Juan Teaches Division

In this video, one of my students teaches division. What I find interesting here is the way he asked questions. It is very easy to see the influence past teachers have had on the way he perceives he needs to teach math. What do you think?

Amazing TedX Denver Talk By Brian Crosby

Getting Over It

If you've read my earlier post Talking the Talk you'll know how I feel about hearing my recorded voice. Yesterday the chance arose to take another step up the ladder and produce a video.

@catspyjamasnz asked for people to contribute to her project What My PLN Means to Me and to add a video to the wiki.

So here's my contribution. Like I've said before, we have to put ourselves out there and get over our dislikes, fears and phobias. How can we expect children to do this if we don't?

Students Making Decisions for The Biome Project

Here is a post I wrote for my class blog, Mr. C's Class Blog. I am also posting it here because I wanted to share what my class has become. In the past I spent lots of time teaching content. I had my students do questions in their textbooks and lots of worksheets. Through my connections online with great teachers I evolved. I am a better teacher because of these connections. My students have a better opportunity to succeed because of these connections. In a few short years I have become less of a teacher and more of a facilitator for learning. My students are taking a responsible role in their own education.

My students are working on their biome projects now. Throughout this project they had to make choices based on what works best for them. Here are some vids of my students talking about what choices they made.

Here is Seth explaining what strategy he used to gather his information for the project.

Here Rosa talks about what strategy she used to gather her information for the project.

Here is Megan explaining what biomes she chose and which project she will do.

Here is Nathan explaining what biomes he chose and which project he will do.

Here is Parker explaining why he likes to be given choices with his work.

Adding Video to Your Blog

There's people out there that do this very successfully, certainly a lot better than I do. One of the reasons that I have so much profession respect for Jarrod Lamshed, Will Chamberlain and Joe McClung is there all teachers with blogs that promote the use of video for sharing. Nothing comes close to being able to get a 'feel' for a classroom than being able to view it.

Not so long ago I was asked by another teacher how to create a video for a blog. Now this in itself isn't a major, although I would say that I've taken it for granted somewhat. What really surprised me is that the IT person said that he'd have to tutor him about it for a week or so and didn't have the time. That led to me thinking that I really should explain how I do it as to me its straightforward, and ask Jarrod, Will and Joe to explain how they all go about it.

For my educational site I try and post once a day. Although that's a little difficult at times once you have the students 'humming' its relatively straight forward and video is a huge part of it. I take the opportunity to video as many school events as possible, or things from an educational perspective that I think the (online) audience would find interesting. Its that old cliche but some of the most viewed material that I've produced has been complete accidents. Our most popular language series in 2008 'Learn to Speak Samoan' came about as an accident because I had a charged camera, some free time and a student who didn't speak English. Our Girls Rugby videos which became firm favourites were a result of having footage that we were using for training and drills turned over to a wider audience.

I use a standard video camera without additional microphone (currently its a Canon MV800i) and a tripod. I then use a firewire capable to port the material across to movie maker. I use Photostory to create a five second link to the blog for before and at the end for the credits. I keep the videos no longer than three minutes. When publishing for uploading to blogger I generally don't upload anything bigger than 30 megs. I believe that the limit for files is 55 meg.

That's it.

I probably should have an individual sound mic, I know that I should use a program a bit more advanced that movie maker. I have used Moviemaker simply because I'm comfortable with it and its straightforward. I know there's better programs out there, but its always been adequate. Now that in New Zealand were into Term Two I have spent last term training a team of students to do all the filming and the editing. This term I look forward to viewing the finished product online and (hopeful) approving it for publication.

What I would encourage to anyone whose running a blog to think about publishing video footage, students really respond well to it (so much more so than written text or static photographs I believe) and it gives your auidence a greater understanding of others. Now there's also the whole idea of broadcasting/streaming live from your classroom, and I lookforward to reading from our experts on how that's done as that's something that's probably straightforward but I know nothing about the logistics of.

Talking the Talk

Earlier this week I left a comment (which I later turned into a blogpost) on this post by @wmchamberlain and was invited, via Twitter, to be a contributor at "At the Teacher's Desk" As I'd already identified audio and video of myself as a personal dislike I decided that the first step in "walking the talk" would be to use an audio-post as my first contibution to the blog.

Click to play*

This is my speaking voice; I mean this is the voice I use at school in class and with colleagues. I made a conscious effort to change and modify the way I spoke at teachers college 10 years ago. Out of school it’s a little more relaxed, but I maintain the same inflections, vocabulary and syntax. I still encounter occasional blank looks at particular phrases and sometimes I can see people ruminating, trying to decode exactly what I just said, because I used a familiar word in an unfamiliar context, but most of the time my altered English voice serves me well.

But I’m not English. I’m a Yorkshireman. I’m Yorkshire, a tyke. This is my real voice. It’s flatter and my Yorkshire accent is broader. I drop my aitches, miss out words like ‘the’ and the letter T and replace them with a glottal stop. Most vowels become short vowels, others undergo a shift, taking on other vowel sounds. Some words with a double O sound in become U and others are extended into diphthongs. Ends of words are shortened or clipped and unfamiliar dialect words may be used instead of Standard English words. Right doesn’t sound like write, Mother or mum stays much the same, but father is different, dad is not. Boys and girls are lads and lasses who like to play football on the grass and if a lad scored a goal he’d be really proud of himself. They might have brought something for their lunch, but if they haven’t brought anything they’ll have nothing to eat and will be hungry on the way home.

How many times have you heard an adult say, “I hate the sound of my own voice.” Someone (@klandmiles in Singapore) tweeted on Twitter last week, “Of course you hate the sound of your own voice, it’s in the rules.”

I wonder how children hear themselves. So do kids hate the sound of their own voice? Or do they listen and think, “Hey! That’s me!”

We expect children to want to record themselves on audio or video and many of them do, but a small percentage of them will feel as I still do...I hate the sound of my own voice. What can we do to nurture these students? How can we build their confidence and encourage them to participate and create in this way? Do they have to?

Michael/@teachernz

*audio recorded on a Nokia N95, three main takes and edited in Audacity