I’ll be the first to admit that these are rigorous readings when encountered for the first time, so I wanted the students to be able to demonstrate a small portion of their current understanding (which we will continue to build upon throughout the term) in a creative manner.  The suggested methods of doing so were online comic strips, Fakebook, Prezi, or Powerpoint.  I gave some basic guidelines and outlined some possibilities.

I also tried to stress that approximately no more than an hour needed to be spent on the assignment to meet the expectations, sharing in a public way was optional, and ultimately the assignment was to demonstrate understanding of our course objectives—in this case related to SLA theories and technology integration. 

Without further ado, here is the unveiling of their first creations!

PREZIS on SLA  (I was surprised how many students chose to tackle Prezis! Impressive debuts.)

Krashen’s Theories:  
a.  http://bit.ly/s3uAty, 
b.  http://bit.ly/vMPcsQ,  
c. http://bit.ly/w49e40, and 
d. http://bit.ly/sCFYRb

Schumann’s Theory: a. http://bit.ly/sm81Po and b. http://bit.ly/vq7tZ2
 

For info on  Prezi educator’s account, look here.   Today, I signed up for the beta Prezi U for educators.  It sounds promising.

COMICS on SLA:  Humor is displayed in several of these comic strips.   A-D  were made with Make Beliefs Comix.  E-F were made with Strip Generator.  I recommend Make Beliefs Comix due to the ads for K-12.

a . This one has two parts. It is cleverly entitled “Krashen the Party” and is a game.  Part 1 http://bit.ly/sNmHUQ  Part 2  http://bit.ly/vLlBwT  b.  http://bit.ly/utNBZQ  c. http://bit.ly/rFWZLz  d. http://bit.ly/sJ8z2r  e. Schumann’s Theory: http://bit.ly/trP3SM  f. Krashen’s Affective Filter http://bit.ly/sUC3VQ

Make Beliefs Comix suggests 21 ways to use them in the class http://bit.ly/jmIGk, and here are some blank comic strip printables http://bit.ly/97fPQP.

FAKEBOOKS on SLA THEORIES:  This is a spin-off of the Facebook/social media idea in popular culture.  ClassTools.Net is the site used.   Several debates between theorists play out in some of these.  Some are in a question/answer format.           

a. http://www.classtools.net/fb/4/GJBAij   

b. http://www.classtools.net/fb/14/TLMSUG   

c. http://www.classtools.net/fb/37/VkTm6X  

d. http://www.classtools.net/fb/4/S9VPK2 

e. http://www.classtools.net/fb/27/2bEePQ 

f. http://www.classtools.net/fb/16/Si55PJ 

g. http://www.classtools.net/fb/46/5mi4gG

Click HERE to see what the teachers and future teachers had to say about the use of each of these tools with teaching ELLs.

Final Thoughts: I like having this blog as a way to bring both sections of my online classes together to share.  I encourage them to look at their work and continue digging into the theories, questioning and applying.

A few students opted to not share their creations with a larger audience.  I strongly agree that this should be honored without question.  One student did a great job, but had last minute challenges with the technology, which is a reality we face when we deal with technology.  We need to have a plan B for ourselves and students as well as a way to assess the process and not only the final product.  I’d also bet that a lot of technology challenges were overcome and not voiced.  Many interesting conversations about the pros/cons and how-to’s of using these tools are still left to explore.  Feel free to leave your comments. How can you use these tools in your class?

A BIG thank you to ALL of my TCE 572 students for their effort!