Category: Lesson Plans/Activities/Ideas

Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media (NCTIES)

I’m enjoying the North Carolina Technology in Education Society’s 2010 Conference in Raleigh, NC. I’m excited about being one of the featured speakers and having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more.

Today I’ll be sharing a pre-conference workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. This energetic session will demonstrate that with freely available digital technologies students can demonstrate their understanding of course content in multiple ways (images, audio, video, presentations, artwork, and more). Each student’s end product (learning artifact) allows them to personally self-express their understanding/mastery of the content/skills. Although teachers may not be comfortable using all of today’s technology it is important to consider allowing students to use it to communicate their understanding as they are often more naturally able to more fully express themselves with digital media. The PowerPoint presentation is below and the full workshop notes are available on my wiki. Note that the links and logos in the PowerPoint presentation are clickable.

Publishing to AudioBoo from a Web Browser

Our kids and I have a lot of fun with AudioBoo. AudioBoo is a service that makes podcasting and audio blogging a snap and can positively impact your classroom (See previous posts1, 2, 3 and 4). Although the service has previously pretty much been limited to iPhone users it is now available to everyone. Here’s a screencast demonstrating how to use their recently released BrowserBoo feature which makes it possible to record to AudioBoo through any web browser.

Here’s the sample Boo that I created during the screencast above.

Listen!

You can browse through my AudioBoo profile page to look through many other examples of boos that the kids and I have published.

I strongly encourage all teachers to take a look at AudioBoo. Whether or not you choose to use it as a teacher I believe there are students in your classroom that would enjoy using it and benefit from engaging this learning modality.

Sign-up for your AudioBoo account, friend me and other educators, and begin enjoying the valuable contributions this can bring you and your students.

Reply to Miguel Guhlin

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 006

Yesterday’s blog post by Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin) caused me to think…and that caused me to want to share and think out loud…and now I’d really like to know how others respond…so…please read Miguel’s brief post about the Google Teacher Academy application process, then view my reply below and share your response.

I’d definitely appreciate it. 🙂

Please share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Seesmic conversation (Think video-based Twitter).

Connecting the Classroom and Outside World (Feedback Requested)

Educators, what are some strategies for connecting the classroom with the outside world?

NOTE: I’d like to share responses in an upcoming workshop/presentation and on my blog and wiki. You can submit your ideas using the form below, share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond via Twitter, Plurk or on your blog using the tag #thruwalls. You can also view the compiled database of suggested strategies on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively.

Share this post using http://tr.im/104.

Conversation tag: #thruwalls

Multiple Representations of Understanding with Technology

These are the slides from my first Tennessee Educational Technology Conference presentation. Unfortunately the animations and effects were lost when uploaded to SlideShare. I’ve shared my notes and resources from this presentation over on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. I hope to create a Vidcast or SlideCast of this presentation once I return home and things settle down.

I demonstrated that with freely available digital technologies students can demonstrate their understanding of course content in multiple ways (images, audio, video, presentations, artwork, and more). Each student’s end product (learning artifact) allows them to personally self-express their understanding of the content/mastery of the skills. Although teachers may not be comfortable using all of today’s technology it is important to consider allowing students to use it to communicate their understanding as they are often more naturally able to more fully express themselves with digital media.

View more presentations from Clif Mims.

Conference Tag: #tetc

Research and Collaborate with SimplyBox

SimplyBox is a free service that allows you to visually capture any part of a web page. As you collect items that you captured, you organize them in boxes. You can then share these items or boxes with friends, colleagues, … the world. The result is: efficient and visual collaboration around content. They call it “content networking.” (Source)

Overview

Research

  • Collect only the parts from a web page that you want.
  • Write your notes/comments on the content you found.
  • Have a direct link back to the sites each of your items were collected from.

Student Collaboration

  • Collect into a box useful content from the web and add your comments to it.
  • Share the box with your students, even if they are not SimplyBox users.
  • The students can add their comments and content.

Connecting Beyond the Classroom

  • Create boxes with content related to the different topics you teach.
  • Exchange the boxes with other teachers (even if in different schools!.
  • Have them help you find more content and engage their classes in the discussion.

Kids Get Creative with AudioBoo

In episode 3 of Thinking Out Loud I pondered ways that AudioBoo might be integrated with teaching and learning. I shared a few ideas that sprang to mind and invited you to share your ideas and examples. I want to share a couple of AudioBoos that our two youngest children put together.

Listen!

Listen!

It is important to note that these 2 kids are young. They selected their topics, identified the major points that they wanted to share, recorded their interviews without rehearsing, and selected the title and images for their boos. They did this with minimal assistance from me. They learned to use the AudioBoo iphone app, planned their interview, and recorded and published both boos in well under 30 minutes. It was a fun and educational activity for all three of us!

Educational Uses
I encourage you to join me in exploring the potential classroom uses of this technology. Please share your thoughts and examples as text, audio or video comments. Together we learn more!

AudioBoo in the Classroom (Thinking Out Loud #3)

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 003

Listen!

It’s Good to Be Back, Again!

Kannapolis City SchoolsI’m excited to be working with Kannapolis City Schools again. I spent 4 weeks here last summer and I’m back for the 2nd time this summer. I’m helping provide professional development for part of their grant funded technology integration initiative called IMPACT. I’ve been asked to facilitate the following workshops:

Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics by clicking on the session titles above and adding your contribution to the Notes and Resources from My PLN section at the bottom of each wiki. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor.

Together we all learn more!

VoiceThread in the Classroom

Tom Barrett, developed the below presentation. It is full of strategies and tips for effectively integrating VoiceThread with teaching and learning.