Tag: student products

Apps, Creative Thinking, Education, Independent Study, K-12

Adobe Voice

Terri Eichholz
Screen shot from the Adobe Voice presentation of a group in my 5th grade GT class.
Screen shot from the Adobe Voice presentation of a group in my 5th grade GT class.  Inspired by this quote.

A couple of weeks ago, Adobe released a new iPad app called, “Adobe Voice.”  It reminds me a bit of Microsoft’s Photo Story – a free piece of software that allows you to create a video out of images.  Like Photo Story, Adobe Voice allows you to add photos, text, narration, and music.  However, it does give more options for where you can find your photos.  You can do a Creative Commons search, use your own, or even choose from a library of icons that is provided. I imagine the Creative Commons search is where the 12+ rating comes from on the iTunes store.  However, my students didn’t run into any inappropriate images during their projects.

The first group to use Adobe Voice in my classroom was a pair of my 3rd grade GT students.  They were trying to synthesize one of the ideas they had brainstormed for solving the problems of noise and mess in the cafeteria.  After consulting with a couple of “expert” principals, they realized that we were lacking some student leadership in the lunch room, and created this presentation to pitch a proposal to our principal for having student monitors during meal times.

They were under a time constraint, so they did not delve into many of the creative features of the app, but they got their message through quickly and effectively.

Last Thursday, I met with my 5th grade GT students for the final time.  Because they have been with me once a week for two years, I wanted to get a sense from them of what they felt was the one “takeaway” they got from being in my classroom.  (In Kaplan language, this is called the “Big Idea.”)  I gave them full freedom to cull through my Pinterest Board of Favorite Quotations. I asked them to choose one that they thought exemplified the message I wanted them to carry with them for the rest of their lives.  Then they were asked to create an Adobe Voice presentation built around that message, giving examples to support it.  Here are a couple of their videos (unfortunately, embed codes for Adobe Voice do not work on this WordPress blog):

“Make” – The students used pictures: from their Genius Hour presentations, of their Character Trait Floor Plans, of MaKeyMaKey, a project from our Global Cardboard Challenge, a drawing from our Squiggle Challenge, and of Cubelets.

“Change the World” – This one came from the pair of students who created the Lego Stop Motion film and scavenger hunt/quiz for Genius Hour.

You can view all of the presentations on our class blog post.  I loved the variety, and the multitude of perspectives.

A couple of things you should note if you are using Adobe Voice:

  • You will need an Adobe (or Facebook) account to login in order to upload your videos.
  • You can share the videos through e-mail and social networks, but there does not appear to be a way to download the video to your camera roll or to export the file.
  • In order to embed the video in a blog post, you will need to access it online once it is uploaded, and then get the embed code (also, the free WordPress hosted sites will not work with the embed code).
  • Check to see if the image search is blocked by your district filter.  If so, students will need to have images ready on their camera roll or to be able to take pictures while creating.

Here are a couple of other online articles about Adobe Voice: from CNet,  from EBHS Professional Learning.

3-12, Art, Creative Thinking, Education, Student Products, Teaching Tools, Websites

Dear Photograph

whatimeant2say

Dear Photograph is not an educational site.  It is a collection of photographs of pictures.  In each photograph, the photographer is holding up a picture from the past in front of a scene from the present.  The juxtaposition is striking, and the submissions are accompanied by moving letters to the subjects of the older photos.  The emotions that you find on this site are varied and deep, from nostalgia to regret.  I like the idea of using this concept in the classroom because I think that it could help students to better understand their families.  And if you have some really creative photo editors, they could develop their own versions for historical settings that they are currently studying or for literature.  Using Dear Photograph for a project would be a neat way to encourage empathy and perspective.

Art, Creative Thinking, K-12, Student Products

Doodle 4 Google

Terri Eichholz

The Doodle 4 Google contest is up and running, and I love the theme for this year.  It’s, “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…”  It’s open to all K-12 students in U.S. schools, and there are some really amazing prizes, including a Google Chromebook.  If you know a student who is an aspiring artist, be sure to have him or her submit an entry by March 23rd.  To inspire your students, you might want to head over to this link, where some art students created some Art History Google pieces.

3-12, Creative Thinking, Education, Independent Study, Menus, Motivation, Student Products, Teaching Tools, Websites

200 Ways to Show What You Know

Terri Eichholz

200 Ways to Show What You Know, brought to you by John Davitt from www.davittlearning.net, is a simple tool for generating ideas for products.  In other words, it gives suggestions for different ways to “show what you know.”  This allows the student to see that there are other options for projects besides Powerpoint presentations and papers.  If you, as the teacher, don’t feel comfortable in giving your students quite that much freedom (particularly since they may not be familiar with or at the maturity level to complete some of them), you could use the generator yourself, and narrow their choices down to a few that appeal to you for assessment possibilities.  Then, it might be easier for you to create accompanying rubrics with your expectations.

Apps, K-5, Research, Student Products, Teaching Tools, Videos, Websites

BrainPop’s GameUp

Terri Eichholz

Many educators already know about BrainPop, a subscription site that offers animated videos on a variety of educational topics.  It includes quizzes and downloadable handouts, as well as ideas for lessons.  BrainPop is also available as a free app for iOS.  For free, one can watch select videos.  Recently, BrainPop also made their subscription videos available with this app, so you can log in to that as well on your iDevice.  The new feature some of you may not know about, however, is “Game Up“, which is the BrainPop games area.  Partnering with a few other websites, BrainPop is continuing to add interactive games which tie in to their videos.  They are also offering resources for students and teachers to develop their own games.

K-5, Language Arts, Motivation, Student Products, Uncategorized, Web 2.0, Websites, Writing

Storybird

Terri Eichholz

As a teacher, do you ever have a moment when no one needs your help, and you are standing in the middle of your classroom wondering what you should be doing?  In my twenty years of teaching, I think that’s happened twice:  when I was student teaching and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing anyway, and today.  I showed my students Storybird, which allows you to choose sets of art to illustrate a story that you write.  I meant for it to be a station on some computers in my classroom, but the students who started at that station didn’t want to leave.  So, I started pulling out laptops until everyone was working on their own stories.  For over an hour, there was silence in my room, and every child was engaged in creating his or her own story.  We had been studying Figurative Language, and the assignment was to create a story with a winter theme that used at least 4 different types of figurative language.

After lunch, I thought the students might be weary of sitting in front of computer screens.  I began saying, “Okay, you have a choice.  You can either continue working on your Storybirds or – ” I didn’t even get to finish.  They unanimously agreed that they wanted to continue.

Storybird is free.  Register as a teacher, and you can add a class of students easily.  The students do not need e-mail addresses to register or log in.  You can view their work at any time, and they can also view the work of other students in the class by clicking on a tab at the top.  They can comment, as can the teacher.  It’s online, and easy to share, so they can show friends and family.  The teacher can post specific assignments or the students can just create.  Collaboration on stories is possible, and reading the stories of others is inspiring.  The art work is charming and lovely.

Here is a sample from one of my 4th graders: (I apologize if some of the words are cut off – WordPress does not “play well” with embed codes!)
[vodpod id=Video.15699736&w=425&h=350&fv=book_slug%3Dthe-snow-is-here%26amp%3Bsize%3Dxl%26amp%3BconfigXML%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstorybird.com%2Fstorymaker%2Fpaths%2F]