Research Paper: Explore Day 1

It's that time of year.  The dreaded formal research paper.  I do what we call a No Paper Research Paper because with Evernote and Google Docs, we use no paper.  Last year, I did the research paper unit as a traditional flip.  I frontloaded all the videos before addressing that portion of the research paper.  For example, the kids would watch a video on choosing a topic, or writing a thesis statement, then the next day in class would go through that process.  This year, I wanted to convert this unit to an Explore Flip Apply (EFA) unit.  I'll admit, I have a loose plan going in because I feel that is a key component of the explore stage - determining what the students already know.  So, I envision this unit as a series of EFA activities until the final apply stage is writing their research paper.

Today, I did the first explore with my 7th graders.  The first activity was having the students pull up the website allaboutexplorers.com.  If you aren't familiar with the site, it is a website with fake information about explorers.  The site looks very credible and the information is almost believable enough to make you wonder about its accuracy.  I had them choose any of the explorers and give a quick read of the information. Three of four minutes of silent reading passed. Some students looked a bit perplexed but kept reading. Suddenly a student says out loud, "Wait a minute....it says here he was killed with an AK-47?"  I played dumb and said, "Really? You don't believe that?"  Then another student said, "Mine says he thought he discovered America but then realized he was already there?" Then the flood came: "Mine says he was born in America but he was a Spanish explorer" "Mine said he traveled from 1690 to 1657."  This led into a quick discussion about trusting what you read on the internet.

The next activity in the explore phase was having the students look up a Wikipedia page of something they know a lot about.  We had 6 or 7, One Direction searches, a Kate Middleton search (did you know today is her birthday?), a Notre Dame football search (was a good example of how current Wikipedia can be with information), and a variety of other searches.  I asked students to give a quick read through the page they selected.

The next activity was a free write on 4 questions:

1. Is this information accurate?
2. How do you know or why do you believe that?
3. Is the site well written?
4. Why or why not?

 We finished the class with the free write.  Tomorrow, we'll discuss their answers in the free write and guide the discussion toward how to check for accuracy of information.

The next steps depending on how the discussion goes tomorrow:

1. More exploration of evaluating sources will probably be needed later in the unit.
2. A discussion or free write on how the writing on Wikipedia is different from other writing.
3. A exploration/discussion of writing without bias using the same Wikipedia site.
4. An extension activity of revising and editing an actual Wikipedia page for some writing and accuracy practice before starting the research paper.
5. All this will lead into an exploration activity of choosing a topic and that is when the actually research paper "begins".

A 20% Success!

Meet Kacy (not her real name).  She's a student of mine.  She's a fairly typical student.  She is bright and capable, but also has her difficulties.  She is a quiet kid, at least to adults.  She is cordial and polite when I talk to her directly, but rarely asks questions on her own.

During the whole process of completing her 20% project, she changed directions 3 or 4 different times.  She finally settled on learning to play a song on the guitar.  She didn't keep up with her weekly blog, so it was difficult for me to monitor her progress.  Since the project isn't really graded, I concerned myself more with helping her in other areas of need and hoped she was making progress on her 20% project.

Then yesterday happened.  The students began presenting their 20% projects to the class.  Coincidentally, another teacher got unexpectedly ill and couldn't find a sub.  So, I took one of her classes in my room so she could leave.  Therefore, the audience was larger than just their classmates with several students that had no idea what our 20% project was about.

I let the students volunteer their order of presenting.  Some were excited to be first or second and take center stage.  As volunteer after volunteer jumped up, I could see her make anxious eye contact with me.  She seemed eager to go, but apprehensive to volunteer.  Finally, we had a moment where no one volunteered and I said, "Kacy, are you ready to present?"  She jumped up with excitement, but then, like many teens, tried to play it off like she wasn't excited.

She went to the corner of the room and grabbed a guitar case she had left earlier.  In her presentation, she talked about her difficulty in deciding on her project.  She discussed how she decided to learn to play a song on the guitar and the process she went through.  I limited their presentations to 5 minutes.  At the end, she sheepishly asked if she could play her song even though it would go over her 5 minutes.  Of course, there was no way I could say no.

Then she sat down, and began playing a Taylor Swift song.  She also sang the lyrics which surprised us all.  She made a mistake part of the way through and had to stop and re-position her fingers.  She began playing again and made another mistake.  This time, she put her head down in embarrassment.  Then, the class began encouraging her on.  Multiple students told her what a wonderful job she was doing.  And the tears began to fall.  But they were tears of joy.  She finished the song to roaring applause. She was clearly uncomfortable with the attention, but was proud of herself at the same time.

When I conceptualized the 20% project for my class, I never imagined this. I thought many of them would learn something valuable to themselves.  I hoped some of them would be proud of themselves and maybe even inspire others.  I never expected tears and such a bonding moment for my class.  What a wonderful gift heading into our holiday break!

A Musical Flip

Two years ago, I took on the wonderful, but time consuming task of directing our school's Spring Musical.  These are middle school kids very few with an interest in doing serious theater in the future.  So, rehearsal time needs to be very efficient and focused or it turns into chaos.  And, believe it or not, I am also the Yearbook Adviser and our Yearbook goes to the printer 1 week before the Musical Show.  The more production I can get out of each rehearsal, the fewer rehearsals needed!

Last year, I recorded our rehearsals when choreography was taught and the students were expected to review the videos later and continue to practice.  This year, I had epiphany.  Why not flip the rehearsals?  This year, I am appointing a small team of Dance Leaders.  I will teach the choreo to this small group and record them doing the number.  Then, cast members will be expected to watch the videos prior to rehearsals so they have an idea of what the choreo will be.

I was going to put one of the videos here as an example, but my top notch choreographer copyrights her material and doesn't want it pilfered from YouTube.  I respect that.  So, I just put up photos of last year's cast (mainly because I'm super proud of them) and am looking forward to this years show!

How I improvised my 20% Project

My head is all abuzz from the night I just had....and no alcohol was involved.

Tonight, I had my "final presentation" for my personal 20% Project.

In the past, I've blogged about the 20% Project I have my students do. It is a great experience for them and I'm saddened when a student doesn't take the opportunity to learn something meaningful for them. This semester, I allowed my students to work in groups and some chose the group over their project. In other words, they sacrificed doing a project they really wanted to do in order to work with a specific person or group.

As I was brainstorming how to inspire them next semester, I thought, how could I model the process for them. Then it hit me....do my own 20% Project. I kicked around some ideas and decided there was one thing I really have wanted to learn for a long time, but never had the courage to do....Improv Comedy!

So, for the past 8 weeks, every Monday night I met with 10 other aspiring improvers and learned games, practiced techniques, developed scenes, and had a wonderful time. I even used some of the games with my students to teach some aspects of storytelling and purchased a book about improv games in the classroom.

Tonight, we ended the class with a public performance attended by about 25 of our friends and family. Fittingly, it was our best performance in the 8 weeks. After the show, several of us went out for a celebratory dinner. One of my classmates asked us all why we took the class to begin with. We all had different reasons; One person wanted to be a profession improv comedian, a couple wanted to improve on public speaking skills, and some just thought it sounded like fun. But, whatever the reason, we all had that internal motivation to learn something new whether it had a practical application or not.

I know it sounds cliche, but I really can't put into words the effect this class had on me. I do, however, know I want my students to experience the same rewarding feeling I had. I'm going to share with my students about my journey these past 8 weeks and let them see the enthusiasm that is created by learning something for the sake of learning.

The Level 2 class starts in January and most, if not all, of our makeshift troupe plans to continue this journey together. I challenge anyone considering or doing a 20% Project with their students to do one of their own. The personal fulfillment was so much more than I anticipated. Now, I just need to get the courage to take the next step in this adventure....inviting students to my next public performance.

 

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Using YouTube's New Quizzing Feature

I've seen quite a lot of tweets lately about YouTube's new quizzing feature currently in beta format.  All the tweets I see link articles that give me the same "press release" announcement, so I wanted to try it out for myself. This isn't really a review, as the feature is in beta and not meant to be full functional.

The first trick is activating the feature.  It doesn't just automatically appear.  You need to go here and opt-in to the beta for your YouTube account.  Once you've done that, it is available in your YouTube channel.

To use it, go to the video you want to add the quiz to and click "edit".

After that, click on the "Questions" tab.

 

From there, it is pretty self explanatory. Just click, "add question" and you get this screen:

It's really that simple.  Much easier than adding several Annotations to make your own quiz feature.  There aren't many options to make the questions more appealing.  But, I'm guessing they may add that in later.

Now, for the analytics...
Remember, this is in beta, so I didn't expect it to be perfect yet.  With Annotations, the analytics tell you which annotations were clicked, by how many people, etc.  With the quizzing analytics, at the moment, it just tells you if an answer was chosen or if the user closed the video.  Not much detail at the moment.

Also, another limitation over annotations is that your can not jump to different videos or a different part of the video based on the viewers answer.  If they answer incorrectly, they are prompted with a hint and the video remains paused.  If they click correctly, the video just starts playing again.

I like the promise of this feature, but since it is still in beta, it doesn't have a lot of functionality yet.

Here is the video I added the quiz to if you want to see how the quiz looks and operates. The quiz is 23 seconds in:

 

Please note this is just a simple practice quiz and not intended to be something identical to what I would use with my students.

Why I'm Apprehensive About Sharing My Videos

That inevitable questions always seems to come up...
"Is there a place where we can see your videos?" 

I'm asked this question every time I present to an audience of new flippers.  A substitute at my school even asked the other day because she wanted to show them to her daughter.  And, every time the question is asked, I cringe a bit. I'm hesitant to tell them my YouTube Channel has over 70 videos public and nearly that many private or unlisted. I couldn't understand why that was my initial reaction. I'm not ashamed of my videos. Some people are embarrassed to have their face seen by strangers. Others worry their content isn't "up to snuff". I got over that a long time ago. There isn't anything a stranger can say about my videos that my brutally honest middle school students haven't shared. So, why the apprehension?

Then, last night while I was working on my presentation for NCTE in November, it hit me.  I was thinking back to a conversation I had last year at NCTE with a well-respected teacher that was anti-flip. His biggest complaint was that flipping was just bad lecture on video. He asked if I could share with him what I thought was my best video.  I told him that was difficult because the video is not the biggest piece of the flip. What happens in my class time is the key component.  So, my best videos are the ones that complement what the students do in class and allow them to receive small bits of content efficiently and asynchronously. Replaying the conversation in my head made me realize that is where my apprehension lies. If my videos are viewed isolated from the entire learning cycle, they aren't that special. Letting strangers view my videos independently gives them an incomplete picture of what is really happening in my class.  My hesitation then is not because I don't want them to see my video, but rather I don't want them to have an incomplete understanding of what #flipclass is and judge it based on that.

For those that want to see my videos, here is my YouTube Channel. But, if you really want to see what my flipped class is all about, you need to visit my classroom, talk to my students, and see our pre- and post- video discussions to really grasp what is happening.

Added Note:  Visit a Flipped Class in your area on one of the Flipped Class Open House days. You'll be glad you did!

Using Google Docs and Explain Everything to do Video Writing Feedback on an iPad

I like doing video feedback for my students so they can not only see the suggestions I make, but also hear my suggestions. A goal of mine this year is to find a more efficient way to do this so I can give more feedback to each student.

Since our school is a GAfE school, I wanted to find a way to incorporate Google Docs into the process. I knew of some apps on the iPad others were using to make quick videos and so the following is the process I came up with.

Using Chrome (although it is possible with other iOs browsers) on the iPad, I open the students' Google Doc and take a screen shot of it. If you don't know how to do a screen shot with an iPad, it's simple. Just click the home button and the sleep/wake button on the top at the same time. You'll hear a click sound like a camera taking a picture and you're done.
It will look like this:

Next, I open Explain Everything. An app that costs $2.99. You could also use ScreenChomp or Educreations, which are free apps. The biggest decider for me was that Explain Everything allows direct uploads to YouTube where the others do not.

In Explain Everything, I select the icon for new project and get the options below:

I choose "Import from photo" and select the screenshot I took of the student's work. Once in Explain Everything, I size it to fit the way I want and then record my critiques as I also write them using a stylus pen.

You can also pause the recording and re-start in order to prevent dead air and wasted time. After the recording is finished, I select upload to YouTube. I could also email the file and it send it as an mp4 file. I chose YouTube instead so as to not have to worry about if students had a computer able to view mp4 files.

That whole process takes me 4-7 minutes per students. I think that is reasonable to give students feedback on one page of their writing. You also have the option to import from Dropbox and use a full pdf of the document.

Now, this is where the process slows down significantly. Once I hit upload to YouTube, Explain Everything must first compress the files, then goes to another screen to "finish compressing", then goes to another screen to upload to YouTube. This process can take 15 minutes or more. Fortunately, I don't have to sit at the iPad while this is happening. It would nice to have a batch upload option. As it is now, I set it to upload and check on it every 15 minutes. I then hit the next one to upload.

After it is uploaded, you have the option to send via Email which I do and then the students have a link to a private video critique of their work.

And the process is over. Like I said, the critique process doesn't take long. It is the uploading process that is time consuming. If I find a better way, I'll let you know. If you know a better way, please share.

UPDATE: I found a quick way to compress and upload video.  Under the the export menu, select "preference" and change the video settings.  When I changed the resolution to 640x480 and the quality to medium, it still had enough resolution to be read fine, but significantly lowered the video size.  The upload time for these are less than 5 minutes.  Now we're getting somewhere!