Doing the "Interactive Flip" with VoiceThread.

As mentioned earlier in this blog, I have been experimenting with incorporating Project-Based Learning into my teaching.  In particular, I have had my students using Web 2.0 tools such a Glogster, VoiceThread, Google Apps, and Jaycut.  The problem I kept having was a matter of time.  Being a history teacher, and seeing the importance of building a narrative, I wasn't ready to completely do away with basic lectures and discussions while moving to more projects in the classroom, even though I want my students to discover more of their learning for themselves.  So, what was often happening is I would spend a couple of days lecturing on a topic and, in-between, giving students time to work on their projects.  Usually, this wasn't enough, so they would have to finish their projects at home.  Often they would have questions, encounter technical difficulties, and they would end up emailing me at 11:30 with these issues.  This was frustrating for them and me.

Then, about 6 weeks ago, I came across several articles talking about Reverse Intruction.  In this technique, developed by chemistry teacher Karl Fisch, a teacher records their lectures for the students to watch at home.  This gives them their "basic" level of understanding.  Then in-class, students have more time to do the more complicated, deeper work of the class.  I found this to be a wonderful idea that could be applied to almost any area of study.  The only problem I saw with this was the limited amount of interactivity that students had with just watching the video of a lecture.  My solution, was the use of a resource I had been using with my students: VoiceThread.  VoiceThread, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is an online service that allows you to take presentations, video, pictures, and documents, and place them online and comment on them interactively.  I find this to be a more interactive version of Reverse Instruction (an interactive "Folmer Flip" as opposed to the ground-breeaking "Fisch Flip" of innovator Karl Fisch).  So, I now take the presentations that I had been using for lectures in class and place them on VoiceThread.  I then make comments using my webcam to turn it into a 15-20 minutes lecture that students can watch and have some simple questions to answer at the end (I use Edline for this, but you could also do it with something like Google Forms)  The nice thing about the VoiceThread is that students can make their own comments on the presentation, ask questions, draw on the slides, even interact with their classmates.  I can go back and check on these and add new information for clarification (I also place the presentations on Google Docs for students to review and print out later).  This then leaves class time to do more work on projects, analyze documents, or have deeper discussions that would have been taken up with the lecture.  In this way, my students and I are interacting on a deeper level with more differentiated and personalized learning.  Also, using VoiceThread for this is very easy since it is entirely web-based.  All the teacher needs is a mic or webcam (or you could type you comments, like many students do, but this is less engaging).

This is still an very early experiment, but the students have been giving me very positive feedback thus far and all indications show they are learning more.  Below are some examples of VoiceThreads I've done with this method.  Please share any information or feedback in your comments!

Students' Collaborative Videos

I realized today that it had been a while since I had posted.  The main reason for this is I have been working closely with my students finishing their collaborative projects.  With my class or seniors, they finished their presentations and posted them to VoiceThread with some great results (more on that in my next post.)  For my sophomores, they completed their collaborative video project on 19th century ideas.  They used Ning and Google Docs to research and plan a video.  They then created them and posted them to the Ning to share with the other students (who could comment and rate them).  You can see some of the best examples below.  I then had them complete an online assessment and evaulutation of the project using the Google Forms feature in Google Docs.  Here is the form here.  Hope you enjoy the vids!


Find more videos like this on Mr. Folmer's Honors WorldCiv 2.0



Find more videos like this on Mr. Folmer's Honors WorldCiv 2.0


Find more videos like this on Mr. Folmer's Honors WorldCiv 2.0

Netbooks in the Classroom - Part 2

I blogged last week about the acquisition and use of a small set of class netbooks in my Social Studies classroom thus far this year.  The students really seem to enjoy using them in class and request them on a regular basis (they far enjoy using them and working with others in comparison to listening to me lecture, and I don't blame them).  But, as I said in my last post, I wanted to move beyond using the netbooks on a "one-off" basis for completing Google Docs organizers and answering questions on the class blog.  I want the students to go further with what they can do with easy access to the web and the abiltity to collaborate and create.

As a result, with two of the courses (a total of four sections) thatr I teach (I have three preps this year) I am moving to a more project based approach beginning with the second semester which started for us this week.  For my seniors who take my Modern World History 1945 to the Present course, I have begun a project with them where they will look at the problems and successes of development in six different regions of the world.  The student will use a class Ning to for their project linked to Google Docs to create a research page, outline, and presentation.  The presentation will then be uploaded to VoiceThread for the creators and rest of the student in the class to comment and question about the issues presented.  There will then be a final assessment at the end to analyze patterns of development around the world. 

My sophomores, who take World Civilization 1450 to 1950, will begin a similar project using a class Ning and Google Docs for their collaboration and research in groups.  But the topic and final product will be different.  They will research different political, economic and cultural ideas that were developed during the 19th century and how those ideas still affect us today.  They will use their research to make a documentary segment on their topic.  They will then work with all the other groups to make one extensive video on the topics presented.

In both cases, I believe this will be much more engaging and benefitial to the students instead of me lecturing to them over the next month on the same topics and issues.  I worked with our school's media specialist to get the students using the right kind of reseources, but a major focus of the projects is using the netbooks in the classroom for research, planning and writing, so we do not need to go to the media center or lab as often.  I will keep you, my readers, informed to the successes and pitfalls of my new approach.  Until next time, keep moving forward!