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Engaging Learners through Digital Storytelling: 40+ Resources & Tips

Posted by  on Wednesday, February 8th 2012     

Currently, I am moderating a free online course, Digital Storytelling for Young Learners, with a dream team of moderators who are phenomenal at working with young learners, Esra Girgin, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor, David Dodgson, and Michelle Worgan. Over 250 participants have joined and have shared incredibly imaginative stories in our online class portfolio. One of the most surprising discoveries, though, was that 62% of the teachers who took our survey said they had never had their learners create digital stories. Our language learners have powerful stories to share and often share personal stories in blogs, Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter. Through digital storytelling we motivate our learners to apply, contextualize, visualize, and personalize the language they learn. There are 100s of free digital tools and websites to inspire your learners to create extremely imaginative stories and share them with a global audience. I hope the following tips and resources will help you along your journey towards integrating digital storytelling into your curriculum.

Tips

  • Ease your students into sharing information about themselves by doing a fun icebreaker activity such as Show and Tell with a Cell! Simply have your students take out their cellphones, share one of their favorite pictures and tell the story behind the picture. If they can’t use their cellphones then have them come into class with a picture.
  • Teach your students about creative commons. Below I share some of my favorite websites.
  • For collaborative projects and more detailed stories, have students plot ideas in a storyboard. Kevin Hodgson has some fantastic storyboarding worksheets here!
  • I like to break my students into small groups of 4 and while they are creating their characters and drawing the scenes I elicit vocabulary from them. For example, I will ask questions such as, “Is this a boy or a girl?” “Is it hot or cold?” “Does she have blond or brown hair?”

Recommended Webtools

Literally, 100s of webtools and apps have been shared, but I would like to share with you the ones I believe are the easiest to use. We are listing these in a livebinder, which is being constantly updated.

Creaza- One of my favorite sites where you can create comics, make movies, edit audio, and more! Embed in a blog or wiki.
GoAnimate- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
DVolver- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
ZimmerTwins- Choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose your background scene, and create a free fun movie.
PicLits- Drag and drop words unto a beautiful image.
Bubblr- create your comic strip with Flickr pictures and add bubbles to tell your story!
Comicmaster – Cool graphic novel creator.
Stripgenerator – You don’t have to register in order to create a comic.
Make Beliefs Comix – Two, three and four panel comics that you can create in multiple languages.
Comic Strip Generator – You can upload photos or use web images in addition to their library of ready-to-use images
ToonDoo – the site allows students to share their comics, comment on other comics, and even save and edit a copy of a comic
Kerpoof – Create videos or an animated picture.
Googlesearch – Use Google searches to tell your story.
OneTrueMedia – Mix your photos and pictures with text and animations.
Blabberize – Make your pictures talk
Smilebox – Create videos from your pictures and videos adding design and music. You download this software to your computer.
Glogster – Create and online poster with your videos.
VoiceThread for Educators-Interactive way to present stories and have parents and other students comment on the stories. Several options. Embed in a blog or wiki.
Storybird-Students create beautiful stories by choosing beautiful art and adding the words. Embed in a blog or wiki.
Voxopop – Construct audio stories.
5cardflicker – Tell your stories through flicker photos.
Zooburst – 3D pop up story creator.
Scholastic story starter – Start your story randomly.
Thestorystarter – Start your story randomly.
LittleBirdTales – Upload your picture, record your voice to tell your stories.
Animoto- Upload up images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a free short video online and on your mobile device.

Creative Commons Music and Images

Musicshake – Create copyright free music for your video.
Compfight – Search Flickr photos for your videos.
MorgueFile – Find free pictures for your videos.
Free Music Archive, and Jamendo, and Royalty Free Music are all great places for free creative commons music!
SoundBible - FreeSound – Free sound effects.

Digital Storytelling Apps

Posterous- With this app, learners can include a mix of text, photos, audio, and videos as well as tags and location information in a blog post. Share immediately on Facebook and Twitter! Even allow others to add to your posts (set this up through the web app vs. the mobile app). Free version available online as well as various mobile devices including the iPhone, iPod, Android, and Blackberry.
Flixlab- Like Animoto. Free app to create incredible slideshows on the iPhone, iPod, iPad. Soon available on the Android. No website editing like Animoto but longer videos when using the app. CC library of music, themes, fonts, and more.
StoryRobe- It’s incredibly easy for children and adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone and iPod Touch using this app. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. You have the option to upload to Youtube or send it through e-mail. If it’s in their e-mail, then the parents can easily e-mail their child’s production to their friends! You don’t need an Internet connection to create the stories, but you do to send them! Available on the iPad and iPod.
Splice- Best video editing app for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad that is free. Add audio, transitions, images, and more.
Fotobabble- It’s incredibly easy for children and adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone and iPod Touch using this app. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos.
Sock Puppets- If you enjoy playing with sock puppets, you’ll love this app that allows students to create a sock puppet show. Choose the sock puppet characters, personalize the characters by adding your voice, select the scene and props, and record a video. Send this by email or upload to Youtube. Watch this great example. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Puppet Pals- IChoose the western characters, personalize the characters by adding your voice, select the scene and props, and record a video. Send this by email or upload to Youtube. Available on the iPad and iPod.
StoryKit- Create an electronic storybook by drawing on the screen, uploading images, recording sound effects and voice, laying out the elements of the story (text boxes, images, paint, and sound clips) freely by dragging them or pinching to resize, reordering pages, and uploading to the StoryKit web server. Email a link to the story. The application includes four public domain children’s books to rewrite and rearrange into a new story. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Animoto- Upload up to 10 images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass. Available on the iPad and iPod.
Videolicious- video creation in 3 easy steps
Create A Comic App- free comic creation app for Android and i-devices.

Free ebooks

Digital Storytelling Tools by Silvia Tolisano
Effective Mobile Learning: 50+ Tips & Resources by Shelly Terrell
Digital Storytelling in the Classroom by MicroSoft

Check out my Pinterests with these bookmarks and more!

Challenge:

Try a digital storytelling project with your students this year.

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category: Cool Sites, Effective Technology Integration, Tech Tips, What Works for English Language Learners
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On the Horizon: 20+ Free Professional Development Opportunities for 2012

Posted by  on Monday, January 2nd 2012     

Part of the Cool Sites series

January is the month when many of us are motivated to accomplish our goals for the year. If you are like me then you may have experienced several years of getting goals accomplished then felt defeated. In April 2009, I joined Twitter and began collaborating and communicating with educators and found that this interaction helped me accomplish goals and so much more. With free social media platforms you can begin to develop and harness the power of your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN) to accomplish goals. Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. Moreover, online professional development is packed with various types of multimedia experiences, such as webinars, virtual learning environments, discussion forums, live video, podcasts, web 2.0 creation tools, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Below is a list of courses, programs, and webinars that offer you the opportunity to continue learning in 2012.

Upcoming Free Professional Development

Free Online Classes Throughout the Year!

Although many of these don’t necessarily start in January, these free courses are worth keeping an eye on for the rest of the year! They are free online courses taught by authors, subject matter experts, and university lecturers.

  • SEETA Courses- The South Eastern Europe Teachers Association offers several week courses with a guest author or expert in the field. You will have to register, but the courses are free!
  • MOOC- Massive Open Online Courses where 1000s attend for free through discussion forums and free webinars. Follow the hashtag #MOOC for the latest MOOC. University professors, TED speakers, and notable educational theorists moderate these courses. You learn from the very best in our field! Topics range from Personal Learning Networks to Mobile Learning!
  • MIT Open Course Ware offers over 1900 free online courses in over 20 subjects. You can subscribe by RSS or get e-mail updates.
  • Stanford on iTunes- Download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports that will play on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
  • 17 Universities with free online courses- Find out how to access these free courses from some of the most respected universities in the world! This article also describes the experience of learning through these online classes.
  • 250 Free Online Courses- Find a list of several more free online courses from the top universities categorized by subject.

Challenge:

Try any of these professional development opportunities and blog about your experience.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your favorite ways to learn online? Did I miss any other great professional development opportunities starting in January?

category: 30 Goals, Cool Sites, Effective Technology Integration

And Maddest of All to See Education As It Is & Not As It Should Be

Posted by  on Saturday, December 24th 2011     

The way I tackle life comes from one of my favorite books,  Miguel De Cervantes’ Don Quixote of La Mancha. Briefly, the protagonist of the story, an idealist, is told he is mad and responds,

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger … cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle … or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words … only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, “Why?” I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!

In the same way I think it is maddest of all to see education as it is and not as it should be. For decades, I have seen policies, curricula, standardized testing, instructional practices, institutional rules, bureaucracy, and classroom design destroy the joy of learning.  That is why so many of our students slip through the system and become part of the poverty or crime cycle. Our students are searching for that thing that makes them ignite, feel like they are alive and provides meaning to their existence. I believe we can help our students find their purpose and passion through education. When they learn and discover new things they continually find a piece to that puzzle. If not, they continually will seek this elsewhere. So how can we begin to have an education system that supports this type of learning where we don’t punish kids for their curiosity and where we give them the time to explore their passions?

How Do We Transform the System?

Don Quixote had two characteristics every stakeholder in education should have, vision and passion. Passionate people are contagious. They spread their vision and energy to others who become inflamed as well! My vision for education is to see educators and students collaborate with each other over dire problems, mentor each other, and spread the passion so the weary become strong.

6 Revolutionary Educational Models We Can Learn From

I also believe there are educational models out there that are on the right track. We can learn from these models and try to replicate them. I will introduce you to them in the hope that as we begin 2012 we will aim to adopt some of their characteristics into our classrooms. That is where transformation starts. We begin in our classrooms and do what we can and as we feel more empowered we transform our schools then the community. As a famous Chinese proverb says,”The journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step.”

Be Very Afraid and Other Projects by Dr. Stephen Heppell

In April, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Heppell at the Plymouth E-learning Conference and learn about the amazing projects he has been organizing to transform education. One of them is the Be Very Afraid project where students redesign their schools and make key decisions about their learning environments and how they want to learn. You have to watch the amazing interviews by the students, because it is truly inspirational. Prof. Heppell also leads projects to help us rethink the way we design our classrooms. Look at the photos here to learn about shoeless classrooms and tiered seating. Check out his other revolutionary ideas here that are taking place.

Bijal Damani’s Class Bazaar in India

In October I was at the UNESCO Bangkok ICT and Problem Based Learning Conference, which is where I met ISTE Outstanding Teacher, Bijal Damani, and learned about her bazaar project that has her students in India using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to learn about marketing skills. The students host their own bazaar, invent projects that will improve the lives of others, create advertisements for these products, get sponsors, and much more. The most incredible part is that the money raised helps children in the slums in India receive a better education.

Monika Hardy’s Innovation Lab

Monika Hardy’s Innovation Lab connects her high school students in Denver with mentors worldwide from her Personal Learning Network. Basically, the students have a curriculum built upon what they want to explore. They are matched up with mentors in the chosen field in the community and online that provide them the reading, math, and other relevant skills that are needed to explore their interests. Read more about the passion led courses here and watch a full presentation with her mentors and students here.

The Swiss School

I learned about this school through a Tweet. I loved what I saw, children learning in various languages math, culture, food, creativity, and more! They need funding and are offering language and culture courses taught by kids for a fee. Check out how you can learn and give.

The Blue School by The Blue Man Group

I learned about this school by watching an online talk by Sir Ken Robinson. This school is a Lab School that invites parents to sit in on classes and supports the creative learning of students.

The Hellerup School in Denmark

I learned about the Hellerup school in Denmark from this article that describes the concept of learning without walls, “The school’s stairs and hallways double as a space where the whole school community can gather and learn together. The school leader’s office is located in the center of the school, without walls, because he wanted to be able to see the students throughout the day and because he believed it was important for students to see adults interact professionally and respectfully with each other, setting an example for the young students.”

 

Challenge:

Think about how you can transform your classroom in 2012 and begin to set that in motion.

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What other educational models do you think are revolutionary?

category: Effective Technology Integration, Global Issues in Education, Teacher Development Reflections, Thought-provoking
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Motivating Students to Learn During Breaks: 20+ Tips & Resources

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 20th 2011     

Many believe that learning occurs incidentally. Children will naturally learn by interacting with the world around them even if educators are not in the picture. Sometimes, that is true but I have found that as a facilitator and guide I can help motivate my students to learn in more challenging ways. Let’s face it, many of our students will be watching TV, playing video games, updating their social networks or texting their friends this holiday. They won’t think about the learning potential of these technologies unless we help guide them. And yes, I feel that is important because if not then many will tend to be couch potatoes and not choose to explore the world around them. Let me suggest some activities that will help you as an educator show your students learning happens anytime, anywhere and can be very fun and active! By the way, these activities are always optional for my students but I find even if they aren’t graded they complete a majority of them.

Slide Presentation

These ideas are outlined in the presentation below but I will explain them a bit more in this post.

Motivating Students to Keep Learning During Breaks

Make the Learning Resemble Video Games

I watched this incredible presentation from Paul Maglione where he outlined things we can learn and adopt from video games. His presentation inspired these thoughts of how we can try to make learning in our classes resemble the learning in video games:

  • It’s social- Sometimes you need a little help from your friends and often in video games this will be with several on social forums sharing tips or cheats; many games also have virtual worlds players can be a part of
  • It’s a representation of the world teens and kids want to be immersed in because it integrates movement, visuals, multimedia, popular music, graphics and more
  • It is goal-oriented- Aim to reach the next level; each level is more challenging, but achievable; and the learner must complete tasks
  • It teaches learning is all around- characters must collect items that help with the journey and must search for these all around them
  • It is a great analogy of what happens when we learn something new in that the learner discovers a new world each time a new level is achieved
  • It focuses on positive stress- yes learning is difficult but most learners are willing to invest several hours to complete tasks they enjoy or reach an outcome they want
  • It shows that failure is part of the journey- learners try again till they reach goals and are not punished with grades, they are allowed to try again with no penalty except the time invested
  • It focuses on the journey- in a video game, every kid can be a hero as long as they keep trying but in schools we punish kids if they stay too long on any level

Tips for Integrating Games into the Curriculum

Ways to integrate games into the curriculum during the break include:

  • Add suggested games by theme and topic to a wiki, blog, or website like I have done in my wiki, English Story Time
  • You will notice many of the activities for the kids involve online games and games that can be played in a room or outside.
  • You will also notice I encourage parents to play these games with their children. Engage parents by listing free events in the community or directing them to free publications with free coupons. In San Antonio, for example, some of our museums are free every Tuesday and we have the SA Kids publication that lists all the library free craft days.
  • For kids, you can find several games at the Kindersite
  • For teens to adults, get them to practice problem solving ways to improve the world by playing Evoke

Tips for Getting Your Curriculum to Resemble Game-based Learning

Make it social

  • Set up a class blog, wiki, Facebook group, Ning, or Edmodo site. Features include private chatting; creating profiles; uploading files, videos, and more; commenting, polling and embedding

Set-up tasks in an advent calendar

  • For each day your students are off they can click the calendar to find a new task worth points.
  • Sharon Hartle includes a PowerPoint advent calendar here that you can edit and customize
  • Use this template to create a calendar in PowerPoint
  • This post by Kelly Tenkely will help you create one through Glogster or Wix
  • Mix up the tasks to include various activities like visiting museum, attending a play, snapping a picture outside, or using an online web tool
  • Provide a points system where they can cash in later to collect prizes
  • Tasks could look something like this:

Mission: Snap a photo of graffiti you think could be art and tell us through an audio recording why you think it is art versus just graffiti.
What You’ll Need: Fotobabble App or visit Fotobabble.com
Points Worth: 10
Bonus Points: Post a short reflection in your blog for 5 more points.

More Ideas

  • Set-up a scavenger hunt. Do this easily through the SCVNGR hunt app for Android and iPhone where students win prizes for going places, completing tasks and checking in
  • Organize a global project! Chances are another school around the world is not on break and this is a great time to sync a meeting with time zones
  • Host weekly meetings through Google Hangouts (only 10 videos), Skype, Second Life virtual field trips, or other platforms
  • Let the students organize their own chat topics and times. You can do this by having students set-up a calendar and organize their own chats. They may want to have a chat for those interested in discussing poetry, another for music, another for a book club, and so forth. Determine student leaders in your class to lead and manage the discussion.

Upcoming Webinar Friday!

If you want to learn more about these ideas then join me Fri., Dec. 23rd, at 4pm EST (New York Time), 3pm Austin, TX, 1pm LA, 7pm Brasilia, 9pm London, 10pm Paris, 11pm Athens/Istanbul, Sat 8am Sydney time, and Sat. 6am Tokyo time for a free presentation, Motivating Learners to Use English During the Breaks

Challenge:
Try one of these tasks and see which motivate your students to keep learning during the holidays!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

How do you inspire your students to keep learning away from school?

category: Cool Sites, Effective Technology Integration
tags: , , , ,

11 of ’11 Projects Transforming Education

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 13th 2011     

Adam Simpson, an educator in Turkey, recently challenged bloggers to reflect on and post 11 of their best blog posts of 2011 (11 of 11). Reading several of the blogger’s posts and different takes on it has spurred me to reflect on my past year blogging and collaborating with my passionate/personal learning network (PLN) who inspire me and support me daily. I am a better person and educator because they share and believe in me. Daily, I am grateful for being blessed with such an incredible Passionate Learning Network.

My 2011 Journey

I will take a spin and post 11 projects I take part in that I believe are transforming education. These projects are the reason why I haven’t blogged as much as I would like to, because I believe that part of transformation is taking that bold step to act upon what you believe. I believe a quality education improves the world because it opens minds, breaks generational cycles, and perpetuates new positive cycles. Every child to adult I help realize their potential means they are helping the world become a better place. I am helping them stay away from poverty and crime. I take that job very seriously and whenever anyone tells me it can’t be done, I just do it. I don’t worry about the criticisms and I don’t even look at any obstacles. As Henry Ford says, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”

Over 11 of ’11 Projects

I hope by sharing these projects you will be able to see the potential of what you can do when you collaborate with others to activate your passion. With the support and collaboration of my PLN, I have been able to be a part of projects that have impacted tens of thousands of people worldwide. I have been collaborating with educators online for less than 3 years. Imagine the possibilites of every person activating their passion with the support of their PLN.

  • The 30 Goals Challenge- Over 7000 educators worldwide have participated in accomplishing goals to transform their classrooms and impact their students. Educators who join receive a free ebook and have access to several videos and podcasts to help them achieve their goals. More importantly they get to reflect upon these goals on Twitter (#30Goals), Facebook, or on their blogs and receive the support of 1000s of educators also accomplishing these goals.
  • The Reform Symposium Free E-Conference- This past August we had 80 presenters and 12 keynote speakers that impacted over 4100 educators worldwide in 100 countries! Organised by educators for educators, it was FREE but offered more valuable and inspiring Professional Development than money could buy! If you didn’t manage to attend you can catch up by viewing the Recordings.
  • The Virtual Round Table E-Conference- ELTon nominated free online conference focusing on language and technology. Unique in that participants can attend via a live video conference or in Second Life.
  • #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators on Twitter every Tuesday at 12pm EST/6pm EST to discuss various educational topics you get to vote for and suggest.
  • #ELTChat- Join English language teaching educators worldwide on Twitter every Wednesday at 12:00 pm London time, at 21:00 pm London time to discuss various educational topics you get to vote for and suggest.
  • TESOL’s free Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions- These are free online 5 week courses that start January 9th and end February 12th. You can choose from several courses including the Digital Storytelling for Young Learners one I am moderating with a dream team (Esra Girgin, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor, David Dodgson, Michelle Worgan, and Sabrina De Vita)
  • 140 Character Conferences- Jeff Pulver has been amazing in getting celebrities, educators, and leaders in various fields to speak passionately about how social media is revolutionizing their fields. If you cannot attend physically, then attend virtually. I help organize the educational panels so if you hear of one coming to your city and would like to take part, please let me know. Jeff live streams the talks! Follow the hashtag, #140Conf for continuous updates.
  • Cooperative Catalyst Blog- Read about the projects and ways educators are transforming education daily. Several bloggers challenge readers to rethink traditional education models. I have enjoyed adding a few posts to the mix.
  • Free Friday Webinars- Thanks to the American TESOL Institute, I conduct free 30 minute online webinars on the Adobe Connect platform every Friday at 4pm EST (New York Time), 3pm Austin, TX, 1pm LA, California, 9pm London Time, 10pm Paris Time, 11pm Athens/Istanbul Time, Sat 8am Sydney time, and Sat. 6am Tokyo time. This is the Adobe Room to join! http://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/,  Check out the Livebinder resources and past recordings-  http://americantesol.com/tesol-lectures.htm
  • Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics. I often present for Simple K12 and they won a 2011 Edublogs Award!
  • The Educators’ PLN Ning- The Educator’s PLN is a great place to interact and learn from other educators. We have hosted free live chats with various educational leaders. In the past we featured Alfie Kohn, Howard Rheingold, Diane Ravitch, Chris Lehmann, Steve Hargadon, Jim Burke, and others.
  • The Horizon Report, K-12- This amazing free e-report was curated by education thought leaders worldwide. We identified 6 technology trends to transform education and show examples of them in schools worldwide.

Challenge:

Try activating your passion project in 2012! Let us know about it so we can help you get the support you need.

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What 2012 passion project will you activate?


category: Effective Technology Integration, Month in Review, PLNs, Teacher Development Reflections
tags: , , , , ,
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