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Web Tools and Apps for Effective Classroom Communication
- 1. Technology for Creative Classroom Communication Web 2.0 Tools and Apps to for Teachers and Students to Effectively Share Information Michael P. Campana Old Dominion University
- 2. About Me • B.A. in Spanish • B.S. in Secondary Education • M.Ed. in Educational Psychology • M.Ed. (candidate) in Library Science • Teacher in FCPS for 21+ years • (l-r:) Emily (5), Caroline (7), Ashley
- 5. Web Tools and Apps for Effective Communication
- 6. • Blog design & hosting • Custom layout • Multiple authors • Comments https://wordpress.com SOL: HS English — 9.6.i / 10.6.i / 11.6.i / 12.6.i
- 7. Detailed info on • Number of followers • Number of views • Views by timeframe • Referring websites • Links clicked • Search terms
- 8. Mobile apps • Android (via Google Play) • iOS (via iTunes / App Store)
- 9. Options • Shape • Word “weights” • Word omission • Font choice(s) • Color scheme http://www.tagxedo.com
- 10. SOL: HS Art I — AI.8
- 12. https://www.canva.com/ SOL: HS Computer Technology — C/T 9-12.16.A Infographics • Templates • Clip art
- 14. Mobile app • iOS only (via iTunes / App Store)
- 15. Social learning • Video-based • Recorded prompt • 90-second responses https://info.flipgrid.com/ Video source: Flipgrid (n.d.). Empower + amplify student voice [Online video]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/196347461
- 16. Content SOL: HS World Languages — Modern Languages WI.1.3
- 17. Mobile apps • Android (via Google Play) • iOS (via iTunes / App Store)
- 18. • Video editing • Movies & still images • Captions • Video effects • Soundtrack https://www.wevideo.com/ SOL: HS Computer Technology — C/T 9-12.1.A
- 19. Video source: JAGill2013 (2013). Short example – created with WeVideo [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Jx9SQtm3o&feature=youtu.be
- 20. Mobile apps • Android (via Google Play) • iOS (via iTunes / App Store)
- 21. • WordPress — Blogging https://wordpress.com • Tagxedo — Word art http://www.tagxedo.com • Canva — Infographics https://www.canva.com/ • Flipgrid — Social learning through video https://info.flipgrid.com/ • WeVideo — Video creation & Editing https://www.wevideo.com/ Questions? Michael P. Campana mcamp006@odu.edu
- 22. Image citations (page 1): Image citations are listed in order of position on screen: left to right, then top to bottom, as applicable. NOTE: Corporate logos are trademarked by their respective companies, but may be legally used without the owners’ permission for non-profit editorial and educational purposes (e.g. reviews and presentations). Slide 3: • mozlaze__ (2015). Still-life-school-retro-ink-851328 [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/still-life-school-retro-ink-851328/ CC 0. • StartupStockPhotos (2016). Student woman startup [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/student-woman-startup-business-849820/ CC 0. Slide 4: • Fonseca Zanco, M. (2016). Tablet [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/tablet-device-technology-computer-1315651/ CC 0. Slide 5: • WordPress (n.d.). [WordPress logo]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WordPress_logo.svg • Canva (n.d.). [Canva logo]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canva_Logo.png • Tagxedo (n.d.). [Tagxedo logo]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Flipgrid (n.d.). [FlipGrid logo]. Retrieved from https://info.flipgrid.com/ • WeVideo (n.d.) [WeVideo logo]. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/wevideo-static/gfx/wv_logo_transparent.png Slide 6: • WordPress (n.d.). [WordPress logo]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WordPress_logo.svg • Campana, M. (2017). WordPress themes [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://wordpress.com/themes/thesoundingbell.wordpress.com Slide 7: • WordPress (n.d.). [WordPress logo]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WordPress_logo.svg • Campana, M. (2017). WordPress themes [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://wordpress.com/themes/thesoundingbell.wordpress.com Slide 8: • WordPress (n.d.). [WordPress logo]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WordPress_logo.svg • OpenClipart-Vectors (2013). Android OS phone [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-android-os-mobile-phone-150753/ CC 0. • Campana, M. (2017). Google Play WordPress app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wordpress.android • Campana, M. (2017). iTunes preview WordPress app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress/id335703880?mt=8 • Jhnri4 (2015). iPhone 6S Rose Gold [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://openclipart.org/detail/231368/iphone-6s-rose-gold CC 0.
- 23. Image citations (page 2): Slide 9: • Tagxedo (n.d.). [Tagxedo logo]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Campana, M. (2017). Tagxedo creator [Screenshot]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html Slide 10: • Campana, M. (2017). Tagxedo gallery [Screenshot]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/gallery.html • Tagxedo (n.d.). [Tagxedo logo]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Campana, M. (2013). Tagxedo creator > Shapes > Star [Screenshot]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html Slide 11: • Tagxedo (n.d.). [Tagxedo logo]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Campana, M. (2017). The one ring [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Tagxedo (2013). Tagxedo creator > Bird [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html • Campana, M. (2017). Pledge of Allegiance [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html Slide 12: • Canva (n.d.). [Canva logo]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canva_Logo.png • Campana, M. (2017). Canva educational infographic templates [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/templates/infographics/education/ Slide 13: • Canva (n.d.). [Canva logo]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canva_Logo.png • Canva (n.d.) How to help prevent climate change [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/design/DACc8mwI6EA/16yNz9v1beP_9tuVwnG0SQ/edit • Campana, M. (2017). Research databases [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.canva.com/design/DACW85e-wKI/sjJfzynMERIv74JztNYNAA/edit Slide 14: • Canva (n.d.). [Canva logo]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canva_Logo.png • Fonseca Zanco, M. (2016). Tablet [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/tablet-device-technology-computer-1315651/ CC 0. • Campana, M. (2017). iTunes preview Canva app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/app/id897446215 • Jhnri4 (2015). iPhone 6S Rose Gold [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://openclipart.org/detail/231368/iphone-6s-rose-gold CC 0. Slide 15: • Flipgrid (n.d.). [FlipGrid logo]. Retrieved from https://info.flipgrid.com/
- 24. Image citations (page 3): Slide 16: • Flipgrid (n.d.). [FlipGrid logo]. Retrieved from https://info.flipgrid.com/ • DigitalTechnologies ForLanguageTeaching (2015). Welcome message 2015 [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/dt4lt/20894326944/in/photolist-jN6Fbi- TJonov-e7gk8H-VARixu-V9DTZD-W8mP8p-WjG8Bi-xQmTsh-u646TJ-oTtBjj-X7bjpR CC BY-SA 2.0 Slide 17: • Flipgrid (n.d.). [FlipGrid logo]. Retrieved from https://info.flipgrid.com/ • OpenClipart-Vectors (2013). Android OS phone [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-android-os-mobile-phone-150753/ CC 0. • Campana, M. (2017). Google Play FlipGrid app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vidku.app.flipgrid • Campana, M. (2017). iTunes preview FlipGrid app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flipgrid./id756972930?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 • Jhnri4 (2015). iPhone 6S Rose Gold [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://openclipart.org/detail/231368/iphone-6s-rose-gold CC 0. Slide 18: • WeVideo (n.d.) [WeVideo logo]. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/wevideo-static/gfx/wv_logo_transparent.png • Campana, M. (2017). WeVideo [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://www.wevideo.com/hub#editor/-1 Slide 19: • WeVideo (n.d.) [WeVideo logo]. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/wevideo-static/gfx/wv_logo_transparent.png Slide 20: • WeVideo (n.d.) [WeVideo logo]. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/wevideo-static/gfx/wv_logo_transparent.png • OpenClipart-Vectors (2013). Android OS phone [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-android-os-mobile-phone-150753/ CC 0. • Campana, M. (2017). Google Play WeVideo app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wevideo.mobile.android • Campana, M. (2017). iTunes preview WeVideo app [Screenshot]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wevideo-uploader/id615796920?mt=8 • Jhnri4 (2015). iPhone 6S Rose Gold [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://openclipart.org/detail/231368/iphone-6s-rose-gold CC 0. Slide 21: • PublicDomanPictures (2009). Business-computer-cute-female-girl-15822 [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/business-computer-cute-female-girl-15822/ CC 0.
Editor's Notes
- (1 minute) Hello everyone and thanks for coming. My name is Michael Campana, and today I’ll be talking about five different web tools that we can use to promote creative and effective communication in the classroom. Before we get into the presentation itself, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
- (3 minutes) I have been a Spanish teacher at Robinson Secondary Sschool in Fairfax County for the past 21 years, and I also coach the Robinson scholastic bowl team, which I’m proud to say recently won its first state championship. I grew up in Cookeville Tennessee and attended Tennessee Tech University and Middlebury College as an undergraduate, and went on to earn a Masters degree in educational psychology at the University of Virginia. Currently I’m a masters candidate in library sciences at Old Dominion University. As you can see from my photo, I have a wonderful wife and two amazing daughters who are entering 1st grade and kindergarten this year. I’m a strong believer in the use of technology in the classroom, and I’ve had a lot of experience with a variety of educational technology tools. I designed the original website for Tennessee Tech’s world languages Department, I have served as a technology vanguard team member and world languages department tech troubleshooter at Robinson for many years, and I’m also a Google level 2 certified educator. Today’s presentation on technology tools for creative communication in the classroom is based on some of what I learned and used in a class I took recently as part of my library science master’s degree program.
- (1 minute) Although communication has always been important in the classroom, the way that we communicate with each other has changed dramatically just in the last century. For students, using technology to communicate is part of their everyday lives. As educators we need to be able to use a variety of technology tools to allow ourselves and our students to communicate effectively.
- (1 minute) Educational technology author and blogger, David Warlick, has pointed out that technology is not just a luxury in education but a necessity. In today’s presentation, I’m going to describe some web based tools and, in some cases mobile apps, that we can use and teach our students to use to communicate content and understanding creatively.
- (2 minutes) I’m focusing today on the following applications: WordPress, Canva, Tagxedo, FlipGrid, and WeVideo. Each of these tools has a variety of applications in the classroom for both teachers and students, and I’ll be talking about several examples of those. I also want to give a few specific standards of learning in several different subject areas that are directly relevant to these tools.
- (3 minutes) First I’m going to talk about blogging, and specifically about the blogging tool WordPress. Blogging can be used for a wide variety of educational settings. Teachers and librarians blog their thoughts and share knowledge. Students can journal about what they have learned in class, they can do creative writing assignments and share their writing with others through a blog, and they can receive feedback through the comments of their blogs’ readers. WordPress may be the most widely used tool for creating blogs. It also has the advantage of hosting the blogs, and free accounts are available. Some of the advantages of WordPress are the wide variety of layout templates available to potential bloggers, the ability to have multiple authors contribute to the same blog, the ability to embed various sorts of media in the blog posts, and as I mentioned previously, blog posts can receive comments from readers. Those can be moderated by the blog owner or not… in the classroom setting, that is highly recommended. English standard of learning 6.i which applies to grades 9-12 says that students will develop narrative, expository, and persuasive writings for a variety of audiences and purposes. And subsection I specifically mentions using computer technology to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish writing. Blogging seems to fit this standard extremely well.
- (2 minutes) Some useful features of WordPress that don’t exist on all blogging platforms are the ability to track statistics of viewers, links from within blog posts that have been clicked, and terms that have been searched. You can see an example of that from my blog in this screen shot. It even tells me where in the world my readers are. As you can see I had at least three people reading my blog from Germany. Now, you don’t see specific names of people who are reading the blog, but if you wanted to assure that your students are reading each others blog posts or your, you could ask them to comment and then you know immediately who has been reading. This is a good way of keeping students accountable if you wish them to read blog posts for an assignment.
- (2 minutes) A final advantage of WordPress is that there are dedicated Android and IOS apps so WordPress is easier to use on mobile devices compared to other options. You do need to be aware of a few disadvantages of WordPress, however, such as not all features being available to the free tier of subscribers. For example, you can’t embed a video file unless you are on one of the premium tiers. You can get around this by posting a link in your blog to a video on YouTube or some other publicly available internet source. This shouldn’t be a major issue for most educational purposes.
- (3 minutes) The tool I want to talk about is Tagxedo, which is a bit difficult to say and spell. Tagxedo is a tool, currently free though it may eventually have a pro subscription option, for creating word clouds with custom shapes and color schemes. As you probably already know word clouds are a way of visually depicting the words of a text in a specific shape. Most people think of this as just a fun gizmo for entertainment purposes, but there are some ways that word clouds can be very useful in an educational setting. In the case of Tagxedo and many other word cloud tools, the words are weighted, meaning that the more frequent words appear larger in your created image. This can be a great help for analyzing the theme or content of a particular text quickly. The most significant words pop out at the reader. You can, of course, input any text that you want whether it’s a poem, a paragraph from a book, or even words pulled off from someone’s Facebook page. This particular tool will actually automatically pull text off of several different types of web pages if you provide it the url. One feature of Tagxedo that makes it somewhat unique is it’s ability to import custom shapes.
- (3 minutes) You can see in the gallery screen shot on the left quite a few different shapes including line art of people and animals, and even some mathematical symbols from which people have created word art. Tagxedo does have a gallery of standard shapes from which to choose if you don’t want or don’t know how to create your own shape to upload. The star on the right is one of these standard shapes available. Word art is a visual expression of ones thoughts, which actually ties well into the standards of learning for high school art. High school standard A1.8 says that students will employ elements of art, principles of design, and a variety of media to express meaning in works of art and design. Since students can control both the content in terms of language and the design elements such as color and shape, this certainly fits the definition of expressing meaning in a work of art and design.
- (2 minutes) Word clouds can be used for text analysis, as I mentioned earlier, but they can also be used for pre reading activities. I created the word cloud at the top based on the epigram from the Lord of the Rings, namely the “one ring” poem. If students had not read that work before, they could still look at this as a pre-reading activity and get a very good idea of some of what the text was going to be about. Similarly, the bird in the lower left corner uses the design of the Twitter logo, and you can see from the choice of words that these are all terms related in some way to social media. For my last graphic on the lower right, I took the text of the Pledge of Allegiance and shaped it into the form of the United States. You can see that the more significant words are weighted more heavily than the terms that are not as prominent in the text.
- (4 minutes) Speaking of communicating a message with artist elements, I’m going to talk for a moment about Canva. Canva is a graphic design tool. It can be used to create anything from posters, to pamphlets, to CD booklets, and many more, but I am going to focus on infographics. Canva is one of the easiest and most intuitive ways for a non professional designer to create an infographic. Part of what makes this relatively simple even for a novice is that Canva includes a wide range of infographic templates that can be modified for the users own purpose. Canva also has a large library of clip art that can be incorporated into a created infographic. Infographics are very popular for communicating a lot of information quickly and memorably because as learners we are so attuned to visual elements. The graphical design, colors, and arrangement of items in an infographic help us to retain a large amount of information that would be lost on us if it was purely textual. Many educators create infographics for their students to help explain curricular content, but we should also consider having students create infographics to demonstrate that they have learned a particular concept or lesson. This goes well with the high school computer technology standards of learning. C/T standard 9-12.16.A says that students will apply knowledge and skills to generate innovative ideas, products, processes, and solutions. Part A includes using various creative software, programming environments, or digital tools to convey existing ideas in new and effective ways. Creating an infographic is certainly one way that students could demonstrate those skills.
- (2 minutes) Here are three of the educational template examples that Canva provides, as well as one infographic I created myself using a template. You can see from my research databases infographic on the right that I was able to rearrange elements, add and move sections, change the color scheme, and add clip art, all to create a professional looking template even though I am not a professional designer. The graphics help the students remember the purpose of each database in a way that the text alone would not.
- (1 minute) Canva also has a mobile app available, but in this case it is only available for Apple products. There is not at this time an Android version. That doesn’t stop people from using it on a PC, of course. One other disadvantage is that, like WordPress, not all of the features are available without a paid subscription.
- (3 minutes) FlipGrid is a social learning tool. Rather than try to explain this without any context, I am going to show a brief video to give you an overview of what FlipGrid does. (PLAY VIDEO HERE.) As you can see the main purpose of FlipGrid is to create a video based prompt to which students can record 90 second video responses. The grid comes in because these all show up together on one slide, so that a viewer can click on each individual response to see and hear them. There are a variety of uses for this technology. For example, one possibility is to have students give a short video response to a classroom discussion you had previously. Students can also give a brief book talk for an interesting book they have read.
- (3 minutes) As I mentioned earlier I am a Spanish teacher, so when I heard about this tool the thing that immediately came to my mind was to give students the opportunity to practice speaking in the target language without the pressure of having to do it face to face. That’s not to say we don’t want students to learn how to speak face to face, but for beginner learners it is often easier to talk to a camera phone or recording device until they become more comfortable with the language. This can also save a lot of class time because you don’t need to have the teacher ask each of the 30 students the same question during class time. You can record the question in the target language in a FlipGrid and have the students respond in private. However they get to see and hear all of their classmate responses which can be good for modeling. This directly ties to the high school world languages level 1 standard of learning WI.1 which says that the student will exchange simple spoken and written information in the target language. Part 3 of that standard specifically mentions asking and answering questions about familiar topics. That’s what we would be doing with a FlipGrid activity.
- (1 minute) Once again there are mobile device apps available for FlipGrid. This time there are both Android and iOS version. Educators do need to be aware that even though camera phones and computers with web cams are more widely available every year, not every student in your particular situation may have access to a video recording device such as a smartphone. Be aware of that if you give a FlipGrid assignment.
- (4 minutes) Staying in the theme of video, we have the free video editing tool, WeVideo. This is similar to an application like iMovie, but it is available to people across all platforms rather than just on a Mac computer. With WeVideo, educators and students can combine both movie clips and still images, add captions, use some rudimentary video effects, and even add an audio track or sound effects. Teachers can use this tool for creating flipped or blended learning lessons, and students can also create videos as either a project demonstrating the knowledge of a particular lesson, a creative activity in a drama or cinema arts class, or as part of a collaborative project such as group story telling in an English class. All of these uses tie into high school computer technology standard of learning C/T 9-12.1.A which states that students will demonstrate an operational knowledge of various technologies and Part A which is too long to read in its entirety, directs students to use various types of technology devices to perform learning tasks including, several lines down, capturing and manipulating video.
- (2 minutes) Here’s a brief video that another WeVideo user made as an example of some of its capabilities to convert still images into a video presentation with a soundtrack of their choosing. Let’s watch (PLAY VIDEO HERE).
- (1 minutes) Like most of the other tools we’ve mentioned, WeVideo has Android and iOS mobile apps. And like several of the other tools we’ve mentioned, there is a free account tier and several paid account tiers. As usual, you get what you pay for, so some of the more advanced capabilities for editing video, adding multiple audio tracks, and doing a variety of special effects are only available at the paid levels. Still, the free version allows for a lot of flexibility in creating video presentations, and is accessible across many platforms which is not common for many other video edits tools.
- (1 minute) So in summary, we’ve discussed several web based and app tools that can help teachers and students creatively communicate through the use of current technology. We have WordPress for blogging, Tagxedo fro word art, Canva for creating infographics, FlipGrid for social learning through video clips, and WeVideo to create and edit movie presentations. If you have any questions about any of these tools that I’m not able to answer right now, feel free to email me at the address on the screen. Thanks so much for coming and I hope you will have an opportunity to try out these amazing educational tools for yourself and let your students give them a try too.