Topics and Trends in Tech Integration (ESU 8 Newsletter article)

Topics and Trends in Tech Integration

By Katie Morrow, ESU 8

The following are current technology integration projects and practices that ESU 8 schools have been busy with recently. Remember that the invitation is always open if you see something from this list that you would like to try in your classroom. Contact us at ESU 8 and we would love to help get something planned in your school!

• Digital book creation: A digital book is so much more than a book. Rather it is a container/organizer for all kinds of learning! Use a digital book as an investigation journal, a portfolio, a class collection of pages on a larger topic, or even a way to document a school event. Publish and share with the world without wasting any printer ink!
• Creative media production: Whether a quick project like the greenscreen “Wormhole Challenge” or a class project like content area student-produced videos, students can practice interview skills, speaking skills, editing and creativity. Videos are a universal way to share what is being learned in the classroom with the rest of the world!
• VR and AR: Virtual and augmented reality can bring content to life. Students can experience apps to take them places they couldn’t normally go: for example the inside of body systems or underneath the ocean floor. Also possible is students creating their own VR and AR creations with tools such as Google's Tour Creator, AR Makr app, or Blippar.
• Digital resources for research: Utilize World Book online, Learn 360, or Virtual Field Trips to connect your class with first rate global resources- all with virtually no cost. Avoid simply going on a Google search and use higher quality resources for whatever your next educational project may be.
• Blended Learning and PBL: Here’s a framework or a learning methodology to make your next project more student directed. Student agency empowers learners to be responsible for choices impacting their productivity and understanding of content. Make your next unit more personalized by blending in some project based learning or station rotation experiences.  
• Gamify with assessment tools: Use technology for your next classroom review session and make learning fun! There are so many readily available formative assessment tools that you can choose a new one each unit so students don’t grow tired of any of them. Even some traditional tools have new features, so ask about ways to gamify that next class review session. 
• Learning Management System tools like Canvas or Google Classroom: The easiest way to take technology integration to the next level in your classroom is to employ a system of content delivery and student interaction. Even Apple Classroom has updates to make their newest technology more manageable for all. Work with us to uncover ways your LMS can allow for more productive learning environments. 
• Coding: Expose students to computational thinking by integrating some analog "intro to coding” activities. Or give them time to explore Swift Playgrounds on iPad or the code.org website. Or bring the Sphero programmable robots to your school for a coding kick-off activity. Once you get kids hooked, the sky is the limit for their future!

For additional ideas and examples from ESU 8 schools recently, be sure to check out my Instructional Tech at ESU 8 blog at: https://esu8tech.blogspot.com  

Spooky Science

Mrs. Shirley Rossman and several of her 4th grade students created a Halloween-themed story to share their learning about physical and chemical changes in Science.

The team brought their ideas to life with a green screen, iMovie, and extra touches with Keynote.

The video was shared at West Holt Elementary's October assembly during Jr. Husky Highlights so all could share in the learning!

Congrats, ladies, on a creative, "creepy" project!

Pioneer ABCs: Book creation by 1st graders

To bring to life first grade Social Studies learning, this class created an alphabet book based on the "Little House on the Prairie" series and Westward expansion topics. 

First, Mrs. Willis and her students brainstormed topic options for each of the letters of the alphabet, then assigned to her class. 

Next students researched and wrote their "stories," drawing an accompanying picture on paper.

I shared an ABC book template page via Apple Classroom and worked with the students to publish their work in Pages. Many examples of combining pencil and paper artwork with digital artwork were experimented with. 

Students rotated through some "finishing stations" where they recorded audio with Mrs. Willis or were photographed in a pioneer costume.

 

Finally the pages were submitted to me via Apple Classroom so that I could assemble them in a class alphabet book. 

Now published on the Apple Books Store, you can enjoy it here:

‎Pioneer ABCs on Apple Books 

For members of our audience without access to Apple Books, we shared the following additional versions:

Pioneer ABCs 

Six Shot Stories in Science

West Holt 4th graders are at it again! Turning their writing skills into six-shot stories with Clips. This year they took on the added charge of creating their stories about relevant science topics from a list Mrs. Shirley Rossman gave them.

They used a storyboard/planning document to help them plan their video stories, making sure they used six unique camera shots when filming.

Finally, they brought their Six Word Stories to life using Clips on the iPad.

Here are the final products:

Six Shot Science Stories playlist

Drawing on iPad + Line Draw Animation = Digital Citizenship PSAs

Students from O'Neill High School's Digital Citizenship team created public service announcements to share key take aways learned from the 2018 Digital Citizenship Symposium.

To create, students used this workflow:
1) Choose a topic and write a script (and timed it aloud, ensuring it was 30-60 seconds in length).
2) Decide on visuals and draw on blank Keynote slide with Apple Pencil.
3) Animate the drawing with Keynote's 'Line Draw' animation and export as a movie file.
4) Drop the movie file in a new, blank iMovie project.
5) Voice-over the script and adjust the timing of your line draw animation movie to match.
6) Add background music from GarageBand media library and export the final product!


After creating the PSAs, students shared them during Digital Citizenship Week online (via Twitter), on local radio (KBRX - O'Neill), through Mr. Fisher's "Monday Memo" (all-school weekly update) and on O'Neill High School's Eagle Eye Broadcasting- Daily Announcements show where the students also talked about their important messages.

Third Grade Authors publish book about their community's history

The ABCs of Our Community, O'Neill on Apple Books Store

O'Neill Elementary's 3rd Grade Reading class, under the direction of Mrs. Julie Pistulka along with help from Katie Morrow, ESU 8, recently published their latest version of an annual community history research project. This year, the creative student authors compiled and shared their information in the form of an alphabet book.

Using a Pages template, each "letter" consists of 3 pages:
1) a stanza of poetry and photo gallery on the topic
2) written report from student research
3) student-created artwork

Students added audio narration for all the text with the newest feature of Pages books - Audio Recordings.

Learn more about the community of O'Neill, Nebraska as well as student creation of digital books with Pages on iPad by downloading the book from the Apple Books Store.

Six Shot Stories

Every once in awhile you find that tech integration idea that withstands the test of time. Even as the tech tools evolve and change, the learning still holds its value. "Six Shot Stories" is one of those practices for me. As an English teacher, the value of writing Six Word Memoirs created numerous educational benefits with my students. Theme, concise word choice, summarization are all skills emphasized with this simple activity. Pairing the concept with media was brilliant, and Don Goble's One Best Thing book: "Six-Word Story, Six Unique Shots" remains an invaluable resource for delivering the lesson to students.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/six-word-story-six-unique-shots-enhancing-writing-through/id846218165?mt=11  

Recently I worked with the 4th grade classes at West Holt Elementary to share their school's stories through this technique. And Apple's Clips app on iPad was the perfect medium to create some powerful digital stories in a short timeframe.

I began the lesson by viewing Apple's latest commercial for iPad "Homework" and asking students to count the number of cuts, in order to establish the importance of storytelling through a wide variety of camera angles and shots.

Then students paired up to author a Six-Word Story about their school, their classroom, or their daily activities as 4th graders at West Holt Elementary. It is amazing to see such powerful stories created in just six words by students!

I used Don Goble's book on iBooks to demonstrate different shots that were possible, and reminded students of some simple best practices when capturing with iPad. Instructions were emphasized that each shot should be between 3 and 5 seconds and no technique should be repeated (each shot is unique). Students used a storyboard to plan their six shots and then used the camera app to capture each on their iPad.

Finally, with only literally a few minutes of instruction on the Clips app, students assembled and edited their story. Some added all six words of text at the very end, some used one word per shot, and others split up the text in varying ways. Many were able to experiment with the other creative features of Clips as well, even within the one-class time period we had together. Each team of students exported their product to camera roll, then Airdropped to their teacher's Mac in order to upload on a YouTube channel and organize in a playlist.

What I appreciate most about this project as an ELA teacher, is the tremendous focus on concise, clear communication it entails. As a technology teacher I value the creativity and composition techniques that allow student media production to instantly be raised to the next level.

Enjoy some of West Holt Elementary's Six Shot Stories!

Introducing CLIPS

Last Spring Apple introduced a brand new app that gives us a fun way to build an expressive story.  Available for free for all iOS products (iPhone, iPad, etc.) it is simply called Clips.

Why learn a new tool to create digital stories?
Clips allows you to...

• avoid the learning curve that you may encounter with many multimedia creation apps 
• record, edit, and share all on the go (designed for a purely mobile experience)
• add a variety of creative filters, overlays, background music and more... all with open usage rights
• engage even the youngest of learners with its natural, intuitive workflow

When you launch the app you will see that Clips is designed for immediate recording. There are 3 sources for capturing: video, photos, or pull in anything from your camera roll/Photos Library.

*A big difference from what some of us more traditional video creators might be used to is that you have to hold the red record button for the entire duration of what you want to capture. (For example if you are bringing in a prerecorded video or photo, you have to hold the record button the entire time the video is playing, or you will only add that much to your Clips project. 

* TIP: Press and slide to the left on the red record button to lock it in recording mode. This frees up your fingers to interact with your photo or video... for example, pinch to zoom and move it around in the square frame. 

The 4 cool buttons at the top allow you to do the following:
1) Live Titles (Your speech will be typed on screen in time with you saying it (like closed captioning)
2) Filters (add fun effects to any part(s) of your video
3) Overlays (Select from pre-made 'stickers', pinch, zoom, rotate, edit text)
4) Posters (Full screen backgrounds with editable text and a bit of included animation)

*The ability to take one photo, zoom in, point and label, zoom out, and create simple, smooth pans truly elevates the media created with Clips above that of a traditional slide show.

Clips always adds new content to the end of your project, but you can easily tap, hold, and drag to move its position anywhere in your 'timeline' across the bottom. Additional editing can include editing the text from your transcribed live titles, muting audio, trimming the ends of each clip, and deleting clips.

One of the most powerful features of Clips when using it the classroom is the background music option. By clicking the music note button in the upper right of Clips, you have access to numerous soundtracks of royalty-free music. Each adjusts to match the timing of your project and even automatically fades in and out depending on pre-existing audio!

Sharing options are numerous and simple. In addition to a variety of social media outlets, each Clips projects can be saved to the camera roll for additional remixing, app smashing, and sharing.

Now, watch a Clips video about a simple project using Clips with kids!


View so many more inspiring ideas by searching the hashtag #ClassroomClips on social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Student Publishing: Merging analog and digital with augmented reality

Don't abandon printed projects... just enhance them with technology integration!

This was a driving force in a recent project I had the honor of working on with the West Holt 4th grade classes. Mrs. Shirley Rossman wanted to create a class book to demonstrate their collective knowledge of Nebraska history. And the 150th anniversary of Nebraska's statehood was the perfect backdrop. 

Excitingly, she reached out to me looking for ways to infuse digital media into the printed, bound book that she envisioned as a class product. We collaborated to design an augmented reality experience for the reader, where each student's two-page spread could be brought to life with AR. 

This was our process:

1. Text development

Students selected their Nebraska topics, researched them, and wrote their text narrative for their page.  The pages of the book were mapped out on large classroom posters. To preserve the authentic student-authored look and feel, Mrs. Rossman had each student hand write their text onto one of the page templates to go to the Schoolmate Publishing Company that she had selected to produce the class book. 

 

2. Create trigger images

Students created original artwork to accompany each page of text, again drawing by hand on the book template pages. I used the iPad to take a quick photo of each student's page of artwork so that I could designate each one as a trigger image for the augmented reality we planned to build in. 

*Side Note: I applaud the originality and creativity of the students' hand-drawn images. While it would have been easy to find images online or even create them digitally, the authenticity of these students' illustrations makes the book extra special. 

3. Create media assets

Each student had the opportunity to create at least one media asset to accentuate their topic. We talked about bringing their research "to life" and trying to enhance the content in a creative, not simply redundant way. This was truly where student choice and voice could shine. App which I demonstrated as suggestions to choose from included:

• Chatterpix
• Tellagami
• Toontastic/Toontastic 3D
• Puppet Pals 1&2
• WordFoto
• iMovie
• DoInk Greenscreen

Nearly every app was new to the students but the definitely jumped in and learned quickly! Some student seven created multiple assets that could be selected when readers scanned their image. Mrs. Rossman did a wonderful job of coordinating additional parent volunteers, para professionals' help, and simply workspace on the days we reserved for media production. 

We did post all the video assets on a YouTube playlist, just as a secondary way to showcase the students' work and creativity. 

4. Blipp-building with Blippar

While Mrs. Rossman sent away the physical pages of the book to be printed and bound, I began working to develop the augmented reality interface.

I selected Blippar as our AR platform because of its reputation with education, in addition to its free price. Teachers can sign up for the Blipp-builder dashboard and create unlimited "blimps" for their classroom, completely for free.  Blippar, the app which readers will use to 'scan' the pages, is free as well, and available from both the iTunes and Google Play Store.

While the blimps created with an educational account aren't "public" they can easily be viewed with a simply "campaign code." This is a 5 digit number that users enters into the settings of the app prior to scanning. We put these directions as the pregame page in our book:

The Blippar dashboard asks you to first name your campaign: West Holt 4th Grade NE History Book and then create a blipp for each student by uploading their trigger image. 

To add to the interaction, you have several options. The student's media asset can be displayed on initial startup. Or you can add a "button" for the user to tap to initiate the media asset. Sometimes I used generic buttons from the Blippar library, but often I used a custom logo that I created for the project and uploaded to the Blippar library. 

Various actions can be accommodated on each tap. Ones we primarily used included:

• play video (either uploaded directly to Blippar or linked online)
• view image gallery
• go to URL
• open PDF

Each blipp needs to be saved and published individually, but all can be accessed with the one campaign code in the app. 

It seems there is a world of untapped potential to blips-building and I have a feeling that we only scratched the surface with this project!