Windows Video Editor for Teachers

Using Windows video editor is pretty easy to learn and use. The question is, why?  Well take a look at this video and find out why you may want to use this handy tool during our Remote/Hybrid learning days.  

Flipgrid Frenzy!

This summer, Flipgrid was bought out by Microsoft and has since given the pro version to teachers for FREE!  YES!  FREE!!!  Which means, you can make as many Grids as you want!!  

Last year the free version only allowed for one grid with multiple topics.  This year you can create as many grids as you would like with as many topics as you want under those grids. 

If you have never used Flipgrid, it is a video discussion platform where student's can video booktalks, reflections, practice speaking in a foreign language,and much more. Student's can access via their computer or the app on their phones.  Take a look at this video to get started.

YouTube for Students: Instructional Ideas

With YouTube now open for students, a treasure trove of educational opportunities present themselves.  Here are a few ideas to get help you leverage this wonderful tool for your classroom.

Hangouts Post II: Connecting to the World

The world is quickly becoming smaller, more connected, and eager to share.  Google Hangouts lets us bring that world into our classrooms and professional lives like never before!  Here are a few simple ideas for using Hangouts to broaden the horizons of your classroom.

Hangouts Post I: Connect with a Colleague

For our first in a series of posts on the value of using Google Hangouts in your work, I want to walk you through how to set up your first communication with a colleague in our district.  Topics in this post will include…

• Accessing Hangouts for the first time
• Searching for colleagues
• Starting a text based chat
• Doing your first video chat
• Sharing your screen with you colleagues

Video Conference with Google Hangouts

Hangouts have arrived for teachers through our district Google Apps for Education (GAFE) accounts.  This is a wonderful resource that can be used to bring a variety of educational opportunities in our classrooms.

• Create teacher groups (grade level, teams, departments, etc...) and keep in touch through text messages


• Conduct video conferences to streamline cross district PLC meetings


• Connect with teachers/groups outside of the district for professional learning opportunities


• Share your screen with other teachers/coaches to help troubleshoot problems


• Connect your classroom to classes around the world for exciting learning opportunities


• And much more!

To start using Hangouts, navigate to https://hangouts.google.com or download the app on your personal devices.  Once you login with your district Google account, you will be all set to start finding others and starting the collaboration!

We will be releasing a series of Teacher's Corner posts that highlights these different uses.  Check back each week for new information, and if you want to dive in headfirst, contact your instructional technology coach!

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach

Embed Video in Mastery Manager Questions!

Has there ever been a quick clip that you wanted to embed in your Mastery Manager assessment?  Does your class contain many visual elements that would benefit from videos in your assessments?  Would you like to model questions for your students in a format that will appear on the PARCC exam?  All of these things are now possible with the ability to embed video into your Mastery Manager assessments!

Imagine this scenario.  You are a PE teacher leading a unit on Dance.  For part of your assessment you want your students to view examples of dance that were conducted by yourself or other students, and pick out techniques, mechanics, and more!  This system is wonderful for any assessment that involves process rather than simple recall.  So how do you do it?

Google Drive Video Sharing

When a video is added to your district Google Drive account, you have the option to set its sharing permissions to "On - Anyone with the link".  You'll also want to make sure that the permissions are set to "Can view".



Now accessing this video does not require signing into a Google account.  The next step is to find a way to embed the video into a Mastery Manager question.

Embed Code in Google

To find the embed code for your video, you'll want to follow these steps.

1. Open your video in Google Drive.


2. Click on the Pop-Out icon in the upper right of the window.


3. In the new window that opens, click on the three-dots icon and choose "Embed item..."  This will open a popup window that contains the embed code that you need for Mastery Manager.  Copy this code (Ctrl+C).
   

Putting it Together in Mastery Manager

Now that we have the code, we can open a Mastery Manager item bank and create a new question (question type does not matter).  Click on the Source button and then paste your embed code into the response box.  You can adjust the size of the embedded video by changing the height and width values in the embed code.



When you are finished, click on the Source button again and scroll to the bottom and click Save.  The video will not preview correctly in your Layout screen, so for a preview of what it will really look like, jump over to the Preview menu.  If you do not like the size of the video, you can go back to your Layout screen, click the Source button, and adjust the height and width values until you are happy!



To see a very simple example live and in action, click here and use the test code K2ZPW, followed by any random set of numbers as your "student ID".  Let your instructional technology coach know how you would like to use this resource and we would love to sit down and work with you!

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach

Evans Campaign Commercials

While covering the 2012 Election, Evans 6^th Grade students on Team Evangers worked on campaign commercials for their chosen candidate.  Groups studied strategies advertisers use to persuade others and their candidate’s political views.  Students then narrowed their focus of the topics they wanted to discuss and began writing scripts for their candidate.  Using the Small Wonder video camera the students recorded their campaign commercials throughout the building, using various settings and backdrops.   Once finished recording, Mrs. O'Day and I helped train the team on saving their video on Google Drive as well as MovieMaker and how to properly import, edit and enhance their work.  Students then finalized their video and uploaded their final product to CMS.  We shared some of our outstanding work with others at Evans Junior High during Election Week!  This activity was very relevant to current events and gave students a glimpse of what is involved behind the scenes in politics.  Our technology resources such as CMS, our laptops, Google Drive and MovieMaker made this election activity manageable and enjoyable for all!  To see examples of these projects please visit  the Middle School Tutorial Page on CMS, under Teacher's Corner. Scroll to the Movie Maker section and Student Samples. Enrollment code is oday. Here is a link directly to the page.

Jim Broach
6^th Grade
Evans Junior High School