Tag: Parents

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Students Can Create Videos to Teach Us “How To”

There’s an emerging genre of internet videos that fall into the category of “how to’s.” Lots of folks are offering up instructional guides for how to do everything imaginable from How to Chill a Coke in 2 Minutes to How to Fold a Towel.

Explaining “how to” requires students to research a subject, evaluate what’s important, and create a guide for someone else to follow. It gives them an opportunity to write for an authentic audience and purpose and use skills that rank very high on Bloom’s taxonomy.

If you want to get your students writing and shooting these videos here’s some suggestions:

1. Get the new Flip Ultra video camera – remarkably easy to use and only $114 at Amazon. Works with Mac or PC. I’ve been using one for a few months and I’m impressed with the sound and image quality and the simplicity of use.

2. Have students take a look at this ingenious “how to” done by Common Craft – no elaborate props or on-screen talent required. The Flip camera won’t be able to shoot as closely as the Common Craft video below, but students can easily recreate the look on a larger scale using the classroom white board and the optional Flip Ultra tripod ($14 at Amazon).

3. Post the video to TeacherTube – a safe alternative to YouTube.

OK – time to make a movie!

Note on editing. The Flip video comes with its own software that works with Mac or PC. Ingeniously, the software resides on the camera and works anytime you plug the Flip USB into a computer.� The Flip video files are created in an AVI format that can be edited on a PC using software like MovieMaker. Mac iMovie won’t accept the Flip video AVI format directly, but you can convert an AVI file to a (iMovie-friendly) m4v file format using free iSquint software. Students can design, shoot and edit the video, then do a voice over. That way they can focus on the visual message separately from the audio message.

8/08 Update: The latest version of Flip video software will allow direct import of files into Mac iMovie!

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Teaching Innovation? Inspire Your Students with Maker Faire

Last month’s Maker Faire drew do-it-your-selfers from across the country to San Francisco to show off their creations. While the rest of us seem content to buy what we need, there is a dedicated community of tinkerers out there that is keeping the American tradition of backyard innovation alive. Why not showcase their work to inspire your students to think more creatively?

I’ve made the point that schools need to foster creativity to prepare our students for a future that will put a premium on adaptability. Innovation requires both a strong foundation in content knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in new ways – usually across a variety of disciplines. And it requires using all of Bloom’s skills from remembering through creating. Creating is not a skill limited to the gifted. It’s something that all students can do – think of it as a new combination of old elements.

If you’re looking to inspire your students, you might send them online to Maker Faire or it’s parent, Make Magazine (or the like-minded site, Instructables.) Even if you’re too timid to let them haul in old washing machine parts, you can give them the opportunity to do paper designs of their creations in the style of Rube Goldberg.

In the meantime enjoy The Best of Maker Faire 2008

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Engage Students with the Wonder of Science Inquiry

Brian Greene is a professor of physics at Columbia and the author of “The Elegant Universe.” In a June 1, 2008 NY Times Op-Ed essay Put a Little Science in Your Life, makes an eloquent argument for engaging students with the wonder of scientific discovery. He argues that the recitation of facts and technicalities often prevents student from connecting with the motivational power of inquiry.

Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

… As every parent knows, children begin life as uninhibited, unabashed explorers of the unknown. From the time we can walk and talk, we want to know what things are and how they work — we begin life as little scientists. But most of us quickly lose our intrinsic scientific passion. And it’s a profound loss.

…Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that’s been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Science needs to be taught to the young and communicated to the mature in a manner that captures this drama. We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living.  

More 100KB pdf

As I have often argued, educators need resources and training to craft a rigorous learning environment where students can function as 21st century professionals – critical thinkers who can effectively collaborate to gather, evaluate, analyze and share information. We can reconnect students with their innate drive to thoughtfully explore the world around them.

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Reluctant Reader as Author

Literacy specialist, Pat Martin,  authored this guest blog on one of publishing projects.
Pat Martin last guest blogged about the Parents’ Literacy Publishing Project

Img_0182_2Cuyler, a winsome first grader, has published his first book.  The experience encouraged him to exclaim, “I’m going to publish more than 1000 books. I have so much more to say.”

Mid-way through his second year of formal schooling, Cuyler should be reading about level 9/10 (guided reading text level as described by Pinnell and Fountas).  He’s not.  However, after reading a text created by MaryAnn McAlpin, a retired Reading Recovery teacher, for her grandson, Cuyler was motivated to create his own text using that model.

“I’m going to publish more than 1000 books. I have so much more to say.” ~ Cuyler, a 1st grader

Writing his personal text benefits Cuyler in so many ways.  His extensive daily vocabulary is supported by actual printed text.  His interests, vehicles of every description and outdoor life, become the basis of his text which further stimulates his daily effort to acquire reading skill.  As such noted advocates for boy literacy as Ralph Fletcher and Michael Gurian note, primary texts and writing prompts seldom deal with the world that interests boys.  There is scant opportunity to connect with the texts, to bring personal experience into the reading/writing or to interact with the text content.

Img_0193_2 Capturing Cuyler’s explanations and descriptions as a book’s text mimics interactive writing or the daily journal writing in the reading Recovery lesson.  And what child wouldn’t read and reread a book of their pictures and writing?  What better way to achieve fluency?  Certainly a more exciting, engaging and authentic method than grappling through Cuyler’s four inch thick stack of Dolch sight words – a practice he he finds less than engaging. Cuyler now sees himself as a literate individual.  He is excited about the growing up as a reader and writer rather than defeated by the challenges that text holds. 

By providing text that supports him as a reader and validates him as a writer, Cuyler is on the path of literacy.  And he is an excited traveler who wants to know “how many days until we go back to that learning lab so I can publish books.”Img_0192_2

For sometime now I’ve been an advocate of new print on demand technologies to give students a chance to publish their learning for an authentic audience and purpose. I’ve partnered with Pat Martin, a literacy specialist and Suzanne Suor, an educational technology consultant, to open a Educational Publishing Learning Lab in Rochester NY. We offer a variety of training packages to assist teachers and districts in taking advantage of the new opportunities in digital publishing. The lab is located at ColorCentric digital publishers, so participants can not only learn how to publish, but tour the facility to see books being made. For more information on how you and your students can publish your own books visit our website Read > Think > Write > Publish

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A Comprehensive Approach to Rigor, Relevance and Literacy

Learning time
Learning time

2007 wraps up with a week long series of workshops at Lakeland High School in White Lake, Michigan. On Monday, I’ll do an opening session on rigor, relevance and literacy strategies in the content area for the entire high school faculty.  But it doesn’t stop there.

On Tuesday, I’ll guide a group of about 15 teachers in classroom walk–through training. They will form a peer support group to assist teachers in reflecting on their instructional practice. Wednesday, I work with the Lakeland ninth grade team designing interdisciplinary approaches to integrating the themes across the curriculum. On Thursday and Friday, I work with selected departments to assist them in developing lessons in their disciplines. In addition, I’ll be giving an evening presentation for parents, school board and community. They need to have an understanding of new perspectives in teaching and learning.

I have to congratulate school principal, Bob Behnke, on his comprehensive approach to supporting his teachers. He’s leveraging one professional development day and a rotating pool of subs to give his faculty a variety of settings to reflect on instructional practice and develop new approaches.

The week proved to be a very rewarding opportunity for me to work with a creative group of teachers in workshops and walk-through sessions. Here’s some of the follow up emails I’ve received from teachers at Lakeland –

Peter,
It was a pleasure to meet with you today.  Thank you for conducting the inservice in a way that was engaging.  It was a special treat to attend an inservice for something that will definitely benefit me, my students, and our school community.  Too often we are asked to attend workshops that have great ideas and, I’m sure, the best intentions, but they fall short.  I really appreciated having the opportunity to discuss freely the state of education, identify areas where we can apply rigor and relevance in our classrooms, and time to work with my peers.  Walking out of the inservice with materials, resources and ideas I can implement tomorrow is icing on the cake.
Thank you!
Brigid

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Peter,
I wanted to thank you again for the work you did this past week at Lakeland.  I know that the vast majority of the faculty found your information useful and several informed me that they had already incorporated some of the rigor and relevancy into their lesson plans.  This shows me their willingness to realize that they can improve the way they teach to really reach students at a higher level.  This would not have happened if you had not put a mirror to their faces and let them know that they are good teachers who could be doing more.
Sincerely,
Marc

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Peter –
I just wanted to thank you for spending a week in our building, and in particular for the work you did with us on Wednesday regarding the 9th grade teams.  So often our professional development is mostly talk with very little time for application, but I truly appreciated the resources, ideas, and opportunity for professional discussion that your session provided for us.  I particularly loved the digital book idea.  In fact, I’m planning to implement it right away in my current unit.
Thanks again, and take care,
Maggie

Image credit: flickr/Temari 09