Fliggo For Better Video Posting

YouTube can be awesome, but first and foremost, it's usually blocked in any school district. Even if it's not, there is a lot of junk out there, and teachers just KNOW that some students will wander around looking at rap videos or exploding mentos videos.

Fliggo is a great alternative. You can still embed and upload videos, and you can even link to YouTube videos. The difference is that you can control the site and customize it to what you need. You can change the appearance of the site, control the privacy of it, and best of all it doesn't take a lot of technical know how. I wish I had known about this earlier - I could have posted all the science videos my students made, without worrying about random strangers looking at it. What a great tool, especially if you are worried about your student's privacy!

SlideShare

This past year, I was faced with the challenge of teaching 4th and 5th graders how to use computers. A great majority of them had never really used one, and even the few who did were unfamiliar with the terms and use - we spent a long time talking about how to select choices with radio buttons, how to use the trackpad, and how to save files. But there were never complaints, and anytime I asked my kids to do any task that would have usually been met with groans, I told them we would do it on the computers and they did everything I asked so as to get on the laptops ASAP. They were so excited to use Power Point, and were really positive on their feedback of other student's presentations. They asked if I could share the presentations on my Science Class blog, but I soon tired of embedding.

SlideShare is a great alternative. You can create an account, add tags, and even mark if you don't want others to download the presentations. It works for documents as well, and you can search other people's documents to see if there is anything you need! I shared my jeopardy power points, so that I can just email other teachers a link and they can use it directly from the site, or download to their computer. Also, I feel like I always email attachments and then the next day improve the file somehow. This way, I can improve the file and the changes will keep updating the original file. Click the link above to see what I mean, and you can leave a link to your page in the comments as well!

Online Science Demos

Part of my current position is integrating technology into the pre-existing Science curriculum. The extra challenge is justifying it to the teachers who have taught (exceedingly well) for years without computers. I think that University of Colorado's Physics site is a great example of a worthy investment, time-wise for the students. My favorite part is that is simulates lots of concepts, and lets you play with variables to really get a good idea of how things work.

You can employ this site in a few ways:

• show it on an LCD projector with the whole class, while discussing/asking for hypotheses as to what will happen next
• You can let the kids loose on computers in groups to play around with it.
• There are also lesson plans for certain demos, if you want to use those as well.

Please feel free to look at the lesson plan I made for the 4th grade Electricity and Magnetism unit.

Need some words translated?

I speak pretty decent Spanish, but there are times when I need to make a phone call home to a Spanish speaking family, and I get really nervous about saying the wrong thing. Of course, I write out a script, but I also keep my web browser open to Google Translate in case I need some support on the fly.

Of course, it's not perfect, but I think translating has come a long way since Babelfish, and it's quick and easy to go back and forth (there is a "swap" button at the bottom, to switch translations quickly). It also came in handy during my French course!

Bonus: It can also translate web pages - useful for sending home to parents in-class blogs or textbooks resources. Check out this blog in French!

Play movies in class!

I wrote earlier about how to play YouTube in the classroom even if it's blocked by district firewalls. I mention Miro which is a great player of videos, where you can search, subscribe to channels (I love Discovery Science!) and download videos to play later. Here is a "How To" to get you started:

How To Use Miro

Google Docs/Forms for quizzes

I love the idea of using Google Docs to have students type up reports, book answers, or whatever, but I still hae to figure out how to get around getting 200 accounts for my elementary school kids, whose parents might not want them to have email. Until then, I realized I can still use Google Forms!

Google Forms allows you to create a questionaire, survey or quiz and let your kids fill it out simply by accessing a web page. Of course, the URL is nasty but I just shortened it with TinyURL with the name of the quiz, it's much easier that way.

Sample Form (please fill out!)

After (or while) the students are filling out the forms, you can get a spreadsheet of results WITH graphs of how they answered! Check out the responses to my Sample Form.

You can make questions mandatory or optional, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the spreadsheet, and you can sort the spreadsheet by last name (I made two seperate questions to facilitate this, "first name" and "last name", and "teacher's name" since I am in 8 different classrooms).

Finally, my favorite part - you can select a column to code for right or wrong answers. I asked it to highlight everything in red that said "no", "east" or "west" (to answer, what are magnetic poles called), and whatever else signaled a wrong answer. Or you can code green when you ask an essay question that signals a correct answer for using key vocabulary (pole, attract, iron for magnet concepts). It makes everything so easy to grade!

How does using Google Forms help you in your classes? Any questions or tips?

YouTube in the classroom!

Wow, why did I not include this earlier! This trinket comes from one of my favorite websites ever, Lifehacker.com - a forum for, well everything. They published a post on the Top 10 YouTube Hacks which is a teacher's dream!

My biggest problem is showing YouTube videos in class, because my district blocks YouTube. One way is to use TeacherTube.com but they may not always have the video you need. Solution? I use Miro (get it at www.miro.com), which fetches the videos and downloads them (beginner) so it's a file instead of a webpage, but you can also subscribe to channels (advanced) and it will automatically download new videocasts for you! For instance, I subscribed to the Amazing Human Body channel, and anytime I needed to fill 3 minutes in class, I had a video ready to go on superhuman strength, bones, or muscles.

In conclusion, there are some GREAT Math, Science, and of course English and History videos, so use them in your class, even if you have a firewall :) Please please PLEASE use the comment section to link to your favorite videos, or talk about other YouTube hacks!