Using TED talks and iTunes U to Develop Students' Listening Skills

One of the goals set out in the Common Core standards is to make students better and more discerning listeners. More specifically, the standards require students to "Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric" (CCRA.SL.3). This standard considered in isolation can appear daunting. Put in exaggerated terms, it would require a regular round of speakers invited into the classroom and/or a heavy dose of student presentations. Both of these options are important in developing students' listening skills, but neither can happen on a consistent enough basis to provide the repeated practice students need to master this standard. But students can receive a steady diet of engaging presentations through online resources like TED.com and iTunes U. In addition, when videos from these online resources are embedded into units focused on Big Ideas or Big Questions, students are motivated  to do the hard work it takes to delineate a speaker's reasoning and evaluate the speaker's point of view on a topic.

First, TED.com and iTunes U are both excellent repositories of video presentations on a wide range of topics from a diversity of speakers. TED.com is best for concise and polished presentations since each speaker is only allowed eighteen minutes to communicate a message, a format that forces each speaker to narrow the topic. Anyone can stream the video directly from the TED site or download it for offline use. There are many lists available online of TED videos that are good for classroom use. In the last year, TED.com has also developed TEDEd, which is a collection of short, captivating videos teachers can build lessons around. iTunes U is another source of videos for classroom use. As the name suggests, it requires iTunes to access the videos and is generally geared towards upper academic levels. But if you are teaching Night by Elie Wiesel, the interviews available here will definitely supplement your unit. Of course, Youtube deserves a mention, especially if your district has unblocked Youtube for schools.

Second, videos discovered in the ways described above are most effective when embedded into units that focus on a particular novel, theme, big idea, or big question. This gives students a reason to watch the video and do the hard work it takes to understand the message that is being communicated. In this way, the videos, along with the fiction and non-fiction being read in class, become another source for considering the big idea or theme of the unit. For more information about designing units based on big questions, I would recommend Jim Burke's book What's the Big Idea? The first chapter of the book can be found here.

This year I plan on incorporating more video into my big question units to provide my students with more opportunities to practice their listening skills and to provide captivating sources for considering answers to our collective questions. On a side note, I am still trying to develop a helpful graphic organizer for delineating and evaluating a speaker's point of view, so if anyone out there has some ideas, please let me know.

Postach.io: Blogging via Evernote

I am a huge Evernote fan and I find myself using it in more and more ways. I was excited to discover that I can use my Evernote account to create and post to a personal blog. The website Postach.io (yes that is the website's name) allows you to use your Evernote account as a blogging platform. Postach.io creates blog posts from notes in your Evernote account.

After signing up for a free account, you can start a new blog by clicking "Create New Site." You begin by creating a sub-domain, a title, author bio, and description for your new blog. The next step is to choose a notebook in your Evernote account to associate with your new website. By default, Postach.io creates a notebook entitled "Postach.io," but you can choose any notebook you desire. Notes within this notebook become blog posts when the tag "published" is added to the note. Finally, you can link various social accounts with Postach.io, enter a Google Analytics code, use Disqus for comments, identify if you want to use Markdown or not, and choose a theme for you blog.

Now your website is ready to go. Simply create notes within the notebook you chose and tag them "published" and they will appear on your site. Pretty much anything you can include in an Evernote note can be published on your blog. There are differences between the web, mobile, and desktop versions of Evernote, so you may find certain tasks and editing are easier on one platform compared to the other.

With so many tools out there, I try to consolidate as much as possible. While the blogging platform is simple, it gets the job done for me and makes my Evernote account that much more useful. If you have an Evernote account and have not started blogging, Postach.io may be the tool that gets you started.

Teaching Channel

This past weekend I attended the Fall CUE (Computer Using Educators) conference in the Bay Area. One of the sessions I participated in was on the topic of the Common Core Standards. One of the presenters mentioned an excellent online resource to help you and the teachers at your school prepare for the shift to the Common Core: Teaching Channel. The website is full of video lessons and tutorials along with the teacher handouts and resources mentioned in each video. In essence, it is a free professional development library totally devoted to the Common Core Standards.

If you click on any video, you are immediately taken to a separate page where you can view the lesson or tutorial of your choice. Along with the video player, each video lists the lesson objective, length, questions to consider, and the Common Core Standard related to the resource. Below the video player you will find any supporting materials mentioned and a discussion thread about the video. Currently users are not allowed to download videos, but you can share them via popular social networks, embed them on other websites, or send a link to the video through email.

One of the best features of Teaching Channel is the ability to sort the videos by subject, grade, and topic. As a middle school English Language Arts teacher, I was able to find fifty videos related to my subject and grade level. The videos range in length from two minutes for quick lesson tips or up to thirty minutes for larger topics.

Teaching Channel is a great resource for department collaboration time. The video lessons and tutorials are not presented in a "this-is-how-to-teach-it-correctly" tone, but instead are starters for discussion and fuel for your own ideas. If you are looking for a way to learn more about the Common Core or want to view lessons in action, visit this feature and content rich online professional development resource.

Quizlet: Creating Amazing Flashcards

Quizlet is a flashcard site that makes it easy to study any subject for free. This web tool allows a user to create a flashcard set for any subject and immediately begin studying terms and definitions. The power of Quizlet is how easy it is to create a flashcard set and the features available once the set is created.

To begin with, you don't even have to create an account to preview Quizlet's features. On the front page of the website you can test drive its features using one of the sample sets. The most basic mode allows the user to quickly flip through the terms and definitions and begin learning the content. Each set gives you the option of viewing the term first, or both sides at the same time if you are running through the cards for the first time.

But it is the other features that make Quizlet such a powerful tool for teachers and students. The first feature is a "Speller" mode, which allows the user to listen to a term and then type in the correct spelling. Next is the "Test' mode which assesses the users knowledge of the set with fill in the blank, multiple choice, or True and False formats. "Learn" mode is similar to "Speller" mode without the audio pronunciation. Finally, there are two game modes called "Scatter" and "Space Race." The first game scatters the terms and definitions across the screen and the user has to drag the correct term to its corresponding definition. The second game is a timed race where the user has to type in the term before the definition moves across the screen. The amazing thing is that all of these modes are available as soon as a set is created.

Creating a flashcard set is dead simple. Type the term in the first box and Quizlet will even offer to provide a list of definitions to choose from. Flashcard sets can be created in a variety of different languages and foreign language study is one of the top uses of the website. If you are studying a very common topic, such as SAT vocabulary prep, you search for sets created by other users. Frequently other users have already created a set for the topic that the user needs to master.

Quizlet has a few advanced features. You can add images to a flashcard set by searching through the free images available on the site, or you can upload your own images by signing up for a Plus account for fifteen dollars a year. Quizlet also allows you to create different classes and share flashcard sets with particular groups of students. User created sets can also be embedded on a website or blog.

I have used Quizlet for many years and I am constantly finding new uses for it. I have included a sample set I created for my students. So sign up for a free account and have fun creating flashcard sets for you or your students.

Downloading Videos

I frequently come across videos on websites that I think would make a great part of a lesson, but the website is blocked by an internet filter (i.e. YouTube).  When I come across this situation, I turn to a very helpful Firefox add-on called "Video Downloadhelper." This little utility adds the ability to download to your hard drive most videos on webpages.

The add-on automatically detects when a video is present, and the three colored spheres in the logo begin to rotate. Just click on the animated spheres and you will see the name of the video file playing. Click on the file name, and the video will immediately begin downloading. On sites like YouTube, you will even be presented with different file types and video qualities for the same clip. You can then put the video file on a flash drive and use it as part of your lesson.

Video Downloadhelper

Wingclips

Video clips can often serve as great introductions to units, concepts, or literary themes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to locate quality clips that meet the needs of the lesson you might be teaching on a given day. That is where Wingclips comes in.

This website has a large collection of clips from popular movies, past and present, arranged by theme. When you visit the website, one of the first things you will see is a slider on the left-hand side of the webpage. Simply drag the slider up and down to locate the theme you need. Once you click on the theme, you will be taken to a list of clips that fit that topic. Each clip is playable and can be viewed full screen. Downloads of clips can be purchased on the site. But for most classroom needs, simply playing the clip in order to stimulate discussion about a topic is probably enough.

So the next time you are looking for a video clip to help your students engage in a topic, give Wingclips a try.

Creating Classroom Posters

Last year one of my students wore a t-shirt with a thoughtful quote: "Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard." I immediately wanted to put the quote up in my classroom so that students would read it and be challenged by its message. I thought of making a poster, but realized that our poster making machine no longer worked. But then I remembered the website www.blockposters.com. This great web tool easily creates a poster from any image a user uploads. The poster is "blocked," that is the image is pixelated when viewed up close, but looks excellent when viewed from a distance. A quick search on Google images provided a large number of pictures with the quote. I downloaded an image and immediately got to work creating my poster.

Blockposter.com walks you through three easy steps to create your poster. First, you upload the image from your hard drive. Next, you choose how many pages wide you want the poster to be and what size of paper you will use. Finally, you download a PDF containing your image. I would recommend checking the PDF file to make sure your poster was created correctly and then find a color printer to actually print out the file. It takes some time and patience to assemble the sheets of paper, but when you are finished you have a pretty good poster for your classroom.

Below I have included a link to the poster that I created using the quote mentioned in this post.

Hard Work Beats Talent Poster