Before I start into my post, I need to yell at Lenovo for a second. Why did you ever go away from the Track Point mouse? I must hit this touch pad with the side of my palm every ten minutes. And just now, it hit the back button on my browser about six words before my post was finished. Fix it, Lenovo, because my hands won't shrink.
Anyway, I'll now continue with a post that will surely be less inspired than my last one.
For years, I was a summer camp counselor. As such, storytelling is something that I'm fairly used to. Without ever really examining what we were doing, we learned how to make tweaks to a story so that a group of 40 8-year-olds would listen to the whole thing without deciding to play "Run All Over the Place and Yell". In previous speech units, I've always started with one of my favorite camp stories, then asked students what made it completely awesome. We usually end up talking about some concepts that are pretty similar to "stickiness"- don't over-complicate things, try to talk about things your audience will understand, give them something to care about. I also mentioned somewhere else that I used a little story to teach run-on sentences recently. Since I'm a Language Arts teacher, and stories play a pretty big role in what I already do, I wanted to bring them in somewhere else. The great thing about it was, students remembered the story and understood the story, so I just have to remind them about it when teaching the concepts. Now, whenever a student tries to separate sentences with just a comma, I can remind them about the tiny police officer that was too little to break up the gang fight. They get the concept, and they get the reason. Beautiful.
I was also intrigued by Voicethread this week. It's a surprisingly easy tool to use, and I'm looking forward to using it in my class. A while ago, my father showed me and iPad app that would record both audio and any writing/drawing on the screen, and play them back simultaneously. I thought to myself, "If I could get this to project on my Smart Board, I could record and upload every lesson!" I don't quite think I could do that with Voicethread, but it would be great for posting lessons that would need to be reviewed often (subjects and predicates, why do you have to be so confusing to kids?). It would also be a really cool way for students to present. The commenting feature is a great way to leave specific feedback, both from peers and from the teacher.
I agree with your statement about how VoiceThread is a much easier tool that I had expected. I think that all of the shared projects that appear on the website's main page, and all of the tutorials to explain the features and options are a bit intimidating and would have most likely driven me away from the tool, had I not been required to use it for an assignment. I also like the idea of recording some lessons and using it for students to present because it can be linked to for others to reference. I would love to create a final thoughts projects for my third graders to complete for the end of the year and share it with their families on my blog for the class. It is a great way to share with our families!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea Jess. Wouldn't that be a fabulous thing for parents to see?
ReplyDeleteRob, I really agree with your point about stories making concepts easier to remember. It gives students a reference point that they understand even when the concept itself is new. I just wish I had your apparent knack for storytelling. I guess it's something that I will need to work on to find my inner Garrison Keeler.
The one thing that I was hoping we could do in VoiceThread was add subtitles below our pictures and be able to draw on the slides and I saw both of those features while viewing other classmates' presentations. I'm going to go back and figure out how it was done because I think it will add even more usefulness to an already exciting tool. I know I have peaked the interest of my staff with VoiceThread so now I just have to show them some cool examples of it in use. Rob, I found an app called ShowMe that sounds almost identical to the one you described. Is that the one you are referring to? If not, take a look at ShowMe.
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