Tag Archives: teacher

Adding images to your e-portfolio

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There are a number of ways of adding images to your e-portfolio.     

Cat flap control and thermostat

You can add each image separately. To do this choose ‘Add Media’ above. Choose to upload from wherever the images are (on your computer, online,etc). Choose the alignment and size in the choices on the right. You can add a caption here too.

 

 

 

 

You can make a photo collage using a mobile device or laptop such as PicCollage. This is a free app available on all devices including your student laptop.

When adding it to your eportfolio add it as a single image as above.

 

 

 

 

 

You can add the photos altogether as a group with captions. To do this go to ‘Add Media’, choose ‘Create Gallery’ from the choices on the left and then tick the images you want to add. You can choose how they will be displayed by looking at the choices on the right.

 

You can present a series of photos as a slide show that you embed in the blog. To do this make the slide sequence on Google Slides. Publish the slides to the web. Choose ‘Embed’ and set the slide choices then copy the embed code. Choose ‘Add Media’ and then choose ‘Insert Embed Code’ in the list on the leftand paste it into the box.

BYOD4L January 2016

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Overall reflections after taking part in BYOD4L January 2016

Last week I took part in the open course ‘Bring Your Own Device 4 Learning‘ which took place over five days. It was quite an intense experience as it coincided with a busy teaching week. having tried to complete the tasks and taken part in some of the twitter chats I wanted to reflect upon the overall experience and note some reminders to myself of what to do next.

Thinking about the 5Cs

Connecting I wonder about using the time before induction to get students connecting with each other via social media through Twitter, a Google+ community of some other channel.

Communicating I could list and evaluate the various channels we use to communicate with students in order to evaluate them and consider their purposes. I might investigate the channels students use and their views of them with the aim of being more proactive during induction next year.

Curating So far I have often curated sets of resources for student use or student outcomes for sharing after sessions . I could involve the students in curating so that they develop their skills of finding, evaluating and choosing perhaps exploring learning resources or academic literature.

Collaborating I feel sure that if a number of colleagues from the same institution could take part together there would be much scope for supporting the online activities with face to face meeting. I could see this was happening for some people last week in previous BYOD4L experiences. BYOD4L could be a great way of boosting confidence and skills within an existing team or a disparate group of interested people.

byodcatsCreating I have valued the creative potential of using digital technology or a combination of ‘real’ and digital tools to make things in my art and in teaching. There are opportunities to bring this into learning and teachign sessions for the students and then for them to take back into school and develop with children.

The sharing and interaction during BYOD4L has been so inspiring – I really enjoyed the Twitter chats and look forward to maintaining contact here and there now I am following many of the participants.

BYOD4L Creating

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Bring Your Own Devices 4 Learning #BYOD4L

This week I’m taking part in this online course. Here are some useful links:
byod4l wordpress
@byod4l
Google+ community BYOD4L Learning COmmunity

Friday Creating

Task 1 Reflecting I’ve shared a ThingLink that I made in early Septeber to help the students who were starting on the FDLT course. You can see it here – Welcome

The purpose was to be able to share some key links to resources using just one link in a visually attractive form.

Task 2 Poster The teacher scenario – I feel the same about getting to know students as they arrive. We are sent a photos of each student in class groups which is helpful but the idea of it being a video or annotated image is even better. I wonder if we could build that into induction in the future. This September I set up a Padlet for each new group and asked students to introduce themselves. Here’s one to look at: Introductions Padlet

As I think about this now I realise that we could make more of this so that it could be a reflective experience for students and an informative one for tutors. It would be important not to take away from the spontaneity and willingness to have a go that happened in this example. It allowed students to make contact before they began the session they independently set up a Facebook group before they met at the first session.

I’ve made a poster for task 3 by accident!

Task 3 Making

byod4lThe beginning of a poster created using the Phoster app (right).

Below is another beginning using this large letter C in the app Moldiv (collage part of the app).

I was thinking about either adding links to one of these in ThingLink or annotating it in the app Skitch.

Processed with MOLDIV

Processed with MOLDIV

 

 

Update!

I came across the post that asked to represent the entire experience and that led me to making this:

BYOD4l 2016

 

 

 

 

During the #BYOD4Lchat I made this using Sketches:

byodcats

ThingLink – adding tags to a video

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As well as bring able to add tags to a photo ThingLink tags can also be added to  videos. This can be used to add commentary, guidance, additional information and questions. Here is an example where I have chosen a story and added guided reading questions:

1. Choosing a video

To make a video ThingLink you will need to choose a video from YouTube and copy the link to it.  if you want to use a video that you have made you will need to upload it to YouTube first.  To begin click the red create icon at the top of the page and choose ‘web’ to add the YouTube link in the box.

tlv1

 2. Adding tags to your video

When you have entered the link click on the blue ‘tag this media’ label. The video will open in the tagging screen which is similar to when you tag photos. Before you add tags it is useful to watch the video in this ThingLink box and note the time in seconds where you will want the tags to be placed as well planning what each tag will be (text, picture, link).

tlv2

As you arrive at each moment where you want to add a tag pause the video and click ADD NEW TAG (top left). A box will open.

TLV4Here you can choose how many seconds you want the tag to stay on the screen for. You can also add a link to another site.

TLV5When you click on the blue icon (i) you can choose different colours and styles. You might choose to code these accoring to how you will use them eg i for information, ? for questions etc.

TLV6When you type into the box labelled ‘text’ another box will open. Here you can type the text you want to appear. Only the first few words will be visible on the tag in the video, until it is clicked. You can also add a picture to go with your words.

If you have chosen a link this box will be filled for you with the information from the link and still from the link.

3. Saving and editing

At any time you can click ‘save and exit’. When you want to continue to add tags look for the small label ‘edit’ below the picture.

4. Sharing

TLV7You can click on the ThingLink in the top right to provide different ways of sharing it. You can take the link and send it to others or embed the ThingLink into your own or your school’s website or blog.

Ways of using the ThingLink video

  • supporting guided reading
  • homework activities
  • guided tours
  • giving instructions

You can find a few more examples here.

Design your digital self

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This summer I took part in the ThingLink Teacher Challenge. The activity in week 1 was based around introducing ourselves and our connections in the digital world. This is a useful activity to consider when meeting a new class or group or as a task to set before pupils or students begin working together.

It consisted of two stages: firstly, designing a digital avatar and secondly, uploading this to ThingLink and adding tags.

Designing a digital avatar.

There are number of tools that can be used to design a digital avatar and you can see links to a few on the ThingLink below.

I used a web tool called ‘doppel me’ to create mine. It allows the user to make choices about the appearance of their avatar. If you join and sign in you can add more detail. e:

avatarThis is mine.

There are other ways of creating the image of yourself for this activity such as those suggested in the ThingLink above, using a photo or using a collage of photos of yourself.

After choosing or creating an avatar of yourself you can go on to the next stage.

Making your ThingLink

There are some instructions on how to make a ThingLink in this blog post. For this ThingLink the focus is you as a digital user and creator. I made a list of the various ways I appear and interact digitally on social media and other tools. This is a very good opportunity to consider issues related to internet safety and information it is appropriate to make public online. Here is my  digital self ThingLink. Feel free to explore it!

How do you use digital tools to make introductions?

 

 

Rollworld

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rwRollWorld is an iphone / ipad app that allows you to create ‘Tiny planet’ or stereographic images from photos and videos.

2015-03-09 13.59.36When the app opens you can choose whether to use an existing photo or video from your camera roll or to take a photo.

IMG_0366

When you choose a photo it opens like this – with the sliders to the right on the default settings.

2015-03-09 14.00.17When you click on the i at the bottom of the slider menu you can see an explanation the effect that each slider has. You can also use crossed arrows to get a series of random effects – this is a good way to explore the effects the first time you use the app.

When you click on the arrow in the top right you choose an image to share or save. You can crop the image, save it to photos, email it or share it through social media.

IMG_0367

This is an outline of the basics. There is lots more that this app can do – if you have any interesting results add them to the comments below.

Post it Plus

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pipI came across the app ‘Post it Plus’ by accident. I often use post its as a teaching tool with groups of students, asking them to write ideas on post its and then move them around into themes or rank order. Since I had my ipad I have sometimes photographed these – but the Post It Plus app is a more flexible and versatile way of doing this.

When you open the app it allows you to take a photograph of a group of post its. To do this you hold down  the capture icon. Green lines appear around the post its that have been captured and if there are any that do not have a green line, you can touch these and the green line will appear around them so that all the post its are present. You then touch ‘create board’ and the image is saved. I usually take groups of post its and end up with maybe four or five boards to record an activity.

IMG_0333

After this you can move the boards on top of each other to make them all into one, you can name each group and the bigger group, add additional post its and write onto them and the board.

You can also share and export the boards in a number of ways eg by email as a PDF, as a photo, via social media etc. I was able to send the PDF record of our discussions to a group of students after the session so that they could use the discussion ideas after the session. I could have annotated questions and  comments onto it to challenge them further – maybe next time! I’ve added one to see what it looks like, above)

You can read more about the app here.

Explain Everything

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Explain Everything

Explain Everything is an app (IOS, Android and Windows)

Cost – £2.29 in the Apple appstore.

You can read about it at this link Explain Everything

It is a very flexible presentation tool allowing you to:

  • import and insert documents, pictures and video
  • draw and annotate
  • move and animate
  • zoom and pan
  • record and play
  • export and share

There are some useful video tutorials available at the link above and some help pages within the app.

So far I have used Explain Everything in three different ways.

I have made a presentation that consists of a sequence of slides that I have added spoken commentary to. This was to introduce an assignment to students and remind them of where the supporting resources are. It was useful to be able to record the commentary with each slide and it was very easy to stop and rerecord small sections without having to record the whole thing in one go.

It can be seen here:

I have also narrated a short guide for students showing them how to get from the opening page of a NILE module to their discussion board and then how to access and use the discussion board. It was so useful to be able to click on the sequence links and show students where to click and what to expect live in the website.

It can be seen here:

Finally I have used it construct two page by page views of collaborative sketchbooks that I have been working on this year. I was able to add the sequence of photos, add annotations and export the presentation to YouTube, Dropbox, imovie and ibooks and email it to myself. I would like to have added music but couldn’t quite work out how to do this.

One of these can be seen here:

I think this app has got a huge amount of potential for use with and by students and I am looking forward to exploring it further.

Fragment

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Fragment

an IOS / Android app

cost £1.49

There is brief film that gives an overview of what can be done with the app at this link Fragment Prismatic Photo effects

How to use it:

the opening screen

the opening screen

When the app opens you can choose to use the last photo you were editing, a photo from your photo album, or ‘inspiration’ eg one of the preloaded images.

 

 

 

choosing the photo and size

choosing the photo and size

 

 

If you choose one of your own photos you can then choose a size and proportion. You can back to photos using the arrow to the left and forward to the app using the arrow on the right.

 

manipulating the image

manipulating the image

 

 

On the next screen you can choose to manipulate the photo using the effects randomly (arrows on right) or touch each shape in the line below to choose specific ones. Move the image around on the screen to change the size and orientation within the chosen shape.

 

changing colours

changing colours

You can touch the small inverted triangle at the bottom to move to the next screen. On this next screen you can change colour and within that the brightness and contrast as well as blurring, inverting and desaturating.

 

a refragmented image

a refragmented image

 

 

 

Touching the arrow at the top right allows you to save the image, refragment it and share it. It can be useful to save it at different stages as you work because it is sometimes impossible to back and recreate the same image again.

 

Ideas:

  • manipulating photos
  • make some art, photograph it, fragment it, make more art from it
  • use to make backgrounds for presentations
  • print out and use as collage, draw onto

Other associated apps – Tangent

If you have tried out the Fragment app please add your examples and ideas in the comments below.

 

 

 

Padlet

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Link –  Padlet

Padlet allows you to set up a space or ‘wall’ that you and others can add text, pictures and links to immediately. You can see these pop up on the screen and you can share or download the contents of the Padlet wall.

Website – free to use

Help – padlet help

Account – set up using your email address, with Facebook or with your google account

padlet lableHow to create a wall

Click the ‘create new padlet’ label or the + on padlet instthe right hand list.

This will create your new padlet wall.

You can then give your wall a title and description using the daisy wheel symbol at the bottom of the list on the right.

When you click on this symbol you have other options too.

You can add an image and a background (wallpaper) to the wall and choose whether the layout will be free form, a stream or a grid.

padlet instrYou can copy the wall if you want to use the same wall with different groups of people.

You can make the wall private, password protected or public depending on your requirements.

share                                           When you click on the arrow symbol this gives you various options to share the padlet wall so that others can add to it.

As you can see you can email the link or share it using social media.

 

 

 

Why use a Padlet wall?

You can use this tool to ask pupils or students in a class or people in an audience to contribute comments, ideas, recommendations in the form of text, pictures and links. It can be useful to collect views after an event or experience. When the wall is complete you can download it as a PDF.

At this link you can see a Padlet wall used as a record of an event – TMNorthants 2014

At this link you can see how teachers have added questions ans challenges to a maths starter:

Minion Alphabet Maths

At this link you can see at Padlet wall created in the Literacy Shed with children’s book recommendations:

Picture Book recommendations

and here is a Padlet that the FDLT Y2 MK group contributed to in a session:

FDLT Y2 MK

Your ideas:

If you use Padlet walls please share links and ideas in the comments section.