I want to give live, online math lessons from our My Math workbook to my students. I just spent 2 hours trying to set up my iPhone as a document camera and record lessons on Screencastify and/or Zoom. The doc cams are either sold out or too expensive on Amazon. Also, it would take a month for one to get here. I was unsuccessful in turning my iPhone into a doc cam. I tried three different apps from the app store that were supposed to do this. None of them worked for what I needed them to work for. The myriad of glitches, compatibility issues, bad instructions, advertisement overload in the free versions, and my own ignorance has made this night, if not a complete waste of time, then an amazing learning experience. I'm trying to keep my growth mindset intact. Check out the cool doc camera stand I WAS able to make with the left over wood from the kitchen table I made yesterday. Just strap an iPhone in under the swim goggle strap stapled on top, and record amazing distance learning lessons! The hardware was way easier for me than the software. Well, stay tuned as I add to this blog tomorrow. I will continue to read about flipped classrooms, and dream of the day I'll be able to figure out how to record a video to do one.
Next day: This morning I had better luck with iMovie. Here's a link to the video I made about the Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt. https://youtu.be/eCyFiTEuuEg The kids liked this project. I just sent the link out on Class Dojo. I announced we can make another video with even more participants if everybody, (safely), gets outdoors and takes photos. Yeah! Ok, my next project is to TRY to record a video of myself with a Wacom device (my wife's), connected to the computer. I'll try explaining equivalent fractions in the Khan Academy style. I will be doing this in distance learning. I love how this class is lending itself so well to me training up for the next two months of distance learning. Next Day: Success! Wow. Is it just me or is getting this kind of thing to work too difficult? I can't begin to explain all of the difficulties I had in, one, figuring out what to use, two, using it, three, making the pieces work together, and four, share the product. It makes me feel like we humans are still in the early stages of tech integration into our projects. You should just be able to say something like: "Siri, I want to do an online meeting with my students where I share a video from YouTube on equivalent fractions, have a whiteboard to do further explanations, and am able to show our workbook with a doc cam. Please give them all immediate feedback on their progress, and adjust the learning to their level. Oh yeah, please collect, grade, and enter all of their work into Illuminate for report cards." Good luck, right? Well, here's the practice video I was finally able to make on YouTube. https://youtu.be/pI1aIjPgB9s
3 Comments
Joel
4/6/2020 04:30:23 pm
Hilarious! I can totally relate to your commentary. There are many great parts of technology but they haven't matched up yet with distance learning. My hope is that once we work out the glitches this school year that it will be smooth sailing next year. We may soon even consider ourselves technology experts!? Thanks for sharing Jeremy and great work on your table design. Will you be selling the design on TeachersPayTeachers?!
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Krista Loper
4/8/2020 12:49:10 pm
I understand your frustrations with this distance learning. It's crazy times and I don't like that I am not in control of my own teaching. But like you said we do need a very strong growth mindset during this time or it will be hard to keep moving through. I love that you included pictures and links to the videos. You have done great so far, keep it up.
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Marie Zorn
4/9/2020 08:57:29 am
I love this! You tried, failed and tried again which is what this class is all about and what we want to shine through to our students. I love that you created a contraption to make what you wanted specifically in your video, I have done the same in the past as well. I am glad in the end that it all worked out and I love that your students were engaged in the activity where they go out and take pictures and videos. With Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok on the rise, students are really turning to picture and video to express themselves. Thank you for sharing your tech journey with us, and I am so glad this program is helping your prepare for our current reality.
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AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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