Thank you to all those who participated in today's learning community. Our goal was to tackle the fun topic of creating a video lesson on unlearn. Our discussion began with the "why"? Some of the team felt a video lesson would provide a great way for students to preview the demo aspect of the lesson. Others felt this method allows for more repetition before class and then some felt it could be an excellent way to improve our use of time in and out of the classroom.
What we did!
Team members responded to an invite email that asked them to highlight areas they'd like to explore in regards to "flipping or fine tuning". Creating a video lesson seemed to be the most requested place to start. Participants prepped for class by searching out a youtube website they might like to add to their class. To drive the lesson home, they also had to create 4 learning questions to support the lesson.
On our rainy Monday, we met in the computer lab and practiced putting together a video lesson onto ulearn. Before things got too heavy, we quickly tackled some of the "geek-language" of working with our computers.
The following terms were discussed:
Screen Cast - A mini movie of the activity you are doing on your computer screen
Screen Capture - a picture of your computer screen
Respondus - a computer program that transforms a quiz written in word into a Ulearn quiz.
Youtube - a web based video library
Feel free to watch the linked screen cast about loading a video onto ulearn using the Youtube method. Be sure your audio is on so you can listen as you watch.
Take away!
When planning a lesson, often starting on the computer can be a time trap. Always start with pen and paper. Write your intention, outcome or goal. Once you have that, sketch out the parts of the lesson to achieve your goal.
Lesson parts:
Outcome: learning goal
- Anticipatory set - why the lesson is important
- Learning Content - the information the student is to learn
- Guided Practice - in class practice of the learned material
- Independant Practice - homework, a repetition that supports the connectivity of the lesson
- Assessment - evaluate how well the content was learned
- Evaluate - check your work and process - did you achieve your outcome?
We also discussed the types of questions students should complete after watching the video. This questions provide a beginning point to be used in class for the teacher and student to explore what was to be learned from watching the video. We agreed that questions should work at multiple levels of Blooms Taxonomy.
Other Chats:
As we worked together, other questions came up and team members offered their thoughts to these questions.
How do you organize the sidebar of your ulearn? What are Sub-headers and dividers? How do you move a content area up or down in the sidebar? What's the value of an online quiz? Should teachers group handouts into one file to speed up students time spent printing? We discussed different methods to check the learning when students come to class - discussion, demo, teach the class, pair-square-share, back to back. How do you make a narrated power point presentation?
For a good idea of what flipping the classroom is all about watch this video:
I would like to thank Jack, Bob, Helene, Peter, Tommy and Mary for coming out to get things started.
No matter what method we apply to energize the learning in our class, its really about activating the learner. This is just one of many techniques that might do just that.
Next Learning Meeting: Monday June 17, 2013 9am - 11
