Alan Levine- A New Wealth Of Knowledge
Posted on: November 20, 2011
Retrieved from http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=blabberize&um
Last week’s class with Alan Levine has been the most beneficial for myself as an educator. He went over some sites for digital storytelling that he recommends using in the classroom and talked a bit about each one. I now have a list of about 10 websites I am going to try using with my students. I understand that the focus of the class has been on social media tools, but with the age and grade level I teach, digital storytelling is right up my alley! Feeling excited and a little overwhelmed with all the new options, I decided to take baby steps and start with exploring one tool. I started with Blabberize as I could see myself and my students having fun with it! I signed up for an account and explored the site, then thought about how I could use it with my students. With report cards and portfolios going home next week, reflecting on our favourite part of grade 1 and 2 so far this year seemed like a good idea! I have been struggling with feeling as though my parents have been checking our blog, so I thought that if we link our videos to the class blog and put a special page about it in our portfolios, perhaps the kids will remember to check it with their parents. I created my own video with my picture and voice talking about my favourite part of grade 1 and 2 so far and showed it to the kids. They loved it! At the end of each day we share about our favourite part of the day, and almost all the students said when Mrs. Moffat showed us the funny video of her talking. We are going to make our own videos on Monday! My only struggle has been how to upload the videos to our blog on kidblog. The site says my video is too big of a file. I saved it in youtube and connected a link from the blog to my video, which could work if need be, but I don’t like how you can’t control what other youtube videos are going to pop up along the side while they view my video, which makes me a little nervous. Does anyone have any suggestions of a way/tool to show the videos on my blog? I don’t mind linking to a secondary site!
After making our Blabberize videos, my next tool I am going to explore is Zooburst where my students can create their own storybooks!
5 Responses to "Alan Levine- A New Wealth Of Knowledge"
November 21, 2011 at 3:03 pm
I love that you are using these tools with your students – they are lucky and I’m sure they all have a story to tell!
November 22, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I love that you used this. I too am going to try it with the kids, probably as the set of a lesson. Am I missing the link to the one you created or is it not here?
November 22, 2011 at 10:15 pm
I didn’t have a link to my students videos- my parents are okay with sharing my blog and the materials the students make with Alec but for one family custody/privacy issue I unfortunately can’t share it with everyone in the class!! Sorry!
November 20, 2011 at 7:38 pm
You could try a site like Vimeo or TeacherTube if you wanted an alternate to Youtube. Kidblog, WordPress, or other blogging tools definitely won’t handle most video – they are not meant to but usually rely on outside video sites like Youtube (as you have learned).
November 22, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Thanks Alec I will try them out!!