Digital Media Project - VoiceThread

My digital media project is a VoiceThread that asks students to watch a video clip of a “mathemagician”. Students would then respond to my prompt, asking them if they believe math ability is innate or acquired. Students could record their voice responses, post using their own picture or video clip, or simply type in their response.


Activity / Project is tied to curriculum, benchmarks / standards:This VoiceThread activity asks students to reflect on math as a learnable skill. Student discussions will be directed towards the math power standards of critical thinking and effectively communicating their understanding.

Presentation of the project is clear and audience friendly:The activity would be posted as a link to the VoiceThread on my class Moodle site for ease of access. Students would be encouraged to use their laptops as a resource if they need clarification on words such as “innate” or “acquired”.

Project utilizes interactivity:Students would be commenting / posting responses to my prompt regarding the video. With VoiceThread, they would then be able to view each other’s responses, and even reply to those if so inclined.

Evidence of how the activity / project will be used in the classroom to motivate students and help them learn:This activity would take the place of one of my regularly scheduled warm-ups at the beginning of class. The VoiceThread, however, could bring a level of continuity to the warm-ups throughout the week, as we could revisit it each day and have students respond to each other’s posts, or simply have a class discussion motivated by a particular comment or two. Students are typically more inspired to participate in a forum of this nature, having the freedom to create and share their views in a non-threatening online environment. Rather than jumping right into a class discussion, students could share ideas with each other before formulating their opinions. I feel this discussion itself would also help to motivate students currently struggling in math to put in a little extra effort on difficult material.

MatheMAGIC!

Digital Storytelling

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Ok. So I know I'm severely lacking in the "components of a good story" department here. However, I'm proud of my first Animoto attempt, and I'm blown away by the ease of production. As I noted in my video, I don't have collections of photos online (I'm not much of a picture taker), so I wasn't sure what I'd be able to use for this Animoto. But then I noticed all the different sites from which you can pull photos, including Facebook, and I was saved. Unfortunately, that means that my Animoto is only pictures of me. Oh yeah, plus cameos from my oldest brother Dan and my amazing nephew Carter! BONUS: I was also impressed by the music selection offered. Mos Def, really? I couldn't NOT use his music.

Weebly, Zoho Show, and SchoolTube

Not just more made-up words that will confuse my non-teacher friends and family members!

I'll start with school tube, as that is a site I had registered for and used in the past. This was a great resource when I wanted a place to post my videos from my summer trip to Ghana to share with my students. I knew that it was a much more controlled environment so I wouldn't have any hesitation about the "suggested videos" that come up after mine is done playing.

Next, I checked out Weebly. I've played around with a number of website builders (and have probably started an ACMS Student Council website in five different places because of it). I liked the looks of many of the pre-made templates, and it seemed fairly user-friendly. I keep telling myself that I need to learn more about html... but until then, this seems like a great option!

Finally, Zoho Show seemed interesting. I've heard alot about zoho as a comparison to google docs, so when I heard about their presentation tool, I was intrigued. Anything to get students away from the same ol' powerpoint seems like a good idea to me, though this did feel eerily similar to powerpoint. The benefits of having this free, online resource, however, is very nice.

DyKnow?

When I was hired five years ago, I inherited a classroom that still had chalkboards. I actually grew quite fond of them. Despite the pedagogical issues that come with just standing at the board showing problem after problem as a good portion of the class fights the weight of their eyelids, there was something about the feeling of filling up those chalkboards with formulas and computations. A sort of opus of mathematics for the nerd in me.
Two years ago, I finally (and somewhat reluctantly) had my chalkboards replaced with whiteboards. However, the better addition I had in my classroom was individual desktop whiteboards on which students could all try problems and easily share work and answers with me and their peers... a bit more collaborative.
Now my students all have laptops, and the progression continues. We can now use Microsoft OneNote in class for a lot of the same purposes. In addition, we explored a number of online virtual whiteboards in class that allow for sharing and collaborating. Quite an improvement over the chalkboard.
With that being said, I found that most of the free online whiteboards left a lot to be desired, especially in the user-friendliness realm. Even with OneNote, the writing tools are cumbersome at best, unless working on a tablet.
Luckily, I do have a tablet. I can't imagine going back to chalkboards!