Bust-a-Rhyme
A great way for students to develop a concrete understanding of a learning objective is for them to write and produce a song!
Objective; Students will be assigned a learning objective, write a rap rhyme that explains the objective using their "home-made" definition, and produce and record a rap song that makes remembering the learning objective easy.
Materials; a musical beat to rap to, Audacity App
Procedure: First, provide a source for your students to use or create a musical beat. I used a site called Flocabulary that has a library of rap beats that students can use to create music. Once the students find a beat they like, they'll launch the Audacity app, (click HERE for a beginner's tutorial) press record, and play the rap beat so Audacity records it as the first layer of sound.
Objective; Students will be assigned a learning objective, write a rap rhyme that explains the objective using their "home-made" definition, and produce and record a rap song that makes remembering the learning objective easy.
Materials; a musical beat to rap to, Audacity App
Procedure: First, provide a source for your students to use or create a musical beat. I used a site called Flocabulary that has a library of rap beats that students can use to create music. Once the students find a beat they like, they'll launch the Audacity app, (click HERE for a beginner's tutorial) press record, and play the rap beat so Audacity records it as the first layer of sound.
Next, students need to write their lyrics. Now, if you knew me you'd know I have no rapping or song-writing skills so if I was able to produce a rap song, ANYONE can! :) The topic I was teaching was Math Properties including the Commutative Property, Associative Property, Distributive Property, Identity Property, Inverse Property, Zero Property, Reflexive Property, Symmetric Property, and Transitive Property. Students were assigned a property that they had to write a rap rhyme for. Rather than just reciting the property's definition within the rhyme, however, the student must explain the property's definition in their own words. For example, the Commutative Property says a + b = b + a and a x b = b x a but remembering that may not mean that they understand the property. What I wanted from the student was, when adding or multiplying, order doesn't matter.
Once the lyrics are written, return to Audacity and record your song as the 2nd layer of sound. That's it!
Once the lyrics are written, return to Audacity and record your song as the 2nd layer of sound. That's it!
The students saved their song as a project until the final product was complete and then they exported the song as an MP3.
Options:
Students play their rap songs to the class and the class critiques their songs.
Students can work in pairs, cowrite and record the music together!
If students complete their project early, they can create more educational rap songs for bonus points!
Students can take the project to another level by creating a music video using video recording apps like PowerPoint Mix, TouchCast or ExplainEverything and share their video with the world by posting it on Youtube!
Options:
Students play their rap songs to the class and the class critiques their songs.
Students can work in pairs, cowrite and record the music together!
If students complete their project early, they can create more educational rap songs for bonus points!
Students can take the project to another level by creating a music video using video recording apps like PowerPoint Mix, TouchCast or ExplainEverything and share their video with the world by posting it on Youtube!
Inside a Cell with Thinglink
Students are able to produce creative, authentic interactive media pieces demonstrating their understanding or mastery of any learning objective using Thinglink.
Objective: Using ThingLink, students will create an interactive digital image that introduces, in their words - defines, and explains the importance of the organelles in a plant cell, and then post their ThinkLink's URL for the world to learn from!
Materials: Laptops, iPads, ThinkLink student accounts, network/Internet connection
Procedure:
First teachers need to create an account, and then create a Group (class name). After your Group is created, click the gear icon to view your group's invite code.
Objective: Using ThingLink, students will create an interactive digital image that introduces, in their words - defines, and explains the importance of the organelles in a plant cell, and then post their ThinkLink's URL for the world to learn from!
Materials: Laptops, iPads, ThinkLink student accounts, network/Internet connection
Procedure:
First teachers need to create an account, and then create a Group (class name). After your Group is created, click the gear icon to view your group's invite code.
Before students begin creating their interactive media, they need to collect and save media to use in their projects. Students, in this example, need to find & save an unlabeled picture of a plant cell, write explanations...in their own words, the definition and significance of the cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus, chromosomes, ribosomes, mitochondria, chloroplasts, endoplasmic reticulums and golgi bodies, and find & save media (image URLs, informational URLs, video URLs) that support your words.
Next....
Provide students with the invite code which, once they've created a student account, joins them in your Group.
NOTE: The free-version of ThingLink only allows for 105 student accounts and 1 group per teacher account. Upgrading to EDU Premium allows for 30 groups and 1000 student accounts.
Once the students login, they'll click CREATE to begin making their interactive media.
Next....
Provide students with the invite code which, once they've created a student account, joins them in your Group.
NOTE: The free-version of ThingLink only allows for 105 student accounts and 1 group per teacher account. Upgrading to EDU Premium allows for 30 groups and 1000 student accounts.
Once the students login, they'll click CREATE to begin making their interactive media.
They'll now upload the unlabeled plant cell image, title their interactive media, add and save tags (label, add personalized definitions & points of significance, and add the media URLs), and Save the Image when completed.
After the interactive media is complete, the student clicks SHARE to get a Link that can be posted on our class website, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. for others to learn from.
Options:
Students could work in pairs or groups
Students from one class could view and critique the interactive ThingLink images from another class and pick the one they like best
Students could include tags for other organelles like cell walls and centrioles or create an interactive ThingLink image for an animal cell and compare.
Students could work in pairs or groups
Students from one class could view and critique the interactive ThingLink images from another class and pick the one they like best
Students could include tags for other organelles like cell walls and centrioles or create an interactive ThingLink image for an animal cell and compare.
TouchCast TEDTalk
One of students' favorite ways to demonstrate mastery is to produce a video and TouchCast is an amazing tool for video productions! If you've never seen a TED video, first off, have you been living under a rock? Just Kidding! Second, TED videos (or TEDTalks) are short videos that spread ideas which change perspectives, attitudes, lives, and ultimately, the world! And since TEDTalks cover virtually any topic, virtually any teacher implement this activity.
Objective; Students will be assigned a learning objective where they'll be tasked to write, produce/record and publish a TouchCast video in the theme of TEDTalk videos. The topic of the video could be 'gun control' or 'the effects social media has on growing up' or 'water water everywhere, and someday not a drop to drink'. The topics are endless. But the point or objective is verbal/written persuasion. Produce something that makes the learner question a current belief or truth. One of my alltime favorite quotes is from Alvin Toffler's who said, "“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ” Create a TED video that provides an opportunity to learn, unlearn, and/or relearn.
Here's an actual TED video that demonstrates what I'm talking about:
Materials; iPad, TouchCast App, Internet Access, TouchCast Training Directions
Procedure: Explain to students that they'll be writing and producing a video who's goal is to persuade someone to change their mindset on a particular topic. Explain they'll be using iPads and an app called TouchCast to record and produce their videos.
So I just finished reading Teaching the iGeneration and one of the chapters focuses on Exploring Verbal Persuasion. It suggests that teachers need to discuss the following considerations writers need to adhere to affectively persuade:
Respect the other people's view. Making room in persuasive arguments to show an appreciation for diverse viewpoints can earn influence and allies.
Be willing to sustain conversations. Silencing opponents only leads to underinformed positions, and underinformed positions are rarely persuasive.
Accurately and civilly describe sources of disagreement. Effective persuasion depends on the ability to disagree agreeable, and describe with great accuracy, what you disagree with.
My point for sharing this with you is that we should not expect students to be able to produce effective, persuasive, convincing pieces if we do not show them how to architect a persuasive piece first. Perhaps using some of the ideas mentioned above may help.
In addition to providing tips to enhance persuasion, how to students produce a video that will be memorable? Some tips from Teaching the iGeneration that give stories "stickiness" and staying power include:
Keep it SIMPLE
Keep it DIRECT and CONCRETE
Make sure it's CREDIBLE
Utilize EMOTION. The best messengers recognize when people feel something rather than just hear or think it, they are more like to remember.
In addition to having a script, students need to plan for the filming/production aspect of the project. They need to consider the questions: Will I be using a TED backdrop and green screen? Will I use the teleprompter or create cue cards or memorize the script? Will I need different camera angles or keep it the same throughout? Will I need any props? Students need to create a production outline/storyboard/play-by-play of exactly how the filming will take place.
Once the script is written and the production outline is set, it's time to film! Students will use TouchCast for their filming. Now although TouchCast is relatively intuative, especially for iGeneration members, TouchCast provides a complete breakdown of how to's, from using the teleprompter, to making and adding vApps, to greenscreening, to Saving. Click HERE to learn all about TouchCast. I've also provided an intro to TouchCast lesson in the Materials section you can use to introduce students to all the basics of TouchCast.
When the video is complete, students can share them with their peers or even the world by posting them on YouTube. I highly recommend offering students the opportunity to present their videos to the class so as to present opportunities for peer critiques, criticisms, rich discussions and debates.
Below is a TED video example I created to help model the project:
Procedure: Explain to students that they'll be writing and producing a video who's goal is to persuade someone to change their mindset on a particular topic. Explain they'll be using iPads and an app called TouchCast to record and produce their videos.
So I just finished reading Teaching the iGeneration and one of the chapters focuses on Exploring Verbal Persuasion. It suggests that teachers need to discuss the following considerations writers need to adhere to affectively persuade:
Respect the other people's view. Making room in persuasive arguments to show an appreciation for diverse viewpoints can earn influence and allies.
Be willing to sustain conversations. Silencing opponents only leads to underinformed positions, and underinformed positions are rarely persuasive.
Accurately and civilly describe sources of disagreement. Effective persuasion depends on the ability to disagree agreeable, and describe with great accuracy, what you disagree with.
My point for sharing this with you is that we should not expect students to be able to produce effective, persuasive, convincing pieces if we do not show them how to architect a persuasive piece first. Perhaps using some of the ideas mentioned above may help.
In addition to providing tips to enhance persuasion, how to students produce a video that will be memorable? Some tips from Teaching the iGeneration that give stories "stickiness" and staying power include:
Keep it SIMPLE
Keep it DIRECT and CONCRETE
Make sure it's CREDIBLE
Utilize EMOTION. The best messengers recognize when people feel something rather than just hear or think it, they are more like to remember.
In addition to having a script, students need to plan for the filming/production aspect of the project. They need to consider the questions: Will I be using a TED backdrop and green screen? Will I use the teleprompter or create cue cards or memorize the script? Will I need different camera angles or keep it the same throughout? Will I need any props? Students need to create a production outline/storyboard/play-by-play of exactly how the filming will take place.
Once the script is written and the production outline is set, it's time to film! Students will use TouchCast for their filming. Now although TouchCast is relatively intuative, especially for iGeneration members, TouchCast provides a complete breakdown of how to's, from using the teleprompter, to making and adding vApps, to greenscreening, to Saving. Click HERE to learn all about TouchCast. I've also provided an intro to TouchCast lesson in the Materials section you can use to introduce students to all the basics of TouchCast.
When the video is complete, students can share them with their peers or even the world by posting them on YouTube. I highly recommend offering students the opportunity to present their videos to the class so as to present opportunities for peer critiques, criticisms, rich discussions and debates.
Below is a TED video example I created to help model the project: