NZATE 2013 Presentation "Enhancing Literacy Through QR Codes"

This year I was encouraged to submit a presentation on the work I did last year with my Year 9 class. You may remember we did a pretty big 3 parter last year as a big project, including book trailers and QR Codes. The presentation will be in two parts, with part 1 disseminating the results of the project (how we did it; results) and part 2 teaching how to make QR codes, and if time, how to make a little video in Powerpoint.

So, to provide resources, here are, in no particular order, but starting with the Prezi:

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This Prezi!
Youtube trailers
Google Docs (for forms)
Assignment Sheet
Marking Schedule
Mrs Faulkner Wikispaces Year 9 (sound banks here)
Creative Commons Search
My Blog reflections (the post before and after refer to it as well)
QR Stuff (to make codes)
Quickmark QR Reader  (to read codes on your computer)
QR Code Sample  (to practice using your QR Reader)

Technology in 2012

Summary of technology used this year:

As you can tell from my last 2 posts, it hasn't been a banner year. I have tried, within the limitations I have, to utilise as much tech as I can, but the students themselves have so little access, that of the time they spend trying to create a project, I spend twice as much time having to create/upload/download/convert their work that it's a major turn-off. We have had very little access this year, including a 2 week period where one teacher booked our only resource for four weeks straight for word processing, and another closed their lab for an entire term so the THREE students who put together the yearbook could have the whole lab.

Ok, enough whinging.

This year, my year 13 students have utilised Prezi (for the first time for them - so proud!) to present their oral presentations. they did a great job! what wasn't great: my laptop not connecting to the data projector, the network going down during their presentation time (several days in a row, and several times in a period) and the load-time for any embedded audio/visuals.

My year 12 students have created a film study google doc for the tv mini-series they studied. This involved me having to watch several hours out of class to rip stills for them to use to illustrate their points, which was fine by me as long as they were using them. I found using google docs for collaborative work better than a wiki, because they can all create in one place at the same time.

My year 9 students have created a film wiki. They didn't enjoy this as much because 1) they couldn't access the film shorts on youtube while working on their pages, 2) only one person per group could post at one time, and 3) they couldn't upload anything to the wiki themselves; they had to wait for me to do it. What was really cool was that we were able to ask Simon Pegg questions!

My year 10 students worked with Fakebook again this year. This will be the last time I use Fakebook in class. The site requires a number of steps to be done in a certain order before the page can be saved (and edited), and they struggled greatly with this, constantly losing their pages and having to start from scratch. The student who persevered won a coveted twinkie.

Right now, my Year 9s are working on a project that our Librarian and I collaborated on. They are creating book trailers for their chosen texts. Once completed, I have to upload them to google docs myself, then email them the link so they can create a QR Code. The code is then printed for 1) the cover of the library book and 2) a space in the library that the Librarian has prepared. We decided to do this project to increase literacy, always an issue in a boys' school, and to present to the BoT what students can do when they have access.

I've also had the boys prepare a 30-60 second speeches where they state what they expected to be doing in high school (technology-wise) and how those expections have been met. I'm going to edit these speeches into one video.

When the tasks are complete (had hoped this would be done by the end of the term, but it takes me 15 minutes on our network to upload each trailer to youtube, sigh), the Librarian and I are going to request to be on the agenda at a BoT meeting and have a 2-part presentation: 1) this great project, and 2) what's really going on at our school tech-wise and a plan for what can be done about it.

And that pretty much sums up this year.

uLearn11

another great conference behind us, and the best thing is that after 3 very long terms, and virtually no break these holidays, i am totally stoked to get back to school next week!

there's nothing better than getting out there with like minded peers and sharing ideas. not being much of a creative thinker myself, spending time talking with and listening to others is an important facet of my own learning and teaching.

as i said to the delegates in my own session: take away ONE thing you're going to give a go. i'm practising what i preach, and my one thing this ulearn is QR codes.

@dakinane gave the session i attended, and he said we would be surprised at how easy it is. boy, was i! i've already prepared my "mission" (traditional word: homework) for this week, with a QR code for my level 1 students. the link is to the online flashcards i created last week. i'm hoping that the non-traditional delivery

of homework will lead to further engagement with the material, as they have really struggled with language features. (nb: flashcards designed specifically for my class, and often refer to things we've discussed, just fyi).

Fakebook - Make Fake Facebook Pages Using a Tool for Students

so, late last week i tweeted that my class was going to create fake facebook pages for characters from our novel, using the tool known as Fakebook.  the premise is pretty simple:  enter the name, create the bio with simple, straightforward "coding," populate a friends list, and add status updates and comments.  you can add photos, links, and videos as well.  this tool was created for history projects, but i thought it would suit characters as well, and sure enough, when we put the main character's name in and the name, a photo of him came up! pretty nifty.  all but one of the students in this class have their own facebook page (yes, they are all 13), so they were familiar with the concept.

Sample Public Fakebook page with video embedded

Sample public Fakebook page for a character

we've been working on this project for three periods now, and there have been some headaches.  but first, let me announce that the horrible, ancient mobile laptops have been replaced! 20 brand new laptops, a step up from the bargain-basement, teacher-assigned model, are now in one rolling cart. unfortunately, the second cart contains older, used teacher models (512mb), which are still r e a l l y slow and time consuming. i'm managing that by handing them out in reverse order every other day.  how did we get the new lappys you might ask? well, the staff member in the maths department that oversees them went to the store, found what he wanted, and told the tech to buy them. at least that's how he put it to me!  i wonder who he knows...

back to the headaches:  you can save your profile page, but only once you have created a bio, one friend, and one status update/post.  sometimes this is not consistent.  when you save, you put in your choice of password, and the site gives you a link. students did not have access to email to email themselves a link, so some of the quicker ones saved the link in a document (it was long).  the ones who wrote it weren't all exact, which meant they had to start over the next day.

even saved profiles with proper links "did not exist" in some cases, and those students had to start over.

sometimes, the profiles would freeze, and the kids would have to revert to the last saved version, if they had saved it already. otherwise...

if the kids hit "refresh" the entire profile got eaten. caveat:  do not use forward, back, or refresh! this was a special problem for those whose profiles froze up.

a couple other housekeeping things: i don't know about your students, but mine tend to use a smaller window (not maximized) when they work online, and they rarely considered scrolling, so they missed that when they were to save, they had to put in a password, which was hidden at the top of the screen. they encountered the same problem when they went back to their saved profiles - they needed to enter their passwords to edit, but had scrolled far enough down that the password window didn't show and they thought they were stuck. the lack of awareness of simple, basic computer use always tends to make me a bit grumpy.

i'm looking forward to seeing their completed profiles, which i hope will properly document a time in our character's life. i also must reiterate: digital immigrants my behind! these kids can click and click and click on links, sure, but they *know* how to do very, very little without explicit instruction.

final note:  we had some other issues as well, which at first i thought were glitches with the fakebook programme. it turned out that the network connection is going down a minimum of 5x per hour. i have been documenting this with screenshots from my lappy during the last week.

Flip Video in the Secondary English Classroom

our hod made the decision to spend some of our budget last year on 15 flip video cameras (yay!). i am in charge of tomorrow's pd session, seeing as i'm the only one who has used one.  i bought my own at the 2009 ulearn conference in christchurch.  best buy ever!  however, i didn't want to remake the wheel for pd, so i've spend this afternoon doing some 'net research ... and what i've found is that there is room for discovery in secondary english. this may be exactly what i've been waiting for since moving to nz - a new opportunity to conduct research and present findings, something i did in my old life as a university lecturer in the states. i'm happy about that.

in the meantime, i'd love to hear from other secondary teachers, specifically english, but not necessarily, as video is well advanced in other departments (and may get the pe dept to buy their own cameras instead of stealing ours - yes, this resulted in a new locked cupboard! not that we don't want to share, but they don't sign out or return!). in my desire to integrate tech into the classroom, i've really enjoyed the sharing of ideas across the disciplines as well as from the primary/intermediate areas - just about any idea can be extrapolated into the secondary/english classroom with some thought.

i have used my flip video for:

1. videotaping practice & competitive public speaking students, then using the video for critique and further practice
2. videotaping our drama students for same
3. student-created video for their blogs, re "how i have found my first year of high school" where they reflected on their hopes and fears at the beginning of the year, and contrasted them with the realities they experienced.
4. student-created video for a video competition that they edited themselves (you may remember this from two years ago)
5. more student video for responding to texts - video book reports, feedback, critique, etc.
6. an NCEA internal assessment where a student was unable to write the response was recorded via flip video
7. NCEA level 1 speeches recorded via flip video - this makes external moderation at the end of the year so much easier!  each video clip is saved under the student's name, with mark, for easy collating onto a video DVD for NZQA. staff that do not have to put together external moderation have NO IDEA how time consuming it is to go through their unconverted, unlabelled videos! i get 1 hour a week to do my job, and just putting together last year's moderation took 8 hours. that's 2 months of my paid time, for one tiny job that next year can be done with ease in about 10 minutes.

these are some of the ideas i came up with, and i'm not a horribly creative thinker.  so for pd i'm going to utilise both richard bryne's post Many Ways to Use Flip Video in the Classroom (you'll know richard from Free Technology for Teachers) and tom barrett's 43 Interesting Ways to Use your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom (you know tom from his edte.ch blog), a collaborative ppt created by teachers and published under Creative Commons in Google Docs.  this year i am hoping to have my junior students utilise the flip videos and their own cell phones, but thus far, a lot of stuff if blocked again this year for students (i'm talking access [uploading the video] and editing), and that's fodder for another post.

cheers,
kelly

Movie Making, an update

i cannot believe it, but we have been editing our videos for 2 WHOLE DAYS! sorry to shout, but if you have visited here before, you will know that it took me 2 months just to get my kids access to movie maker AND have it work at the same time. i am so excited, i actually remembered to bring a camera and take some pix!

here are my brilliant sweeties, hard at work.

they look determined, eh?  we are getting short on time; i have to have the videos converted & on DVD ready to post THURSDAY. eeeek!

look at us, working collaboratively!

win or lose, my guys have done a fantastic job of creating their projects. i am very, very proud of them, and thrilled to death to have finally gotten together some tech that actually worked!

cheers,

kelly

NZATE 2009

the nzate 2009 conference was inspiring. i really enjoyed meeting you all and seeing you again at the different technology workshops.  i hope now that you're home, those of you who had your email addresses blocked will now activate your twitter, diigo, and blogger accounts and start participating! those of you who were able to access your accounts need to continue posting.  i look forward to hearing from you on twitter or here in the comments section.

i have collated all of those participants who had completed the process and inserted them into the slide that says "NZATE participants".  i sent the .ppt to nzate; it is also published in google docs and below.  you can see it in full screen mode by clicking on the square on the bottom right hand side, along with the speaker notes, which are simple, step-by-step instructions.

today i have uploaded another 160 bookmarks to diigo; i am tagging them and sharing them as quickly as i can.

remember, keep participating and contributing to web 2.0!

cheers,

kelly