I am sure I have said it enough by now but I can’t stress the importance and the benefits from simply pressing a button. I’m sure you have finished a class once and thought to yourself “wow, that really went well, I wish I could let others see that”, now you can. Even if you record a whole class and it only gets one view by a student that was absent, that is one enough!
Student revision, student absences, saving time before class, flipping the classroom, parent feedback, assessment, accountability, engagement, etc, etc, all of this you can achieve with a click of a button before class.
Just remember, you are also putting yourself out there, are you happy to be put on show?
Here are just a few examples from the last few weeks of last term…
Update: Now teachers and students can collaborate and work together on courses
Invite Course Contributors
Now you can invite up to five course contributors to your course. Course Contributors can contribute to your course by adding posts, assignments, and materials. They can also manage the course enrollment and roster. To add Course Contributors to a course, click the Settings button in the Course Manager toolbar, and then click the Instructors tab.
So, you have created a great course containing books, videos, links, PDFs, Word Documents, Webpages, audio, other courses – anything. With iTunes U you can easily structure these into an engaging course run completely on the iPad.
iTunes U is like a delivery system for your amazing content. You can structure everything exactly how you would in the classroom but have everything stored in one place for students to access at anytime. You can run the course over a timeline or let students go at their own pace. As everything is stored online there is no need to hunt down and distribute resources. Courses are made easily with a web-based interface (Mac & Windows!). Over the next few pages you will see some of the potential of using iTunes U with the iPad.
As I have said before my school is a 1-to-1 iPad school so my focus has been on the iPad and Multi-Touch iBooks however you can use iTunes U for other resources. Instead of making iBooks (which run exclusively on an iPad) you could use PDF, video, audio, and more which will work on any system.
The layout I use below is designed for use on the iPad but I am happy to explain other options for this great, online platform.
So, how do you use iTunes U?
Well, what better way than by watching the video I put together for my students that will be using it this term. The video below was recorded at home (and in my painting clothes) while the students were on holidays. This shows the power and versatility of using social media such as the blog and YouTube. Minutes after posting the video my students were able to watch it, ask any questions on the blog and subscribe. Now when we meet for our first class next term they will be armed with the knowledge and resources to begin (and hopefully plenty of energy)
One of the best parts in using online and social media platforms in your classroom is everything is saved, all your posts of course but also a bunch of other stats. How many people clicked on your post? What did they view? For how long? Who has commented on your post? Did students watch the required video you posted? Did they add a comment?
All of these stats can be collated by date, time, person and so on.
This can be an amazing resource for both formative and summative assessment. And the best part is it is done for you.
Some examples of how you could use these numbers are:
Put a weekly task on the blog that requires all students to post their thoughts. In a click you can see if they have all responded. You can then collate these over the course of the year. Moving simple thinking routines such as these to the blog will save you a lot of time in collecting and marking work (reply to their comments from your phone!) and save a lot of paper.
It can also be used as a way to assess how the resources you create are working. Something that I found most satisfying last term was the from the exam results of one of my classes. I put of a series of posts on the blog which would be their only exam revision. This freed up time in class and allowed all students to revise the best way that worked for them (the posts were made up of a videos from me, other video sources, podcasts, class recordings, student work and more).
I guess it could have been a bit of a risk but having a quick look at the stats from that week:
Then seeing the classes final results it was a good move.
It also brings up another topic we have been talking about: student & parent engagement and personalising learning. I received great feedback from parents that were able to work with their child using the resources on the blog and help them with their revision. Other students also appreciated being able to use revision techniques that worked best for them.
A big selection of my videos are made up of screen recordings. Basically these are recordings of my Computer or iPad screen as I demonstrate something in front of the class.
As well as capturing the screen it can also record you (via a webcam) audio (great to hear you explaining things and student comments) and more.
You can then quickly edit these videos, add text boxes, alerts, music and more and upload them straight to YouTube.
These recordings are perfect for students that were absent but also to save time in class. With my Digital Media classes these can be very technical. For example when we started a new topic, Photoshop, I did a screen recording of myself at home explaining the basics, what tools we would be using and more. Students could watch this video as many times as they needed until they were confident. When it came time to have the class we could skip over this and get to work!
I could also easily see what students had watched the videos and they could post comments on the blog if they had any questions.
Camtasia (Windows / Mac – $99 / Free trial option)
These are the best options and have the most control. But if you want to try it out (and your school has yet to approve the cost of these programs) then these free options will work well:
Quicktime (Mac – Built into every new Mac OS, free and quite powerful)
This is not as easy, but once you set it up the payoff is huge. There was an App available that did this for you but has since been removed from the App Store. There are free (and legal!) ways to get if however – http://displayrecorder.net
The other option is to use a program such as Air Server. This allows you to use your computer as an AirPlay receiver and you can then record the stream on your machine. I use my iPad a lot when I walk around the classroom and explain a new Multi-Touch Book I have created. It also records all the audio from my and students.
Air Server is also a great option for schools that have a lot of iPads and don’t want the expense of an AppleTV. Any teacher can use their laptop, connected to a projector and have any iPad project straight to the screen! It is also very affordable at $3.99 each!
Below are just a couple of examples videos from my blog:
One of the best uses of my blog is uploading videos I create. Most of these videos centre around lessons I give to my class, student work, extra help, and other resources.
Though you can upload video to WordPress this comes at a cost and it is not the best way to do things. Setting up a free YouTube account is the key. YouTube will allow you to upload as many videos as you like for any length of time. YouTube also has a great set of analytics that can work in conjunction with your blog (more on this later).
You can then embed these videos into your blog so students can view them within the context of the post. I have found that some students are huge into their YouTube and though they may not follow all my posts on the blog they subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can get them on as many fronts as possible!
So, how do you embed videos? The video that I have embedded below shows you how to embed videos…(and is hard to say fast)
But, what if YouTube is blocked?
My school, like I am sure a lot of others currently has YouTube blocked for student use (mostly because of bandwidth issues). This doesn’t cause me any issues as most of my videos are intended as an extra resource and really best consumed at home. If I do require students to view a video in class it is a simple matter of putting it on the school server or embedding it in a Multi-Touch book.
There are other options as well. Currently I am looking into SchoolTube which is a platform only for teachers and students and videos uploaded need to be moderated by a teacher. I will update this blog on how this works out soon!
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I am sure I have said it enough by now but I can’t stress the importance and the benefits from simply pressing a button. I’m sure you have finished a class once and thought to yourself “wow, that really went well, I wish I could let others see that”, now you can. Even if you record a whole class and it only gets one view by a student that was absent, that is one enough!
The Connected Classroom 