Student-Led Broadcasts with GSuite (GAFE) - #TCEA17

Student-Led Broadcasts with GSuite (GAFE)

Kate Hebert & Brian Prewitt
Richardson ISD

Presentation Resources: https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/mstmagnettechnology/student-led-broadcasts-using-gsuite
Google Slides Presentation: https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/mstmagnettechnology/student-led-broadcasts-using-gsuite/presentation

Why do Student Led Live Broadcasts?

• Informative
• Educates Students
• Project Based Learning
• Multiple job learning
• Public Speaking
• Bring in guests for interviews
• Can add last minute details if needed
• Can share with small or large groups, or everywhere
• It makes announcements more interesting
• Puts a face to the announcements
• It's fun!!!

Why use YouTube On Air/Live Events?

• Easy to create each morning
• EAsy to share
• It's free
• Automatically creates a recorded version so it can be viewed at different times
• Simple Studio functions like switching cameras or to a slide show
• Add ins
• Hats and spectacles (limited time only; it's going away)
• Ability to restrict inside of District
• It's fun!!

Warning

Broadcasts that violate Copyright Law will be removed from YouTube

Equipment

• Computer w/ internet access
• iPad and stand for script (book holder)
• Camera (webcam or video camera that connects with the computer--might need firewire
• Microphone - we use a USB mic for better sound quality
• If you don't have any of this, you can use a computer with a built-in webcam
• 
  

Production

• Training your students--students trained for all roles
• Camera person--runs the camera and moves camera as necessary
• Production manager--runs the actual Live Events On-Air and includes screen sharing
• Anchors--on screen talent
• Sound-runs any audio input (changes)

Creating the Broadcast - Students to this!

• Students meet twice a week
• Everything planned for the next week
• All scripts written
• Meeet during specials rotation time twice a week
• Previously met Mondays form 3:15-4:45 most weeks
• Rehearse scripts
• Production Manager rehearses show timing
• Pre-broadcast run through - students rehearse the broadcast just prior to broadcast

Broadcasting

• Run through just prior to broadcast
• Anchors must look at camera & speak clearly with a strong voice
• Person running the show on the computer must be awary of script and slides--must be very attentive
• If camera needs to be turned, should be turned between shots
• Production manager checks camera and microphone choices
• Production Manager prepares slides for screen sharing by choosing to "Present in New Window."

How to Set Up Your Broadcast
See Video Tutorials Here:
https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/mstmagnettechnology/student-led-broadcasts-using-gsuite/video-tutorials

1. How to create your YouTube Live Event for the First Time
1. Dedicated GSuite Account (not your own account), YouTube, and Live Events
2. YouTube - Verification
3. Bookmarks
2. How to Create Your Love Event on Air Each Time
1. Use your bookmark
2. Going Live
3. Restrictions
4. Settings
5. Starting and Ending the Broadcast
3. How to Share Your Broadcast - Google Sites
1. Links and the Bookmarks Toolbar
2. Be logged in

This was an awesome session! Be sure to check out the resources on their website!
https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/mstmagnettechnology/student-led-broadcasts-using-gsuite


**************************************************************************************** All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Unleash Creativity with YouTube - #TCEA17

Unleash Creativity with YouTube

TCEA 2017 Presentation
Ann Witherspoon
Instructional Technologist
Midlothian ISD

Presentation Resources: bit.ly/unleashcreativitywithyoutube

Link to Google Slide Show:
 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18baOsMgMLCoZx6KO3aHMhdjiX4RPPWimMYNrSLpjXLE/edit?usp=sharing 

Check out Brooklyn & Bailey on YouTube! They are currently enrolled in a Texas public school and making lots of money on YouTube.

Three goals for today:

• Understand that YouTube's goal is to push content to you. You can make that work for you in your classroom
• Understand how to use YouTube in the classroom for your creativity.
• Understand how to leverage YouTube for your students.

Airstrike on Your Position? (feat. Ashton Edminster) - Gaming video; please excuse the use of guns. Created by Nate Trillo, a young man who is currently a senior in high school and a UIL state award winner.

Why look at YouTube as a tool for learning? 

• Spark Curiosity
• Embrace the mess
• Practice Reflection

"If we embrace a new paradigm as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry, we might bring a little more meaning to their school day and spark their imagination." ~ Ramsey Musallam

How do we use YouTube? How do students use it?

• To learn how to do things! 

Does your school use filtered YouTube for Schools? Some Rules to Follow before approving a video in YouTube for Schools:

• Watch every second of the video before showing/sharing/approving
• Use videos with an instructional goal in mind
• Don't allow students to do their content search within YouTube...Google will do the trick!

YouTube Creator Studio

• Has free music you can add to your videos. Some require attribution and give you the info you need to add to your video project.
• You can upload video and add basic edits to it
• Add stock video, transitions, still pictures, music, filters

Create an Animated Gif from a YouTube Video

• Pull up a YouTube video
• In the video URL in the address bar, type "gif" in front of YouTube (after the period)

Use TubeChop to show just part of a video.

Use ViewPure to block all of the related videos, comments, etc, on a video on YouTube

**************************************************************************************** All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

ThingLink for Video Adds Interactivity

I'm taking a MOOC through Coursera and UC Irvine called Advanced Instructional Strategies in the Virtual Classroom. This week, we had to turn in an assignment. One of the options for the assignment was to make an introductory video for an online course. I've used several video creation apps and programs before, so I thought it would be easy. But not so fast. The video needed at least one interactive element! That's not something I've done before.

Enter ThingLink for Video, which was one of the recommendations for adding interactivity made by the course instructor. If you are familiar with ThingLink, you know it's a tool for adding clickable icons to graphics. Recently, they've added an option for adding clickable icons to videos.

The only catch is, if you want to try ThingLink for Video, you have to purchase ThingLink premium. A one year subscription for educators is $35. I got a slight discount as a member of the MOOC, so I went for it. Even though I'd never signed up for or used the original ThingLink before. Time to find out what all the fuss is about!

So, here's how I created the video below. It's a mashup recipe, for sure!

• I used the free AdobeVoice app for iPad to create the original video, then uploaded it to the Adobe Voice website.
• I used Camtasia Studio on my PC to record the uploaded video while playing it from the AdobeVoice website. Camtasia is not a free program, but there are other screencast recording tools out there that could probably be used. They need to be able to save into a format that can be uploaded to YouTube, though.
• I saved the Camtasia video in mp4 format and uploaded it to YouTube.
• I used ThingLink for Video to incorporate interactive elements in the video.

And there you go! ThingLink for Video was very self-explanatory. There aren't too many options on the interactive icons when you insert them, which made it easy for a newbie like me. The thing I had a little difficulty with was adjusting where the links appear and disappear in the video.

There isn't a timeline you can drag the links on to tweak their starts, so you basically have to delete the link and start again if you didn't get the timing just right. Not too cumbersome, but it would be nice if it could just be adjusted on a timeline. Additionally, there are only three options for how long the link displays in the video: short (5 secs), medium (10 secs), and long (15 secs). Perhaps in future versions, the ability to more finely tune link lengths will be added.

All in all, it was easy to use and I think the video does its job. I've embedded the video below. Let me know what you think! Also, please share other tools you've used to make videos interactive. Thanks!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Create Short Animated Videos for Learning With the Tellagami App

Through a teacher and an educational technologist in my school district, I've recently discovered the Tellagami app for creating short animated videos. The video below is only the third Gami (the app maker's term for a finished product) which I have created. I was able to learn the app very quickly this weekend in preparation for introducing it to secondary fine arts teachers from my school district this morning. I won't take time in this post to teach you how to use Tellagami, because the app gives you a very nice tutorial the first time you launch it. There are also good instructions included on the Tellagami website. 

Check out my Gami (it's only 26 seconds!), then scroll down to learn more about what I like about the app and some ways I think it could potentially be used in teaching and learning.

What I Like About Tellagami

• The app is free  for both iOS and Android mobile devices, which makes it ideal for both 1:1 and BYOD learning environments. I created the Gami above on my Galaxy Note II Android smartphone.
• You do not need to create an account to use Tellagami.
• The app has a few choices for customizing your avatar, which helps keep a focus on the final outcome of the product.
• There are a few backgrounds to choose from in the app, but you can also doodle your own background,  select a photo stored in the photo library on your device, or take a photo while you are creating the Gami to use as a background.
• There is an option to directly record your voice or type what the avatar says and let Tellagami add the speech with a computerized voice.
• The maximum length of a Gami is 30 seconds, which lends itself to succinctness.
• There are numerous ways to save your Gami, including directly to your device as a QuickTime (iOS) or MP4 (Android) or sending a link by email without saving to your device.
• An advantage of sending by email without saving is your Gami gets uploaded to the web, and you get a link that you can Tweet or share on Facebook or in a text message. You can follow the link to get an embed code if you want to post the Gami on a website. This is the procedure I used to add the Gami above to this blog post.
• An advantage of saving the Gami to your device is you can then upload the movie file to a website of your choice such as YouTube or a blog. Here is the Gami I created as a demo during a fine arts teacher inservice this morning, saved as a a file to my iPad, and then uploaded to YouTube.

Ideas for Using Tellagami in Teaching and Learning

• Any teacher or staff member could create a Gami to add to their website or blog with a brief welcome/introduction message.
• A foreign language teacher at one of our high schools lets students speak via Gami because it is less intimidating than standing up in front of the class.
• Create a public service announcement (PSA) on a health, wellness, or safety topic.
• Create a book teaser/trailer to get peers or students interested in reading a book.
• Explain a problem, process, or procedure. This Gami uses a screen shot created with the Educreations app to explain a math procedure.
• Create a news report recounting the important facts of a current or historical event.
• A possible advanced use could include recording several 30 second Gamis and then editing them together into a longer video. This might be a way to get students to create a collaborative presentation, with each student recording a Gami for their part.

What Other Ideas Do You Have?

Have you used Tellagami before or had an idea spark from the examples above? If so, please share your ideas in the comments, and please include links to any Gamis you have posted on the web!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Contribute to the #ISTE13 Six Word Story Project!

Here's My Contribution! Now It's Your Turn!

Did you attend ISTE 2013 in San Antonio? Then you must contribute to the Six Word Story Project!

Technology Director Bryan Doyle had an awesome idea for a collaborative project where attendees could capture their ISTE experience in six words and a photo. It doesn't even have to be a photo you took; just one that represents your idea.

The thing is, the project started almost two weeks ago, and Bryan set a deadline of July 12th for finalization of the project. So far, there are 19 contributions. ISTE says 18,000+ people were in attendance in San Antonio, so 19 is not a very good showing!

Come on, education and educational technology advocates - let's show the world the power of collaborative project creation! And let's represent as many locations on the planet as we can!

Bryan explains the project in detail on his blog and provides a link to the Google Presentation you can add to. So don't wait or think you'll come back to this, go read about the project on Bryan's blog and make your contribution now!

Voki in the K-12 Classroom

As part of my research into Web 2.0 resources for possible use in our school district, today I looked into Voki, a website which allows users to create talking avatars. There are many options for creating the avatars, ranging from realistic looking people to fanciful animals. The speech of the avatars can be typed speech that is then spoken by a computerized voice, or it can be the recorded speech of a live person. Voki also has a portal aimed specifically at using the tools in education.

The tools for creating the avatar are quite intuitive. In about half an hour today, I was able to create the Voki you see below. (It would have taken far less time if I had not cared so much about my wardrobe and hair color!) I played with the computer generated voices, but in the end decided to record the Voki's message in my own voice. Take a listen, then read on for more on Voki, because I have some questions and resources for you!

I had fun making my Voki! :-)

How Are You Using Voki?

If you are experienced in using Voki with students, I would appreciate your responses to any or all of the questions below in the comments section of this blog:

• Do you just have the students create Vokis without creating an account on the site, and then immediately copy the link or embed code to access the Voki later?
• Do you allow students to create their own Voki accounts and save their own avatars? Or do you create a master account for yourself or the class and let the students save all of the avatars under that account?
• Voki's Terms of Service allow users under 13 to use the site with parental consent. Do you get signed permission from parents for students under 13 to use Voki or do you simply act "in loco parentis" and oversee the students' accounts? Do you have different policies for students who are 13 and older?
• Do you have examples of ways you have used Voki for teaching and learning? If so, please share! If any of your Vokis or Vokis your students have created are posted somewhere on the web, please provide a link!

More Ideas for Using Voki in Teaching and Learning

If you would like to explore using Voki with your students or would like more ideas for how to use Voki, here are some resources I have found:

• Podcasting in the Classroom with Voki
• Create Personalized Speaking Avatars with the New Voki for Education
• Voki Creates Ad Free Site for Education...Plus 20 Ways to Use Talking Avatars
• Voki Lesson Plan Database
• Voki Teacher's Corner - Discussion Boards for Sharing Ideas and Getting Your Questions Answered About Using Voki in Education

And last but not least, K-6 technology teacher and integration specialist Mary Beth Hertz shares how she used Voki with her 6th grade students:

Please don't forget to share how you approach Voki account management and use Voki with your students! Thanks in advance for contributing to the learning!!

Reflection on Collaboratively Producing a PSA: Be Careful What You Post Online

In a talk given at the 2008 Apple Education Leadership Summit, Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University, defined collaboration with these words:

Collaboration for Pixar means amplification. The amplification you get by connecting up a bunch of human beings who are listening to each other, interested in each other, bring separate depth to the problem. Bring breadth that gives them interest in the entire solution. Allows them to communicate on multiple different levels. Verbally, in writing, in feeling, in acting, in pictures. And in all of those ways finding the most articulate way to get a high fidelity notion across to a broad range of people so they can each pull on the right lever.

Having just participated in a group project which produced a one minute video public service announcement (PSA), Nelson’s words resonated with me as an excellent description of the collaborative process. Collaboration done well takes the individual contributions of invested team members and results in the amplification of those contributions as they become part of an end product that is more powerful  than the individual contributions themselves.

I believe each of the members of our PSA team, made up of Kim G., Alma G., Brian P., and myself, brought their strengths to the pre-production, production, and post-production processes while maintaining  their interest in the entire solution. In pre-production, I offered  the topic of helping educators remember they should be careful with what they post online because it could impact their careers. Although not everyone on the team works in a school district, they all agreed it was a timely topic. An initial storyboard was drawn up and shared for comment via an online Google document that we would continue to use to record our project’s progress over the next three weeks. From the very beginning, everyone was engaged in offering encouragement and ideas for improvement of the initial story idea. To discuss our ideas, we met via a phone conference and continued throughout the project to communicate via email and through our Google document.

As we moved into the production phase, Alma stepped up with her video staging experience and suggested camera shots that Kim, Brian, and myself would not have thought of on our own. Although she lived two and a half hours away from the rest of us and could not make our video shoot, her shot list sent via email was invaluable to the three of us who had much less experience with videography.

In production, Kim, Brian, and I took Alma’s shot ideas, tweaked the dialog I had initially written and Alma had added details to, and shot multiple takes of the scenes we felt would be most effective in the video. On “shooting day” I was primarily an actress, so it was fun for me to watch as Brian and Kim took the ideas the four of us had developed and transform them into scenes for our PSA.

One of the most difficult parts of post-production editing was selecting the best shots because we had so many to choose from. It was a good problem to have as we sorted through the clips, selecting the ones which balanced best delivery on the part of the actors with best overall sound and setting. A second challenge in post-production occurred after Brian had done most of the editing which brought together our video segments, Alma’s graphics, Brian’s narration, and our “camera-shutter” sound effect. Kim was tasked with adding credits and finalizing the video, but we found that Kim’s version of Movie Maker was not compatible with the aspect ratio that our video was shot in. Fortunately, I had a newer version of Movie Maker that could handle the wider aspect ratio, and I did not mind taking over the finalization of the movie. Because of the features of my version of Movie Maker, I was able to format the final .wmv video in a high definition, wide-screen aspect for posting to YouTube. It was just another example of each of us stepping up and jumping in where needed to make the final project a success.

Overall I believe our final PSA is a high-quality product for what was a first effort at video production for most of our group. Most of our video elements were original creations, but we were careful to provide links in our credits at the end of the video for elements from other sources. Credits for the graphics point to http://www.shuterstock.com/ where Alma has subscription access to the graphics files she used as backgrounds for the text elements in our video. Credits for the “camera-shutter” sound effect point to http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=42862 where we downloaded an audio file posted by user crk365 and licensed for free creative transformation under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/).

One improvement I would like to see in the PSA would require the graphic elements to display a little longer on the screen, perhaps a second or so after their words are narrated to give time for additional visual impact on the viewer. We were exactly at the one minute time limit, though, and we had to sacrifice some on-screen time for the graphics to fit all of the dialog in. We could have shortened our dialog in spots, but we really wanted to make some points about how easy it is for inappropriate content posted to the Internet to be shared and how students, parents, and administrators might react in those situations. I suspect with experience we would be able to strike the right balance on these aspects.

The creation of this PSA was a very positive experience for me. I feel our original idea was indeed amplified by the collaborative process. I am also encouraged to know that everyone on the team enjoyed and learned from this experience, as evidenced by our debriefing at the bottom of our collaborative Google document.

This blog post would be incomplete without our final project. I hope you enjoy watching Be Careful What You Post Online as much as we enjoyed making it!



Reference

Nelson, R. (2008). Learning and working in the collaborative age: A new model for the workplace. Edutopia. Retrieved September 25, 2010 from http://www.edutopia.org/randy-nelson-school-to-career-video

Reflection on Creating a Personal Digital Story

NOTE: This reflection is part of an assignment requirement for Lamar University course EDLD 5363 Multimedia & Video Technology

Creating a personal digital story was a rewarding experience for me. I have used Microsoft Photo Story before and even taught teachers how to use it in workshops, but I have never used it to create a product that was truly individual to me.

The most difficult part was finding a topic. I think I lead a rather unadventurous life; what story could I possibly have to tell? The Digital Storytelling Cookbook (Lambert, 2010) from the Center for Digital Storytelling was a wonderful read, and it helped me discover that I do have stories because everyone does. In fact, after reading the cookbook, I had an opposite problem – I had trouble deciding which story I wanted to tell! Finally, I decided to share a bit of my journey toward becoming an instructional technology specialist.

The process of putting the story script together had many layers and multiple occasions for editing. To get started, I used a modified version of Lambert's (2010) "Robert Frost" suggestion and wrote down everything I could think of about my story for ten minutes. This exercise served me well in providing the meat of the content. I then reworked my ten-minute writing into an initial script and story board.

When I compare the initial script/story board I shared with my team mates to the final story, it is similar in its content, but different in the theme I wound up portraying. All of that change happened during the natural reflective process that took place during the creation and revision of the story. After going through this process, the former language arts teacher in me is now full of ideas for using digital storytelling to teach students about narrative elements including story mapping and original story creation.

Next challenges to surmount: Finding photos that would represent my journey since I don’t have many photos of my years in the classroom, and keeping the story succinct and to the point. Fortunately, there's a whole world of Creative Commons licensed photos out there, so the graphics took some time only because there were so many to choose from! The two minute time limit on the length of the story was just what a wordy person like me needed. My Achilles heel in writing or talking is wordiness, so I actually enjoy word or time limits because they force me to focus on the most important details of what I need to communicate.

Overall, I am pleased with my first effort at a personal digital story and what I learned throughout the process. After seeing the finished product, there are a few things I’d like to tweak, but there are always a few things I’d like to tweak in a project. Due dates are a good limiting factor for me, too!

This blog post would not be complete without my story, so here it is below. Constructive feedback is appreciated!




Reference

Lambert, J. (2010). Digital storytelling cookbook. Berkeley, CA: Center for Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf