Painting Pictures from Words

Watch this short video.

This is the end of the story: the climax and denouement. You need to supply the reader with the beginning.  Include an exposition with character, setting, and enough background information to develop characters. Then, create some rising action to build to the ending you watched. Use dialogue to replace narrative. Try to use techniques that create tension and suspense.

The Screencasting Couch

The Last Task:

Screencasting

Screencasting search tips

Screencasting with Julie (sans musique)

Screencasting with Julie (avec musique)

Friday night, just before nine, Julie and I finished our screencast and entered the realm of almost all done, uploading, choosing a thumbnail, embedding links. We had decided several weeks ago that we would do this last project together and it's a good thing, too, because I know I couldn't have finished it without her.

We in Middle School are just coming off of report cards, so we've been pouring all our extra minutes into evaluation and comment writing; screencasting was on the back burner for awhile, but I am glad to say, it's done.

I have three screencasts posted here. The first is a search tip about how to narrow image searches. The second and third are the same, a "What NOT to Do" of slide presentations, but one has music added. The screencast itself is not complicated, but the preparation for speaking live during the screencast is time-consuming. In addition, any editing you undertake in iMovie is another huge investment of time. I was up until 3:30 a.m. adding the music to "The Presentation Puzzle" and there are still many hours I could put in to make it better. Screencasting is the perfectionist's bane because "good enough" has to do.

I have posted all of them on my future class webpage and I plan to do more with Julie and on my own. But, I'm not that convinced by these types of tutorials get used a lot, except, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, by students who are absent. I suppose there's always the flipped classroom argument as well, and I know Julie has had a lot of success because even when a couple of students watch and learn, they can be a big help in class to the kids who didn't take the time.

Unfortunately, I don't think most of us like watching tutorials when we have a task that needs to get done. I tend to flounder around and try to figure it out as I go, rather than watch someone demonstrate how to do it. Or, I only watch enough of the tutorial to get my bearings. Maybe it's only me.

Right now, I can do the same types of things I do on the screencast live, in my class, and answer questions students have. I think I am more dynamic, students are more engaged, and they can practice what I'm teaching while the lesson is going on.
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Don't forget to check out what the other Biches did!

Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes

Sharing is Caring: Creative Commons

Content on the web is available and seemingly “free” to anyone who can cut and paste. Creative Commons is a way for people who create content to access agreements that grant copyright permissions to users like teachers and students, without the usual red tape of extremely restrictive copyrights, but still retain the credit and the right to control how their work is shared.

Normally, when you create something you automatically own a copyright to your work and have a say in how it is used and who uses it. Creative Commons lets you use a less restrictive copyright, giving some of your copyright to the public. This refined copyright allows creators to share their work in a more collaborative way. Users can make copies, distribute, remix, or incorporate these materials for personal or sometimes commercial purposes, based on the types of Creative Commons license used.

The six different types of Creative Commons licenses are:

Attribution (CC by)

When you see this license, it means you are allowed to do the following (for personal or commercial use) as long as you credit the person or organization responsible for creating the original: distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon work.

Attribution-ShareAlike (CC by SA)

When you see this license, you may do the following (for personal or commercial use) as long as you credit and license what you create under the identical terms of the original: remix, tweak, and build upon. 

Attribution-NoDerivs (CC by ND)

When you see this license, you may redistribute (for personal or commercial use) as long as you credit the creator and distribute it intact and unaltered in any way.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC by NC-SA)

When you see this license, you may do the following (for personal, non- commercial use) as long as you credit and license what you create under the identical terms of the original: remix, tweak, and build work.

Attribution-NonCommercial 
(CC BY-NC)

When you see this license, you may do the following (for personal, non-commercial use) as long as you acknowledge the original creator: remix, tweak, and build work. There is no obligation to license any new products you create from the original on the same terms, so long as you still credit where credit is due.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 
(CC BY-NC-ND)

When you see this license, you may download and share items with others, but you must credit the creators. You may not change items in any way or use them commercially.

Two things I didn't know (not the only two):

1. I didn't know that anything you created was automatically copyrighted.
2. I didn't know that there were so many organizations dedicated to sharing information.

Here's a video explaining the six different types of licenses. If you click on the i in the upper right hand corner, all the credits and information about the video appear. 

"Creative Commons License and how it helps us share digital content" by BrickPress is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Please remember to visit mes Biches!

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes

Presenting...

This is a presentation I use in conjunction with the book, Home of the Brave. It's simple and can be updated, but the kids like the fact it uses contemporary music to connect to writing and poetry. The first was a PowerPoint I uploaded to Google Drive. It lost a lot of its functionality.

Similes (PowerPoint Presentation)

This forced me to try some other presentation formats. I redid this as a Google presentation and it is MUCH improved. The problem I encountered was that I couldn't insert an audio file. I had to make an iMovie with a photo and the song, upload that to You Tube, then insert the You Tube video in my presentation. It was lots of time, but now I can share this.

Fireworks for your Writing (Google)

I redid some of the presentation in Prezi. I really like the look of it, it's easy to use, but it's not the same presentation.



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As always, I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the musings of my better blogging two thirds.

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes

Command Shift S

When we got this movie challenge, I was a little scared. I had worked with iMovie a little, without a lot of success, so I knew I would need a fair amount of handholding to get something done. Luckily for me, or rather for all of us, we have Claude.

Claude, first and foremost, is a teacher, and I use that term in its most appreciative, laudatory, and admiring sense. She imparts more than information. She fills you with hope, inspires you, and, if I may quote Robert Frost, "just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” So, when I asked for help, there was no hesitation, just a simple, "Of course." She got a camera in my hands, gave me a tripod, showed how to turn the camera on, and said, "I'll be waiting for you after school to get started."

And we did get started that Thursday afternoon for an hour or so, before we had to leave to take some students to the Upper School play. Claude helped me troubleshoot when the card reader on my Mac failed, and enlisted the help of Craig, part of our IT Support team. After forty-five minutes, the video was in iMovie. Cut!

Friday after school, another tutorial with Claude. She dismissed my guilt at keeping her late on a Friday, as if it were a pleasure to coddle someone with an artistic vision that far exceeded any talent. Claude could immediately see that instructional phases like, "Click on the right-hand side of the bar" or "click on the left-hand side" confused my directionally challenged brain, and so she adapted, pointing to the screen. She never once lost patience, she was never less than positive and when I began to use the spacebar to play a clip and would remember to leave my hand hovering above to stop it, she noticed and praised my progress. I started to remember to use Command A to select all, Command Z to undo, and Command Shift S to split my clip.

By 4:30, I was aware I was eating into Claude's weekend, but she was steadfast. At 5:30 when Claude received a text that she had missed an appointment, I was beside myself, but she calmly made a call and stayed by my side. At 6:15 Claude paused to call her mother, whom she called every evening. This Friday, the call was a little late, but Claude remained gracious, supportive. I knew we would finish the clip. But Claude didn't stop there. She helped me export my clip, upload it to YouTube, get the embed code, and put it up on this site. Then, she sat through the fifteen thousandth viewing of my first iMovie, and laughed with me when it was done.

I dedicate this movie to Claude. But please don't judge her by the quality of my filming or audio; the film’s obvious flaws are mine and mine alone. What I dedicate to Claude in dedicating this film to her, is the experience of collaborating, of learning, of the joy of discovery, of the pleasure sitting in companionable reflection, and of the future hours I will spend on my own iMovie endeavors or on those of people who may ask for my help one day. Merci bien, Claude, prof extraordinaire !

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As always, I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the musings of my better blogging two thirds.

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes

Assessments

After we got our challenge to try out online testing, I went to Socrative, signed up, and prepared a short quiz for my students. The feedback from students was very positive, but I think it was due, in large part, to the fact that the test I made was pretty funny. Every question had some choices that were sure to get at least a smile and many included pictures or animations that I thought students would enjoy.

The tests are fairly easy to create, but there are a few pitfalls in using them. One thing I found cumbersome was the fact that there is no way to just experience the test as a student unless you have two devices. I used my computer to activate the test, then had to use my phone to try it out. Unfortunately, using the phone, there were a lot of glitches and I answered the same question more than once.  Taking the test on the computer worked fine, but it took a few students over five minutes to gain access to the test. If you're trying to get it done, it can be frustrating having to wait.

The results page was downloadable, with an easy to read, item by item analysis. I enjoyed the convenience of that piece.

The Socrative website is definitely worth using when you just need a quick spot check.

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As always, I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the musings of my better blogging two thirds.

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes

Instant Feedback

At the center of the educational spotlight this week: instant feedback. It is now a technological given. Gone are the days of waiting for your teacher to grade your test and wait for it to be handed back. Now, we have the tools to create our tests electronically, and results from any of these assessments, be they formative, summative, diagnostic, norm-referenced, criterion referenced, can be delivered instantaneously.

For animals and small children, the proximity of feedback on a given behavior is key. The more time that passes between a behavior and the feedback, the less likely the subject is to connect any sort of cause and effect relationship. This relationship is at the heart of behavioral science and works with behaviors you want to cultivate and those you would like to extinguish. 

But, not all learning involves learning a behavior; some things we grasp or not based on developmental readiness and this type of readiness, as we well know, varies from learner to learner. Sometimes, students internalize the lesson, other times, it simply goes over their heads. Eventually, when they're ready to notice, they will. In these cases, is there a benefit to immediate feedback or is there a downside to the constant and instant judgment about how one measures up to an ideal? Are our students equipped to deal with the feedback constructively and do they really use it as a springboard to learning more or better or, as I often see, do they wear their numeric score or grade as a badge, an external indicator of worth in the class hierarchy? Despite my admonishments, every time my students get results, the first thing I see them do is turn to someone else to compare scores. In middle school, maybe the constant assessment just adds to the pressure that adolescence naturally brings. Of course, we have to teach students how to use the potentially valuable information that can be gained from seeing immediate results, but because some things only start to make sense with maturity and perspective, does a scored assessment always add value?

The other questions begged in our search of faster and better assessments are can we and should we assess everything? As teachers, we are hearing more and more that nothing worth doing in the classroom should go without assessment and, if you don’t assess it, don’t waste your time teaching it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into teaching English because of my need to parse data or reduce learning to a number. There is a need for feedback, certainly, not only to assess student learning and progress but also to evaluate our own teaching. But, with the limited amount of time I have with students, I prefer to maximize the time spent in discussion and practice, rather than fill it with assessments that serve the sometimes false goal, and mainly administrative purpose, of accountability in teaching.


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As always, I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the musings of my better blogging two thirds.

Ms Karen Lovett

Ms Julie Forbes