ICT in my Classroom

I spotted Animoto via the NextGen Ning network and Justin’s post about it, further to that John and Doug have given it a mention. As you will quickly realise, and John rightly points out, Animoto is very simple. There is no real creative control over what you produce, you just throw some photos at it, choose a music track and out pops an MTV style video.

There is not much there for the children to really get their creative teeth into however it is a great little tool for producing quick and slick videos. Last year we used our class digital camera for recording our work in a science investigation for example, we then gave the children a sheet of thumbnails of these pics for their books. An extension of this simple idea would be to produce a quick movie of their science lesson or PE session. Not as a ICT, presentation task but as a simple, yet imaginatively presented, record of the work they have done.

(Image taken from Mashable Social Networking News )

Animoto makes a buck or two from the choice of longer more extended video lengths but for the work done in class the free 30 second videos is adequate. Taking a look today it seems since I have last used it Animoto has added the functionality of retrieving images from locations online. Currently these are Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa, PhotoBucket and Facebook. It worked fine for my Flickr account - offering me the choice of my different photo sets.

I just uploaded a few images from our DT work this year just to illustrate the idea. This is what I came up with. Unfortunately can’t see a way of embedding Animoto footage here. The final video is rendered and then you get an email telling you it is ready to view. Following the link that is included provides some publication options, I particularly liked the iGoogle page embed option which pops your vid onto your iGoogle start page in a new gadget frame.

All in all a useful tool to make quick video footage perhaps for record keeping purposes, but not much more than that. I will take a look at Fliptrack as an alternative soon.

Further to my initial thoughts of linking up the use of Diigo annotations with Google Notebook use I have developed a visual workflow of how a student might interact in this way. The context could be anything from a simple reading comprehension task in a literacy session to ongoing research within history or any other such subject.

Pedagogically Diigo is being used here as a tool to scaffold and support the child’s interaction with a website. When thoughtfully used I think that it might provide a new level of interactivity to those static, non-interactive, information heavy websites. Of course Google Notebook’s part in this process is as a written record, a place to respond for the child without having to navigate from the browser.

Please click on the image for a larger clearer version.

I am pleased with the simplicity of this idea and how it could be aligned to most subjects - the next step seems to be to finalise how the notebooks are organised. I have added some simple Diigo notes to this poem by Charles Causley as an example, but it is not difficult to see how this can be used. One further development in terms of how you as the teacher organises the Diigo annotations is to use the tags to categorise the work you are doing, for example “comprehension”, “poetry”, “inference” - this would be a useful way to help signpost the work completed too.

Please contribute any further ideas as to how Diigo may be used in such a way or perhaps combined with another tool.

Further to my use of the animated short “The Piano” last year I discovered this excellent version of “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes as I researched the literacy work we are doing at the beginning of the new term. It is produced by Britannica Dream Productions via some pretty imaginative hacking of the game Sims 2.

Both Rick, my new teaching bud, and I commented on the fact that the poem is pretty heavy, so I am pleased to find this version to allow the children better access to the text. I suspect that I will be using this to help the children investigate and understand the text in the early stages of our work. This would be a good link to add to the Primary Framework for Literacy resources list for this unit.

Woohoo just found the same video on YouTube so embedding it here!

Just spotted Ross has written about this resource ages ago + told us all about a good text version online.

There seems to be no other way of actually managing a large number of Google accounts then working through a domain. So today I registered through Google priestsic.net for our school and began exploring the apps that are now available.

To my surprise Google Notebook is missing from the list which is a great shame as I consider it to be perhaps the tool with the most potential to school users. However there is still the ability to personalise the start page (iGoogle page) for a user. So as a teacher I can add locked content (widgetty thingies) and the others can be personalised - this is ideal.

My advice then currently to anyone planning on exploring the setup of Google accounts is to stump up the £4.91 or whatever it was for the domain name and go through the process of having a central place you can manage the accounts. I think that although there may be some bits and pieces missing in this single sign in, namely Google Notebook and Reader, the time saved due to management outweighs it.

So I am going to create a separate class Google account to share work in other apps such as Google Reader and Notebook. This afternoon I explored how Notebook worked when two people were working in the same login, it seemed to hold out OK, both views of the same notebook updating as the other worked on it. Not ideal, but would allow a class of children to work on research together and get the most from this excellent tool, sidestepping the issue of the app missing as mentioned above.

Further to my ideas related to Notebook, a single sign-in poses a new problem as there is no direct indication of who is adding what. So titles of notebooks could name specific tasks or children, to allow them to add the content in the correct place and for us to properly monitor and respond to what is happening. Imagine then a series of guided reading sessions during a week of literacy work, where children add the answers to Diigo set questions on a specific text - each child opens the notebook via the FF extension and navigates to the correct notebook (either by name or by task) adding their responses which are now labelled due to there location. Complete Notebooks could be archived into Google Docs so the list does not get too crowded over time.

In addition I have also signed up for a class Diigo account so that we can share annotations and signpost online text to children.

So iGoogle is a start page for Google account users which can aggregate all of the Google apps into simple little widgets, plus many, many more. I have been thinking carefully about how the children in my year group may be able to use this iGoogle page.

The page itself can be highly personalised through themes and the choice of a variety of different widgets, so it would be useful to have a mandatory set of widgets that the class need to add - for example widgets for:

• Google Docs/Spreadsheets
• Class Google Reader account
• Google Mail
• Class Google Calendar
• Google Notebook
• Class del.icio.us links

All of these would be a click away from the home page so easily navigable - there would possibly be a mixture of individual and class use of these tools. I like the way that every child’s page could look different giving them a sense of ownership for this bit of online space - yet maintaining a sense of consistency with the above list of class widgets they need to add. Perhaps this would be the first sort of task the children can undertake when exploring their page and learning about how to add different content.

There is a vast array of widgets available for the iGoogle page, naturally ranging in quality. But within this variety are some real gems. For example Brain Tuner (just search for this on the content page) for primary age children is just what they need - a simple dose of regular mental maths right there on their home page.

I have found two version, the first is a mixture of multiplication and addition; the second being just multiplication. Every time they take the quick challenge records how quickly they have completed it adding a nice little slice of competition to keep them motivated. This may seem a leap straight out of the Nintendo DS book but it is great for keeping primary age kids sharp with their mental maths. I imagine children completing a task may nip and get one of our laptops and just have a quick play on Brain Tuner on their homepage (or even search for maths tagged sites via the del.icio.us widget and get stuck in somewhere else - who knows!)

Then of course there may well be a widget that supports a particular topic of work that you are doing in your class during the year. For example when we are doing work on space we might add the NASA Image of the day widget. During our RE work this year the Photos of Sacred Places widget could develop some discussion.

As I use it more and more I think that it would be a great place for children to start their online session. It just depends now on how the accounts are managed. (Just signed up for Google Apps on a domain) It looks like Notebook is not available via a domain type use of Google Apps, including no iGoogle page - but one that is shared.

Just realised that the iGoogle page (via Google Apps for a domain) is a combination of shared content and personal choices. Good news!

End users of the page still have the ability to incorporate any content from the web, or any Google Gadget, enabling them a degree of customization over the content of the page.

So this new academic year we have access to 8 laptops in each of the four top junior classrooms, and I am looking forward to making the most of the free Google applications. One of the great things about holidays or breaks from school is the fact that you get some decent thinking time. I am sure it is the same with you, that during term time and when you are snowed under there is very little time to think clearly and creatively. I like to explore ideas gradually and this summer has been good for that.

So here I will explore some of the ways we can use Google Apps and others - starting with Google Notebook.

This is a great tool for your kids to get stuck into this year. It offers a simple way to clip and save information whilst online, its primary purpose I suppose is as a research tool. But I can see beyond that, this is also a great writing tool. Notetaking skills can be refined and explored, notes can be collected, organised, tagged, rearranged and adapted.

Initially there is a little setup you have to go through to get it going - download an extension to FF or IE and then whilst you are browsing there is a Notebook link in your status bar. Clicking on this opens a small popup window giving you access to your notebooks.

Making a note is as simple as a highlight and drag to this little window - or you can, just as easily, right click on your highlighted text etc and click on the “Note this” option for Google notebook. All of the formatting remains the same which is useful and you can add images too. Each note that you add is kept separate and is collapsable and expandable - but if you drag new text to an existing note it will drop in. I also like the way you can type text into the note or as a new one. Altogether simple and flexible enough to be very useful

I won’t go too far into the details of the tool, but concentrate on the ways it can be used.

1. Collect info and images related to various curriculum topics that the class is working on. Organise these with different notebooks, so an Egyptians notebook for work in history etc.
2. Using the ability to share any notebook with invited collaborators is a great way to build community based research within a class. So imagine asking pairs of children or individuals to research different topics within a subject. Online work can be then saved to a shared notebook which everyone can be involved with and benefit from as a class.
3. All of the notes taken from the web are immediately fully referenced, that is the site reference is included. A simple thing but avoids the, “Wow that’s great where did you get it from?” type question.
4. Notebook would be a great way to use web based text for comprehension tasks. I have thought that if a Diigo account was used alongside the work in Google Notebook it could be very powerful. Signpost and ask questions using the Diigo interface (perhaps a single class login) and then children respond using notebook. So for example in a poem you might ask some questions for each stanza. (If you have a Diigo account take a look at Charles Causley’s “My Mother Saw a Dancing Bear” where I have added some examples.) The children then respond in a Poetry notebook or something equivalent.
5. Independent reading tasks or guided reading of online texts can be supported using Diigo sticky notes and the children’s responses formed in notebook.
6. Teachers can respond to notebooks by adding to the “Comment” box beneath each note. This I suppose is assuming that you have access to those individual accounts, or notebooks either by logging in or being added as a collaborator. Mmm need to think that one through…perhaps adding collaborators is a must learn skill.
7. Notebooks can easily be exported to Google Docs so kids can have this as the bear bones of a piece of text they can really get stuck into, again further collaboration is possible there too.
8. I like the fact that the children are not working in too many places at once, just a little pop up window in the browser, never leave your browser mentality - their notes are very quickly formed and this necessitates a need for higher order note taking skills.

Notebooks can be viewed and managed in a full screen site via a Google account and I have added a iGoogle gadget to my home page so I can access them directly from there. I think that this will a useful tool in the suite of Google apps as it is simple and not overcomplicated but still powerful when deployed in the correct instance.

I look forward to getting started with this in my class and perhaps hearing more about it being used elsewhere, please share your experiences of Google Notebook in your classroom. Talking of the possibilities is one thing but actual successful practice is something different, I will no doubt have a better perspective on managing and utilising this when my class get stuck in.

Next Up >> iGoogle