Kerpoof! (and outside-of-class communication)

 

  I found this website earlier on this year while browsing for some out-of-the-ordinary web 2.0 activities for my elementary (2nd-5th grade) classes. Its completely based on creativity and computer-art projects like movies, cards, drawings, etc... and has excellent potential for literacy exercise as well. The features are basically free, plus with a (verified) teacher account, classes can be set up and projects shared either with the entire site, or just with one's class/group. 

  After setting up the classes, getting my students logged on, the students began creating their own content, sometimes with specific projects directed by me, other times, their own ideas. Many did this at home as well at school since they either remembered or took their logins with them. This is where the "mail/class/group" features come in. While I the chat or post features can be turned on and off, I wish there was a moderation feature. The classes are certainly private - no one except group members can post to their particular group - but as the technology teacher with over one hundred accounts and over 20 classes, it gets cumbersome to browse through every string of posts.

  Is anyone out there using Kerpoof in a "more than one class" setting? I'm curious as to if you're using the "mail" or chat features with your classes and how you moderate them. The concept of Kerpoof is pretty amazing and my students all love it. Just curious as to if there's a good method of monitoring the posts.

 

Author Cards/Podcast - Tech/LA Project Ideas

Hey all,
   This week in a Technology in Language Arts class I'm taking, we developed an Author Trading Card: a brief bio and reflection using Word or another publisher (I used Pages for mine - does graphics a little more simply). After that was complete we crafted persuasive podcasts on the same author. I chose Mo Willems of "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" fame.
   Anyway, I thought this was an interesting way of using a word publishing program/app for something other than its original intent (which I always like). I feel like breaking out of the confines of "Word is used for typing papers, PowerPoint is used for presentations" mentality is always a good thing. It keeps us creative and it opens up a ton of new options.
   I spoke with a mom recently who's daughter (in a different school) had to create a diorama of a medieval times village. It came out huge and they had to spend about $40 at the craft store for something which didn't really challenge her to learn, she could really share outside of the classroom (but through photographs), and ultimately would get thrown away in a couple of weeks. This is really frustrating to me for obvious reasons. We rely on traditional methods that may not be worth our students' time and effort.
    Why not take 10 minutes and brainstorm what an application with which you're already familiar can do other than the normal. Or better yet, tweet it out as a question. Post it to Edmodo: "What have you done with Word other than papers?". "Have you used PowerPoint for something other than a presentation?" Or, even better, leave your ideas in the comments!

Here's the Mo Willems Writes for Un-Cool People podcast!

Earth Day, Film, and iMovie

For our elementary school's inaugural Earth Day celebration, our music teacher crafted some creative lyrics and choreography to the Miley Cyrus tune "Hoedown Throwdown". Despite what you may think of Miley and her tunes, the kids thoroughly enjoyed the song. With 2 Canon GL-2's, a Sony Digital HD camera, and the assistance of our local electric company (who allowed me to travel up in the cherry picker for overhead shots!), we caught it on film.
After recording the audio track of the performance on Tuesday morning, we caught 2.5 takes on film. Using firewire, I imported all 3 cameras' footage onto my MacBook using iMovie, making a separate event for each camera. From here I went about selecting the first scene of the video. I had some difficulty getting it to match up correctly with the audio once I imported that track from iTunes, but I found that placing a large section of video into the project which lasted longer than the entire audio track made it easier to manipulate the timing of the first scene (and all subsequent scenes for that matter). I simply deleted the superfluous video from the end once the edit was complete.
What I found to be very helpful in iMovie were the precision editing tools. Pulling in clips from each camera feed made it tricky to match the words/motions up with the audio track. The precision editing features made this a bit simpler. While the original audio was captured inside on an earlier day, it didn't feature any live clapping. That was problematic since the kids in the video are clapping along with the song. Each clip imported into the project can have its audio altered to be either raised or lowered. I lowered the volume on each clip enough to still allow clapping to come through, but not much else. The main audio track overtook any extra noise I didn't want.
While other video editors for the Mac may offer more features and a simpler means to edit multiple camera feeds, iMovie (falling quite below the $200 tag of Final Edit Express) got the job done.
Here's the final result:

iPods, Collaboration, and a hint of Humility

For my inaugural post, I'm quite thrilled. Our learning specialist for ed. tech. just emailed, informing me that we've been offered a set of ipod touches for use 'til the end of the school year! My planning team (consisting of our GT teacher, Media Specialist, and myself) has been researching and dipping our feet into podcasting book reviews from 2nd - 5th graders. As the technology teacher, I've been working this year to engage the students in online activities and the utilization of applications which re-inforce the grade-level standards. For example, students will use Excel to create charts and graphs which they have developed in the classroom. They may not only explore subscription sites like BrainPop or BrainPop Jr. to increase in knowledge of a subject, but play games which adhere and support the standards.
So far, while this has succeeded in engaging the students, it has only mildly touched on areas of creation and collaboration. Strategy, problem-solving, creation, and collaboration are skills which are becoming more an more of a necessity for students, as the world grows smaller and smaller, technologically speaking.
Its easy to be a technological monolith: blogging silently; lurking on user groups and twitter; posting a comment or two on youtube. But to put yourself out there, ask for help, advice, or the opportunity to work with others on accomplishing a common goal requires something more. Its not only inhibition, but a bit of humility as well. What comes with collaboration is not only the assurance that we have something to add, but also that we have something to learn.
The video I've included shows a young boy trying to make a fire using a bowdrill set. Instead of working in isolation, he posted a video, showing what he knew, and asking for help. The video has (as of today) 7, 181 views and 35 comments.
I'm getting there with my own collaboration. I tend to work in isolation, and I like getting the answer on my own. Every time I look at the #edtech twitter feed however, I'm reminded of how much I don't know. I need collaboration. I need help. If I want my students to collaborate, I need to model that first.
How do you collaborate? How are you using technology in your classroom environment? As I get into creating and collaborating with my students I'll post more - especially what we're doing with the iPod touches. I can't wait to see what the kids will show me!