Thing 7: Audio tools
In a previous post I mentioned Flipgrid. I love Flipgrid! Actually, there are two tools I've been plugging lately with teachers and their students. One is Flipgrid, and two others are Seesaw and Screencastify. I've used Seesaw off and on for a couple of years, and recorded myself on tools like Screencast-o-matic and Screencastify for years, but Flipgrid is a tool that I was introduced to in recent months. Both are super easy, have a short learning curve for teachers, and have great benefits.
Flipgrid is wonderful for its simplicity. Soon after I was introduced to Flipgrid, the principal in a district where I do technology integration asked me to show Flipgrid to teachers. I did, and the school librarian and a 3rd grade teacher immediately wanted to try it. It was wonderful to see how easily they set up accounts, invited students into Flipgrid through a code, QR code, or link in Google Classroom, and got started. The librarian had 2nd graders try it, and within minutes, they had figured out how to touch the plus sign to record themselves, take a selfie for their avatars, and give themselves stickers. A couple of 2nd graders immediately got creative and tried different ways to record themselves (such as popping up into the view of the camera), and they all enjoyed recording themselves and watching each other's recordings, pressing "like" to like each other's videos. Since then, I've occasionally found a couple of shy kids who are reluctant to record their own voices and selves (sometimes suggesting covering themselves with a book helps, but sometimes not), so it's a tool that should be offered with alternatives.
Speaking of offering alternatives, I was recently asked to help 5th grade in the same school create a moving up video where they record words of wisdom for younger students...things they liked, advice for younger students, that sort of thing. I used Screencastify and uploaded the videos into Animoto, and it worked simply and easily. The students were offered the alternative of writing down their words of wisdom, sharing those words with me through Google Docs, and I would add those words to the Animoto as text slides. A small handful of students did that...but my happiest moment was when one of the shy students in 5th grade (she has selective mutism) embraced recording herself on camera, and even did that with me in the room. (I offered to leave; she shrugged, told me it was fine, and started recording herself before I even had the chance to move. It was wonderful. It was the first time I had ever heard her speak directly to me, ever, and I had known her since Kindergarten. Suddenly, her mutism around teachers was stripped away, and she effortlessly recorded her voice and her image for the camera, and did it in one take as if she had been recording herself in front of teachers her whole life.)
But I digress. Another audio tool that is great for students to use is Seesaw. Around the time of the budget vote, the Kindergarten teachers in this district I've mentioned asked me to help them create little vignettes using Seesaw that they could share out with parents and the community. Using Seesaw, students could choose to create a video, take a picture of their work and record their voice as they talked about their work, create a drawing, draw on a picture of their work, and other things. It was great to see the Kindergarteners embrace Seesaw really easily (so easily that when I logged their iPads out of Seesaw, they went right back to the QR code projected on the classroom Smartboard and got right back in), and what a wonderful tool to record video and audio of student learning, and keep it as a digital portfolio and share it with parents through the parent features in the app.
Flipgrid is wonderful for its simplicity. Soon after I was introduced to Flipgrid, the principal in a district where I do technology integration asked me to show Flipgrid to teachers. I did, and the school librarian and a 3rd grade teacher immediately wanted to try it. It was wonderful to see how easily they set up accounts, invited students into Flipgrid through a code, QR code, or link in Google Classroom, and got started. The librarian had 2nd graders try it, and within minutes, they had figured out how to touch the plus sign to record themselves, take a selfie for their avatars, and give themselves stickers. A couple of 2nd graders immediately got creative and tried different ways to record themselves (such as popping up into the view of the camera), and they all enjoyed recording themselves and watching each other's recordings, pressing "like" to like each other's videos. Since then, I've occasionally found a couple of shy kids who are reluctant to record their own voices and selves (sometimes suggesting covering themselves with a book helps, but sometimes not), so it's a tool that should be offered with alternatives.
Speaking of offering alternatives, I was recently asked to help 5th grade in the same school create a moving up video where they record words of wisdom for younger students...things they liked, advice for younger students, that sort of thing. I used Screencastify and uploaded the videos into Animoto, and it worked simply and easily. The students were offered the alternative of writing down their words of wisdom, sharing those words with me through Google Docs, and I would add those words to the Animoto as text slides. A small handful of students did that...but my happiest moment was when one of the shy students in 5th grade (she has selective mutism) embraced recording herself on camera, and even did that with me in the room. (I offered to leave; she shrugged, told me it was fine, and started recording herself before I even had the chance to move. It was wonderful. It was the first time I had ever heard her speak directly to me, ever, and I had known her since Kindergarten. Suddenly, her mutism around teachers was stripped away, and she effortlessly recorded her voice and her image for the camera, and did it in one take as if she had been recording herself in front of teachers her whole life.)
But I digress. Another audio tool that is great for students to use is Seesaw. Around the time of the budget vote, the Kindergarten teachers in this district I've mentioned asked me to help them create little vignettes using Seesaw that they could share out with parents and the community. Using Seesaw, students could choose to create a video, take a picture of their work and record their voice as they talked about their work, create a drawing, draw on a picture of their work, and other things. It was great to see the Kindergarteners embrace Seesaw really easily (so easily that when I logged their iPads out of Seesaw, they went right back to the QR code projected on the classroom Smartboard and got right back in), and what a wonderful tool to record video and audio of student learning, and keep it as a digital portfolio and share it with parents through the parent features in the app.
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