Internet Tools for Teaching
EDIM 514
Yes, I did indeed discover many new things this week! I'd like to reiterate how obsessed I am with Quietube and Printliminator! We had some friends over last night (nothing beats a bonfire in the fall!) and I showed them these great shortcuts and they, too, were obsessed! Love the little things that make our jobs just a little easier!
I found Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything website to be just that...EVERYTHING! I clicked on many of the links and played around with several of the websites, but the two I enjoyed the most were Be Funky and Storyboard. Be Funky is a photo editor that pretty much allows the user to do the same things iPhoto can do and way beyond. As I played around, I found ways to edit the photos by blurring the edges, changing the tone of the photo, rounding the edges, and much more. What I did find especially useful was being able to add graphics, text, overlays, textures, frames and artsy options (I especially liked being able to make my photo look like an oil painting!) I can see my students maximizing their creativity as they truly customize their photos. This may seem like a small celebration, but I really liked the frames, and there was one in particular called "Grunge" that would be perfect to use for our immigration unit. Last year, we used the Green Screen to take pictures of the kids in front of the Statue of Liberty. We made it a sepia filter so they could add the photo to their immigration journal. But I loved that Grunge frame to use because it gives the photo an even older look. It's the little things, really! Beyond just photos though, you can also create collages, invitations, brochures, greeting cards, etc. There really are a ton of options, and many of them are free! Of course, there are custom options that are part of the "plus" plan. I found out that a user can continue to use the site as is for free, pay a monthly fee of about $5 or a yearly fee of about $35. I think if you were someone who was really into customizing photos, brochures, collages, etc., it would be worth the fee, otherwise the free options would fit my needs perfectly. I liked how easy it was so save my photo creation, and once it was on my desktop, I could upload it anywhere...Twitter, Facebook, Kidblog, Seesaw, possibly a QR code, my class website, etc.! My students, and me, are pretty obsessed with the graphic novel format of storytelling, so Storyboard caught my eye immediately. On Kathy Schrock's site, it did indicate the site would work best on Chrome, which I don't normally use but that didn't stop me, and I'm glad it didn't. Once you get to the site, you'll notice that it's not free, which is a bummer, but there is a 14 day free trial. Personally, I don't think this is long enough for a teacher with a class of 26 third graders. It's just not enough time for the kids to really determine whether or not it's a useful tool for the long term. The subscription is about $10 a month or $60 a year. With that said...I loved the site. There are SO many different backgrounds that can be pulled into the frames, and each background can be edited to fit your story. For example, I was playing around with a castle (thinking about our fairy tale unit.) The castle looked great on its own, but then you could change the color of the castle, the flags, make it night time or daytime, snow or rain or sun...the possibilities really did seem endless. Then you could add your characters. There were adults, kids, athletes, monsters, animals, teenagers, and more...and each of those were customizable! It was super easy to add speech bubbles and change the layout of the frames. Such a great resource for storytelling across many different genres and subjects. I was eager to find out how the Storyboard is saved and shared, but I couldn't get that far because they wanted me to create an account, which I did not want to do yet. Since the free trial is only 14 days, I'd like to wait until the very last minute to create an account before sharing with my students. My guess is that it's very easy to save and share since the rest of the site was super easy to use, too. I'm thinking of emailing the developers to ask for an extension of the free trial and/or to encourage them to reconsider the fees for teachers. It's worth a shot! I'd also like to look at the site on my iPad to see if there's a mobile version/site for my students to use on their iPads. The last tool I investigated was Capzles. To be honest, I love the idea of this tool, but I didn't find it as user friendly as the others I discussed above. According to Dembo and Bellow, "Capzles is a refreshingly unique take on timeline creation that goes far beyond what you may have seen previously. Not only is it completely web based but it bakes in a series of enhanced features that make creating and viewing a Capzle both a cool and educationally sound experience" (154). This sounded like something I had to play around with. I was thinking it would be a great resource to trace our learning throughout a unit or school year. In the past, my school used concept maps to connect our learning to an overall theme such as citizenship or leadership. I would take pictures of the students engaged in our lessons and put them on our concept map so students could remember their learning, but I thought Capzles could bring that idea into the 21st century! With all the media project we do throughout the year, I thought this would be a great way to store and share our learning, however, I had some problems using the site. I was able to upload still images without any problems, but I could not get my videos to load. I'm sure it's something I'm doing, but I didn't have time to troubleshoot. I did like all the background options (still images or animated), I could add audio to the Capzles, and the ability to make the Capzles public, private, or viewable by friends. On paper, it seems like the perfect tool, I think I just need more time to explore and play! I think that Be Funky and Storyboard are tools I could really get on board with. I can use them across our curriculum and would really enhance my students' abilities to be creative and unique. Resources By creating an account you agree to our Terms of Use. (2007). Photo Editor | BeFunky: Free Online Photo Editing and Collage Maker. Retrieved September 25, 2016, from https://www.befunky.com/ Capzles Social Storytelling | Online Timeline Maker | Share Photos, Videos, Text, Music and Documents Easily. (2016). Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://www.capzles.com/# Dembo, S., & Bellow, A. (2013). Untangling the Web: 20 tools to power up your teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin: A SAGE Company. Prototypes, L. C. (2016). Storyboard That: The World's Best FREE Online Storyboard Creator. Retrieved September 25, 2016, from https://www.storyboardthat.com/ Schrock, K. (2011, July 10). Online Tools. Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://www.schrockguide.net/online-tools.html
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