Creating and Uploading a Screencast

Instructional videos are a great way to provide education, e.g., instructions, tutorials, online. You are essentially capturing a video of your computer screen and adding audio, usually your own voice narration as you navigate through your computer desktop. Here, I used Jing software and uploaded it to Screencast. The process is fairly easy, although I couldn't find any editing features off hand and the recording starts a little earlier than I wanted. Anyway, enjoy this first attempt at creating an instructional screen capture video.

http://screencast.com/t/xLe1RLopT4
 

Creating and Uploading a PodCast

This is a podcast I created for an assignment for Multimedia and Interactive Technologies class.  It had to have me speaking, plus a background track.  I also used a fade in effect for the music, which is Happiness by Alexis Jordan.  I am in Palm Springs at the moment.  I chose this Alexis Jordan song because she performed here last year.



Podcasts can be used for lectures, additional instructions for assignments, etc.

Creating Flash Cards for Studying Vocabulary

Flashcards can be made and distributed to students by creating them in PowerPoint, saving the slides in a JPEG format, and zipping the folder for downloading.  Here is one that I created using technology terms.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6qGVuww0Dqxdk03bGtTdjlNYmc/edit?usp=sharing

Embedding a Video Into PowerPoint

When embedding a video, simply click on the video icon in PowerPoint (looks like a film strip) and choose the file from the Windows Explorer or Mac Finder pop up window.

When I used PowerPoint for Mac 2011, an embedded AVI file wouldn't play, but the WMV version works.  It may be because Microsoft understandingly designs its products to be compatible with other Microsoft products.  I also found out that on this version of PowerPoint, the video can be played in slideshow view, as well as in normal view.

Using YouTube Videos for Instruction

Many schools block the YouTube site to prevent students from viewing inappropriate content.  However, there is also a lot of educational content that would be useful for class instruction and research assignments.  One way to allow students to view specific YouTube videos is to download them and convert them to a format, such as AVI or WMV, that can be embedded in the class blog or in a PowerPoint video.  I used a Mac with YTD Video Downloader and Kigo Video Converter.  The video below is one that was downloaded from YouTube, converted, and now embedded into this blog post.

Field Experience

A class of eighteen students was assembled for the fifth period by the science teacher specially for my lesson plan demonstration.  I began setting up getting a streaming video ready on a laptop connected to an overhead projector.  I also wrote key vocabulary words on the white board for front loading, which would be especially helpful for ELL students.  The teacher introduced me to the class as a future instructor and I was greeted with a warm applause.  I announced the topic of the day as States of Matter and Phase Changes.

For a pre-assessment, I began by asking the students about their prior knowledge of solids, liquids, and gases, as a bridge to the lesson.  About half of the students expressed verbally or with body language that they had an idea.  I began with a discussion of something they know really well--water--to build up confidence.  Students were able to answer these easy questions in unison, and they seemed interested to see where this was going.

I began to ask more related questions, like the difference between physical and chemical changes, and asked them for real world examples.  I then turned over to the white board and went over vocabulary words.  Whenever a word was confusing, like “rigid”, I drew examples with objects in the classroom. I also drew illustrations on the board to illustrate the motion of molecules.

At this point, I had the students refer to some handouts I passed out.  I had typed up the transcript for the video on the handout.  I instructed them to circle any words that they did not know and that we would discuss them later on, depending on time, as a class, one-on-one, or in think-pair-shares.  I allowed them to circle any word they didn't know, whether it was a technical, scientific word, or any non-technical word, so that EL's have an opportunity to learn any English words they did not know.  I also specifically chose a video with closed captioning, so that students can also read the words for reading reinforcement, without taking their eyes off the screen.  Instructions were pretty easy and straight-forward, so modeling was not necessary.

I started the video, States of Matter (2013), which had wonderful animations and further provided contextualization and text re-presentation.  After the video ended, I started the post-assessment.  I sketched a table on the board with the three states of matter on the top and various features on the side.  I asked the students to describe the features of each state of matter.  As I filled up the table with students' answers, I was also creating a graphic organizer and a metacognition technique to organize their thoughts.

The rest of the activity was more about building from what they know from experience.  An example was associating the concept of pressure to squeezing a balloon.  Another drew upon what they knew about phase changes.  I even talked a little about different words that are related to the word vapor, such as vaporize, and evaporate, to get them to dissect word meanings by their root.

After conducting the lesson, I feel one thing I would change would be to try to get more participation from one corner side of the room where a few students were less engaged.  I would like to incorporate pre- and post-assessment methods that would either get even participation among the students or do not require verbal participation at all, so that I know how well every student understands the content.

I enjoyed the whole experience in general.  The majority of the class showed interest and were participating.  I had received another round of applause when I concluded. Seeing the faces of the students when they “get it” and receiving appreciation makes it feel so rewarding.

Pilot Test of Warm Up and Rubric

I decided to pilot test a warm-up activity idea of mine that would be used in a H.S. Chemistry class setting.  Warm-up activites, according to Professor Finney who teaches our Content Area Instruction class, are "5-8 minute activities that take the students from the corridor of the school, their friends, or their iPods to your class and the content area of study. They are usually ungraded and designed to focus the students on the content of the day. They may incorporate prior knowledge. They also may be pre-assessments."

The test group was not of actual students, but four fiends of mine who were in their 20's to 40's.  I briefly spoke about what exothermic (releasing energy) and endothermic (absorbing energy) reactions are.  I then gave a few examples.  I then took out a First Aid instant cold pack and asked them what it is.  They instantly knew what it was for, and jokingly mentioned its usefulness for the clumsy one in the group.  I had one of them read the full instructions.  I asked them why they had to squeeze and shake the bag.  They quickly knew it there was a chemical reaction.  When asked which type it was, they were in agreement that it was endothermic.  I asked the quieter one to explain why and he was able to by linking cold to absorbing energy, which was a tip I gave during the initial mini-lesson.

I then proceeded to take a cold pack out of the freezer.  Then I asked them if this was endo- or exothermic.  Two said it was endothermic, while the other two were not sure.  I then reminded them of the labeling on the instant cold pack, which stated disposable, single-use only.  I then had to ask leading questions about the difference between the cold pack I took out of the medicine cabinet versus the one from the freezer.  Once they figured out the one was reusable, we had to discuss whether there was a chemical reaction taking place, and what qualifies a chemical reaction.  To their credit, we did not discuss physical versus chemical changes beforehand.  High school chemistry students may understand this, however.

I asked each one of them for examples of other endo- and exothermic reactions.  Two were able to come up with ones I didn't use as examples, while the other two just identified ones already discussed.  Using a rubric below I created using Marzano's (2010) guidelines, the first two scored a 4, while the other two scored a 3.  The rubric seemed fine and did not need adjusting.  For a better assessment, this warm-up should be given the following day, to make sure the "students" are not just memorizing.

References

Marzano, R. J. (2010). Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.

Levels	Criteria
4	Students will be able to discuss other chemical processes and how it is exothermic or endothermic.
3	Student will be able to discuss how a chemical processes can either be exothermic or endothermic.
2	Student will be able to recognize if a process is exothermic or endothermic
1	With help, partial success are score 2.0 content and score 3.0
0	Even with help, no success.