I've been teaching for 8 years and as any teacher knows, there is no silver bullet when it comes to assessment. I've never got it 100% right, and still don't, but I think I'm getting closer. Here is how I am using tech to cover my assessment bases this year:
Daily:
I use iDoceo on my iPad, which is an amazing app. I import my classes at the start of the year and input my lesson objective for that particular lesson. I then assess each student with a drop down menu that I have created in iDoceo. It's a pretty simple drop down consisting of 5 levels, starting at 'confident' and ending with 'no evidence'. I can build up a picture of what my students can and can't do over the academic year. iDoceo also colour codes each level and can turn it into a percentage if I actually wanted to crunch some hard numbers.
I find that doing it this way ensures that I look at every student's work at some stage in the lesson as I need to enter one of these levels per lesson for every student. It isn't time consuming as the way the iDoceo app works makes it very quick indeed. Also because you are marking during the lesson, in front of the student, I find I am marking more accurately as I'm not relying on my memory to remember if someone can or can't do something!
Weekly:
I'm using Google Forms to make quizzes for each of my classes. I then use a script in Google Forms called Flubaroo which automatically marks each student's work AND emails them the results! This for me is massive for workload as I don't have to individually mark each answer correct or not. Using Flubaroo and Google Forms in this way also gives you data like the % score for each student and which questions they got right or wrong. You can then tell from the data if you need to go over any questions that most students got wrong.
As an added organisational point I make a copy of each quiz for each class, rather than giving all the students in all classes the same quiz file. I find that this makes working out who has/hasn't done the homework much easier.
To find out more on Flubaroo, there is an excellent, and brief video explaining how it works here:
http://www.flubaroo.com/instructional-videos
Half termly/termly:
This is my more formal assessment where I mark each bit of work at the end of a unit. The most effective and personal way I have found is to use audio marking, using an app like Recordium. Match this with Google Apps and you can share your audio feedback quickly and effectively, much more so I find than a traditional written comment.
I have blogged about how I do this here:
http://practicaledutech.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ipad-google-apps-mark-large-volumes-of.html
So, there is no right way to assess as it is a very individual process, but this is what works for me!
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Instant personal Dropbox for your students with Google Apps
This is a useful workflow if you are a Google Apps user which I borrowed from someone else and tweeked a little. It allows you to have a shared folder with each student you teach, with very little effort on your, or their part:
1 - In your Google Drive, create a folder. I teach ICT so I have created one called 'Assessment'. Inside this, I have created a folder for each of the classes that I teach. For this example, let's say I teach a class called 8A.
2 - Instruct the students of 8A to go to Google Drive and create a folder called "ICT their name". The 'their name' bit is handy as you can quickly see who's folder is who's. get them to share the folder with you.
3 - Go to "shared with me" in your Google Drive and move all of the shared student ICT folders into the 8A folder in assessment.
Viola, you now have a shared folder where you can access student work at anytime, provide feedback and so on.
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
iPad & Google apps = mark large volumes of work effectively and efficiently
We are near the end of term and all of my Year 9 students (that's about 120 of them) are just finishing some Adobe Flash project work for me. This set me thinking about the task of giving them some good feedback, but also doing it in as time efficient way as possible.
Here is the workflow I came up with. You will need a Google Apps account, and an iPad with Google Drive, Goodreader (make sure it is linked to your Google Drive account) and Recordium installed on it:
1 - Open Recordium and record audio feedback for your first student.
2 - Enter the name of the student. It needs to be the name so the student can find it later. Recordium even auto-capitalises the first and surnames! Saves a couple of seconds!!
3 - Slide across the file name and find the export button. Press 'Open in Goodreader'. I had originally thought to upload straight to Google Drive, but putting it in Goodreader saves you lots of time in the upload process:
4 - Once the file is open in Goodreader, you should see a list of your student names on the left hand side:
5 - Meanwhile, go back to Recordium, delete the recording you have just transferred to Goodreader (it is saved here, no need to take up more of your iPad's memory), and repeat steps 1-5 for each student:
6 - Once all is done, make sure that you have set up a shared folder in your Google Drive. It should be shared with your class:
That's it. Each audio file should now be in the shared student folder on Google Drive. All the students have to do is find their file, download and listen.
The only draw back to this is all students in the class can hear each other's feedback, but sometimes this is a good way of doing things as students can compare their feedback with others.
Here is the workflow I came up with. You will need a Google Apps account, and an iPad with Google Drive, Goodreader (make sure it is linked to your Google Drive account) and Recordium installed on it:
1 - Open Recordium and record audio feedback for your first student.
5 - Meanwhile, go back to Recordium, delete the recording you have just transferred to Goodreader (it is saved here, no need to take up more of your iPad's memory), and repeat steps 1-5 for each student:
6 - Once all is done, make sure that you have set up a shared folder in your Google Drive. It should be shared with your class:
7 - Select all of the named student feedback files at once. This is where Goodreader comes in useful as you would have had to of done this one by one if you exported directly to Google Drive from Recordium:
8 - Select upload and navigate to your Google Drive account, find your shared folder and put all of the files in there in one go:
The only draw back to this is all students in the class can hear each other's feedback, but sometimes this is a good way of doing things as students can compare their feedback with others.
Friday, 7 June 2013
Dear Microsoft, goodbye and thanks for all of the fish. Sincerely, Education
Unless Microsoft innovate seriously, and soon, they will become a minor player in education, and as a knock on effect, business in the next 5 to 10 years. Why?
1 - Students want mobile, anytime, anywhere, Martini style working.
I have seen first hand in my school that students pick flexibility over the desktop pretty much every time. At our school, students have the use of Google Apps, Microsoft Office and currently in Year 8, 1 to 1 iPads. It is now very rare for students to choose to use the MS Office suite as they know that they can't get to their files at home, unless they email them to themselves. For them, using Google Apps or the iPad means that they can access their work without any bother, or extra set up by our IT Tech department. Realistically, this is Martini style of work is how the twenty-first centry learner is shaping up.
2 - Office 365 is missing the killer feature - collaboration.
This may of course change in the future, but Google Apps have got this nailed down to a fine art, where they have made it seamlessly easy to do something which sounds complicated - ie multiple people working on the same document in real time. "Normal", non geeky teachers, love the fact that Google Apps makes this very easy. It is a prime example of technology NOT getting in the way of learning. With MS launching 365 without this feature, they are marking themselves as being a long way behind Google Apps.
I have heard some ICT Leaders saying "we're going with Office 365 because it fits our current system". To me this is a little short sighted and it is short changing the students. Surely this should be "we're going for this system because it fits around our student's needs". I'm sure the IT Technicians would be delighted to have Office and Office 365 as it is easy for them to implement, but when it comes to using this software creatively in an educational setting, there are some serious limitations; you can't collaborate, being the main one. Also, really, your educational leaders in partnership with students need to be the ones making these decisions. A good example of this can be found in the "bottom up" approach to ICT at Berkhamsted school. Their Head has blogged about this here.
3 - The tablet market.
As we know, Microsft have launched the Surface tablet. The problem with Surface is that it comes in 2 flavours. Flavour 1 is the RT version. This is the cheaper of the two versions. This has some serious limitations in that you can firstly only run Microsoft Office on it, and secondly, you can only run apps that have been downloaded from Mircrosoft's App Store on it. This is fine, and no different to Apple's policies, but there is a real scarcity of quality apps in Microsoft's App Store (unless you like your students playing Angry Birds). I'm not even sure this will change because of the poor uptake of the Surface tablet, why would developers create apps for a tablet that no one is using, when they can pour resources into the iPad which most are using? The Apple App Store is where the money is. As long as this is the case, this is where the innovation will be. Not even Android is touching this, despite having a larger OS market share than Apple.
The second flavour of the Surface is the Intel based machine, costing about £1000. This is a good machine, but has a couple of serious limitations. It main advantage is that it can run any PC based program. Great, you may think. The problem is most PC software is not built for touch screen. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to use something like Photoshop or Premiere Pro as a non-touch screen edition.
The worrying thing is that I am hearing some educational leaders say the RT Surface is the answer because it is compatible with MS Office (going back to my original point about why use MS Office in the first place). However, they are not aware of the inflexibility the Surface tablet has and believe they will work like a normal PC. There could be a lot of wasted money and frustration as a result. If the only reason people are buying tablets for schools is to use Microsoft Office, then there are some that are missing the point of tablet technology.
4 - We are using Microsoft Office because we always have.
Realistically, there is, in my opinion, no real need to use MS Office anymore. I can understand why staff see it as a comfort blanket, in that they know mostly how it works. This is what they have always used, this is what Network managers have always used, and this is what the school will be using. However, there are more flexible platforms out there. I had a conversation with a college from a different school recently and she said her Network Manager refused to sign the school up for Google Apps. I don't know the ins and outs of this but it is a shame to see a teacher who has got the benefit of students at heart, being steamrollered by a non educationalist making educational decisions, whilst refusing to budge from a 'traditional' viewpoint of what tech should and shouldn't be in schools.
5 - Post PC world
Like it or not, we are now entering a post PC world. The majority of the work we do will be on mobile devices that fit in with our lifestyle rather than sitting in front of a beige box where you can only access your documents from a network drive. The fact is, Microsoft have not innovated during the period they were dominant and Apple and Google have moved in. Currently, Google dominates the web, Apple dominates mobile devices, and Microsoft dominates the desktop. As the future is going to be dominated by the web and mobile, I can't see any way back for Microsoft as Google and Apple have this sewn up. Microsoft are no longer innovative and have joined the mobile and web party too late in and a ham fisted way.
All of the really innovative educationalists I have come across, both in schools and on twitter, are innovative because their practice has been enabled by the use of Apple and Google together in the classroom. It is a naive argument to say the two are not aligned. Google needs Apple to bring its platform to the widest number of paying customers, Apple needs Google because they have the best cloud infrastructure and make some of the most solid productivity apps on iOS (and of course YouTube).
6 - "We need a physical keyboard to do things properly"
Whilst this is true of most 30-60 somethings, the students we are teaching today have always used touchscreen technology. This is how the majority of students work. They are not taught how to touch type anymore. Besides this, once voice recognition software gets it act together, there will be no need for typing at all!
Granted, you will need a physical keyboard and mouse for more specialist IT tasks, but realistically, in school, this does not happen too often outside of IT lessons.
Summing up...
I can appreciate that Microsoft operating systems can still play a solid role in education (although the day we won't need a server is fast approaching). I'm not anti-Microsoft at all, it's just their products to not fit the needs of my Twenty-first century students (their products used to in the mid 2000s), and what is a shame to me is that some schools are not are not willing to embrace this mobile/cloud philosophy because of the fear of letting go of Mircosoft. This fear comes from staff in the establishment losing their comfort blanket. When we first introduced Google Apps to our students there was no fear at all. They saw the benefits and they choose to use it over MS products, because it fit their needs of Martini learning. I am positive that if Microsoft Office fitted their needs better, they would choose to use this.
The idea of a twenty-first century student being ingrained in using collaborative, mobile platforms and the cloud for their work is an exciting one as they will go out into the business world with the right skills for our globalised economy. If these are the leaders of the future, and they are not choosing to use Microsoft products now, then Redmond could be in serious trouble as more and more schools see these are the skills that they need to equip their learners with.
1 - Students want mobile, anytime, anywhere, Martini style working.
I have seen first hand in my school that students pick flexibility over the desktop pretty much every time. At our school, students have the use of Google Apps, Microsoft Office and currently in Year 8, 1 to 1 iPads. It is now very rare for students to choose to use the MS Office suite as they know that they can't get to their files at home, unless they email them to themselves. For them, using Google Apps or the iPad means that they can access their work without any bother, or extra set up by our IT Tech department. Realistically, this is Martini style of work is how the twenty-first centry learner is shaping up.
2 - Office 365 is missing the killer feature - collaboration.
This may of course change in the future, but Google Apps have got this nailed down to a fine art, where they have made it seamlessly easy to do something which sounds complicated - ie multiple people working on the same document in real time. "Normal", non geeky teachers, love the fact that Google Apps makes this very easy. It is a prime example of technology NOT getting in the way of learning. With MS launching 365 without this feature, they are marking themselves as being a long way behind Google Apps.
I have heard some ICT Leaders saying "we're going with Office 365 because it fits our current system". To me this is a little short sighted and it is short changing the students. Surely this should be "we're going for this system because it fits around our student's needs". I'm sure the IT Technicians would be delighted to have Office and Office 365 as it is easy for them to implement, but when it comes to using this software creatively in an educational setting, there are some serious limitations; you can't collaborate, being the main one. Also, really, your educational leaders in partnership with students need to be the ones making these decisions. A good example of this can be found in the "bottom up" approach to ICT at Berkhamsted school. Their Head has blogged about this here.
3 - The tablet market.
As we know, Microsft have launched the Surface tablet. The problem with Surface is that it comes in 2 flavours. Flavour 1 is the RT version. This is the cheaper of the two versions. This has some serious limitations in that you can firstly only run Microsoft Office on it, and secondly, you can only run apps that have been downloaded from Mircrosoft's App Store on it. This is fine, and no different to Apple's policies, but there is a real scarcity of quality apps in Microsoft's App Store (unless you like your students playing Angry Birds). I'm not even sure this will change because of the poor uptake of the Surface tablet, why would developers create apps for a tablet that no one is using, when they can pour resources into the iPad which most are using? The Apple App Store is where the money is. As long as this is the case, this is where the innovation will be. Not even Android is touching this, despite having a larger OS market share than Apple.
The second flavour of the Surface is the Intel based machine, costing about £1000. This is a good machine, but has a couple of serious limitations. It main advantage is that it can run any PC based program. Great, you may think. The problem is most PC software is not built for touch screen. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to use something like Photoshop or Premiere Pro as a non-touch screen edition.
The worrying thing is that I am hearing some educational leaders say the RT Surface is the answer because it is compatible with MS Office (going back to my original point about why use MS Office in the first place). However, they are not aware of the inflexibility the Surface tablet has and believe they will work like a normal PC. There could be a lot of wasted money and frustration as a result. If the only reason people are buying tablets for schools is to use Microsoft Office, then there are some that are missing the point of tablet technology.
4 - We are using Microsoft Office because we always have.
Realistically, there is, in my opinion, no real need to use MS Office anymore. I can understand why staff see it as a comfort blanket, in that they know mostly how it works. This is what they have always used, this is what Network managers have always used, and this is what the school will be using. However, there are more flexible platforms out there. I had a conversation with a college from a different school recently and she said her Network Manager refused to sign the school up for Google Apps. I don't know the ins and outs of this but it is a shame to see a teacher who has got the benefit of students at heart, being steamrollered by a non educationalist making educational decisions, whilst refusing to budge from a 'traditional' viewpoint of what tech should and shouldn't be in schools.
5 - Post PC world
Like it or not, we are now entering a post PC world. The majority of the work we do will be on mobile devices that fit in with our lifestyle rather than sitting in front of a beige box where you can only access your documents from a network drive. The fact is, Microsoft have not innovated during the period they were dominant and Apple and Google have moved in. Currently, Google dominates the web, Apple dominates mobile devices, and Microsoft dominates the desktop. As the future is going to be dominated by the web and mobile, I can't see any way back for Microsoft as Google and Apple have this sewn up. Microsoft are no longer innovative and have joined the mobile and web party too late in and a ham fisted way.
All of the really innovative educationalists I have come across, both in schools and on twitter, are innovative because their practice has been enabled by the use of Apple and Google together in the classroom. It is a naive argument to say the two are not aligned. Google needs Apple to bring its platform to the widest number of paying customers, Apple needs Google because they have the best cloud infrastructure and make some of the most solid productivity apps on iOS (and of course YouTube).
6 - "We need a physical keyboard to do things properly"
Whilst this is true of most 30-60 somethings, the students we are teaching today have always used touchscreen technology. This is how the majority of students work. They are not taught how to touch type anymore. Besides this, once voice recognition software gets it act together, there will be no need for typing at all!
Granted, you will need a physical keyboard and mouse for more specialist IT tasks, but realistically, in school, this does not happen too often outside of IT lessons.
Summing up...
I can appreciate that Microsoft operating systems can still play a solid role in education (although the day we won't need a server is fast approaching). I'm not anti-Microsoft at all, it's just their products to not fit the needs of my Twenty-first century students (their products used to in the mid 2000s), and what is a shame to me is that some schools are not are not willing to embrace this mobile/cloud philosophy because of the fear of letting go of Mircosoft. This fear comes from staff in the establishment losing their comfort blanket. When we first introduced Google Apps to our students there was no fear at all. They saw the benefits and they choose to use it over MS products, because it fit their needs of Martini learning. I am positive that if Microsoft Office fitted their needs better, they would choose to use this.
The idea of a twenty-first century student being ingrained in using collaborative, mobile platforms and the cloud for their work is an exciting one as they will go out into the business world with the right skills for our globalised economy. If these are the leaders of the future, and they are not choosing to use Microsoft products now, then Redmond could be in serious trouble as more and more schools see these are the skills that they need to equip their learners with.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
iPad Apps for Computing in the classroom
I'm currently using Gamemaker with my Year 8s to further introduce them to the concepts of programming. As we are running a 1 to 1 iPad trial with them, I thought I would find some apps which I could use for homeworks to re-enforce our programming work in different interfaces. All of these apps are free with the exception of Codea. This is what I'm using, and planning to use:
The students love this app, graphically it is very visual and the fact that you can unlock different characters appeals to them. Currently the app is possibly not the go to in order to teach hard core programming, but is a good top up for homework. The developer noticed I was using the app via my twitter account and has been in contact to ask for feedback. It's really good to see this sort of interaction between developer and teacher/student and it looks like the team behind Kodable are working on some really interesting concepts for older students. They have even agreed to do a Facetime conference with our 6th Form tech society which is very generous of their time.
This is a great app and it ties in with Scratch brilliantly in the fact that it uses the same block based system for programming. There are a variety of things that you can create in the app. I have set the students tasks, such as program the app to draw a shape. Many students have gone above and beyond this to create some cool things like Etcha Sketches and detailed drawings.
Similar concept to Kodable and is great as a top up for students learning programming. I normally set a certain amount of levels to be done for homework.
This is another great app for teaching programming routines, and it gets the students to think outside the box. The aim of the game is to move boxes to different areas on a stage. The students have to think about how to structure their program before the run it. As with all programming there are multiple ways to complete the levels, some more efficient that others (ie using loops rather than long hand).
This is the only paid for app on this list, but it has some serious possibilities. The Cargo Bot app was built entirely on an iPad using this app. This is probably geared more towards older students in that they have to learn a programming language to use this app, Lua is the language of choice here. I am planning to use this next September and I will introduce it by getting students to modify an existing program within the app, rather than have them build one from scratch. I can see lots of differentiation opportunities in this app so it should appeal to a wide spectrum of ability.
Programming in Education on the iPad is still in relative infancy, but with exciting developers like SurfScore (Kodable) and Two Lives Left (Codea), things are looking interesting.
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
iPad: Have I got to the end of my road app?
I think I may have come to a conclusion with my iPad: I've got all of the apps I will ever need. By this, what I really mean is I have all of the genres of apps that I need and I really can't think of anything else I need to do my job. For a bit of background, Google Apps is my platform of choice for document storage (and I teach and manage ICT across the curriculum).
Here is what I have:
Cloud
Google Drive
Dropbox
Evernote
Productivity/Collaboration
Google Drive
QuickOffice (syncs with Google Drive)
Notability (syncs with Google Drive)
Explain Everything (syncs with Google Drive)
Book Creator
Haiku Deck
Splashtop (for accessing remote computers, both Mac and PC)
Social
Twitter
Flipboard
Teaching Tools
iDoceo (backs up to Dropbox)
Socrative
Quizlet
YouTube
iTunes U
mp3 Recorder
Digital Video/Audio
iMovie
Green Screen FX Studio
Coach My Video
Garageband
Computing
Kodable
Edhita
Codea
Hopscotch
Cargobot
Bee Bot
Browser
Safari
Chrome
Basically with all of these apps, I can create any sort of content I need to (written and multimedia), I can annotate and store documents in the cloud that are emailed to me, I can access almost all web based tools. I can keep my markbook up to date with grades, annotations, pictures and videos of student's work. I can access both my Mac and PC screens through my iPad. I can take and edit digital video and audio.
In some ways, this illustrates the brilliance of the iPad (currently) over other devices, that all of this functionality is squeezed into a small and accessible form.
So, I can do everything I need to with these apps. Am I missing anything? Am I missing any app genres that would make my electronic working life complete? Currently, I can't see myself downloading too many more apps in the very near future (in fact I have a gift card that is currently burning a hole in my pocket!). Any and all suggestions welcome.
Here is what I have:
Cloud
Google Drive
Dropbox
Evernote
Productivity/Collaboration
Google Drive
QuickOffice (syncs with Google Drive)
Notability (syncs with Google Drive)
Explain Everything (syncs with Google Drive)
Book Creator
Haiku Deck
Splashtop (for accessing remote computers, both Mac and PC)
Social
Teaching Tools
iDoceo (backs up to Dropbox)
Socrative
Quizlet
YouTube
iTunes U
mp3 Recorder
Digital Video/Audio
iMovie
Green Screen FX Studio
Coach My Video
Garageband
Computing
Kodable
Edhita
Codea
Hopscotch
Cargobot
Bee Bot
Browser
Safari
Chrome
Basically with all of these apps, I can create any sort of content I need to (written and multimedia), I can annotate and store documents in the cloud that are emailed to me, I can access almost all web based tools. I can keep my markbook up to date with grades, annotations, pictures and videos of student's work. I can access both my Mac and PC screens through my iPad. I can take and edit digital video and audio.
In some ways, this illustrates the brilliance of the iPad (currently) over other devices, that all of this functionality is squeezed into a small and accessible form.
So, I can do everything I need to with these apps. Am I missing anything? Am I missing any app genres that would make my electronic working life complete? Currently, I can't see myself downloading too many more apps in the very near future (in fact I have a gift card that is currently burning a hole in my pocket!). Any and all suggestions welcome.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Youtube: My new teaching assistant
I've had a YouTube account for a while, but never really used it that much until a few months back. Teaching ICT, I'm on a mission to make my learning as mobile and flexible for my students as possible, so aspects of the flipped classroom model appeal to me, such as the use of videos for education. I started using a combination of www.screenr.com to create video tutorials and YouTube to host them. What has happened to my student's learning and my teaching as a result of this?
The bottom line is this: The students in my classes using my YouTube channel are producing work a year ahead of the equivalent year group last year.
How did this happen? I am using my YouTube channel as a sort of teaching assistant. In other words I demo and explain the lesson, address misconceptions and questions from the students as normal, but then I have a few video tutorials of my demos on my YouTube channel. If they get stuck, I can refer them to the relevant video.
Before I used this method I would have students throughout the lesson asking for reassurance, help or guidance because they had forgotten how to do the task (maybe a reflection on my teaching). Now this doesn't happen I find that my time is freed up during the lesson to help students in a more in-depth one to one basis. I can also 'live mark' with my iPad, giving verbal feedback to students on a regular basis in the lesson, whilst noting down comments in iDoceo.
Because of this extra in-lesson time, I can push my students further and suggest more advanced things for them to try. One example of this is last year's Year 7s were making games in Gamemaker which were good, but fairly static with limited input, this year, the Year 7's are making scrolling shoot-em up adventure games. As a result their attainment has gone up and they are producing much more advanced work.
How do I make the videos? Very simple:
1 - Record a screencast with www.screenr.com. Max recording time is 5 mins (this is good, too long = too boring).
2 - Upload to your YouTube channel directly from Screenr.
3 - Put it into a playlist so your students can find it easily.
If you're interested to see some examples of how I'm using it, check out www.youtube.com/bgsict and go to the playlists. Currently the Photoshop, Flash and Gamemaker are the most active ones.
Also, why YouTube? Well, it can be accessed from pretty much any device with an internet connection, which fits my need for flexibility in learning. Also, as any one who has worked with digital video knows, it is a bit of a dark art. YouTube makes it easy to upload and stream without fiddling about with codecs.
So, does YouTube make me a lazy, or more effective teacher? So far I would say more effective, because of the impact it has had on my students and time management. I am conscious of the danger of just saying "look at YouTube" for today's lesson and as with all tech, as long as it is integrated into my lesson and not 'my lesson', then things should go OK.
Maybe soon I'll be replaced with a hologram........
The bottom line is this: The students in my classes using my YouTube channel are producing work a year ahead of the equivalent year group last year.
How did this happen? I am using my YouTube channel as a sort of teaching assistant. In other words I demo and explain the lesson, address misconceptions and questions from the students as normal, but then I have a few video tutorials of my demos on my YouTube channel. If they get stuck, I can refer them to the relevant video.
Before I used this method I would have students throughout the lesson asking for reassurance, help or guidance because they had forgotten how to do the task (maybe a reflection on my teaching). Now this doesn't happen I find that my time is freed up during the lesson to help students in a more in-depth one to one basis. I can also 'live mark' with my iPad, giving verbal feedback to students on a regular basis in the lesson, whilst noting down comments in iDoceo.
Because of this extra in-lesson time, I can push my students further and suggest more advanced things for them to try. One example of this is last year's Year 7s were making games in Gamemaker which were good, but fairly static with limited input, this year, the Year 7's are making scrolling shoot-em up adventure games. As a result their attainment has gone up and they are producing much more advanced work.
How do I make the videos? Very simple:
1 - Record a screencast with www.screenr.com. Max recording time is 5 mins (this is good, too long = too boring).
2 - Upload to your YouTube channel directly from Screenr.
3 - Put it into a playlist so your students can find it easily.
If you're interested to see some examples of how I'm using it, check out www.youtube.com/bgsict and go to the playlists. Currently the Photoshop, Flash and Gamemaker are the most active ones.
Also, why YouTube? Well, it can be accessed from pretty much any device with an internet connection, which fits my need for flexibility in learning. Also, as any one who has worked with digital video knows, it is a bit of a dark art. YouTube makes it easy to upload and stream without fiddling about with codecs.
So, does YouTube make me a lazy, or more effective teacher? So far I would say more effective, because of the impact it has had on my students and time management. I am conscious of the danger of just saying "look at YouTube" for today's lesson and as with all tech, as long as it is integrated into my lesson and not 'my lesson', then things should go OK.
Maybe soon I'll be replaced with a hologram........
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