Authentic+Publishing+Experiences

Our students are motivated by publishing work for an AUTHENTIC audience - creating a project for a teacher's examination is one thing, but creating a project to publish on the web for the commentary of peers is quite another experience!





VoiceThread [|VoiceThread] is one of my favorite free online tools. It allows students to import images - photos, online images, scanned artwork - and then to record his/her own narration for each image. The students control how much (or even IF) narration goes on each slide. The best part, though, is that it is easy to embed in a blog, email, or wiki, and that other people can leave comments on each slide, so the students have an authentic audience and great feedback. I choose to moderate all comments to ensure that my students only get constructive, appropriate feedback. [|GoogleDocs Presentation] with great examples of student VoiceThread publishing projects, and ideas for implementing in a variety of grade levels and subject areas. media type="custom" key="23327830"



[|Prezi] [|25 Ways to Use Prezi In The Classroom] (a GoogleDocs presentation). This slideshow demonstrates examples of both student and teacher-created presentations, as well as tips for implementation and management. Prezi is a free presentation tool that is more visually interesting than most, zooming in and out of images and links, videos, audio recordings, etc. Not only is it engaging, it often allows students to visualize how subjects/topics connect.



[|Wordle.net] - This amazing FREE site allows you to import a set of words and it then changes them into a "word cloud". The words that show up the most frequently in your text are represented in a larger font in your word cloud. There are so many applications for this: to introduce a topic, to create class rules, to find the main idea in a speech, to summarize a unit. My class just used this to make lists of words with specific prefix/suffix additions - they each brought a word from home with the day's prefix or suffix and we made a wordle each day! (On a personal note, my tip for using Wordle is to have your students type their text into a word processing program first, then copy and paste the text into wordle - it doesn't store text or refresh without losing it). [|Tagxedo.com] Another word cloud generator, with a slightly different twist: you can choose to have your words create an image as well. Two things that I enjoy about this site - they have a Facebook page with good support (plus they share a daily "can you figure out the theme?" word cloud), and you can order your word clouds printed on various items (shirts, mugs, totes, etc).
 * Word Clouds



[|ePals] "ePals Global Community - where learners connect" This is the easiest, most engaging site that my class uses for collaborative learning. In terms of preparing our students for a global education and global workforce, few things beat communicating with other children around the world. My class has been ePals with a class of same-age students at an all-girls' school in Africa, shared about our seasons with classes in Florida and in London, and shared our Christmas customs with a class in Australia. (Did you know that in Australia, Santa comes on a surfboard, wearing shorts?) This free website provides each student with a free monitored email account. You can choose the level at which it is monitored - incoming, outgoing, both, for key words, etc. You do the monitoring, so you'll know every single thing that your students write. You can also set this up so that your students can only send to certain specific emails. On the website, you can either post a project idea that you'd like someone to join, or you can browse other classroom projects. One nice recent addition to the site is that the projects list any standards to which they are aligned, so you can search by standard as well. One other advantage to this site is that your students can use this secure email to write to you - so my students frequently turn in assignments via their ePals accounts.



Creating Keynotes is one of my most-used technology applications in my classroom. My students beg to make them, love to show them off - it's like sneaky teaching (makes me feel like I'm hiding vegetables in their brownies or something!) We use this tool for whole class sharing after individual projects - for example, when each student studies a specific insect in science, or when we each study a state in social studies. We also use them for book reports on novels. I use them as an instruction tool as well, particularly for introducing topics - new vocabulary for social studies chapters or science units, to show visual representations of difficult concepts, or sometimes even scan in the pages of a book and narrate it so that I can work with a small group while another group listens/watches me read! This type of presentation is easy to print to create a physical book; alternately, I often take screenshots of each slide in a presentation in order to post them online.
 * Keynotes/PowerPoints

Storybird.com I know that there are probably thousands of sites that offer the ability to publish short stories online. There are two main reasons that I appreciate this particular site: it offers the ability to collaborate, so students could work together (even from home) to write or to edit, and the site offers original artwork to use as story prompts and illustrations. Each author may choose whether his/her writing is private or public.



[|Kerpoof] Kerpoof is a site used to create animations, stories, videos, cartoons, etc. It is a free site that has some special offers for educators. As a teacher, you can make a free account for each of your students - without providing any personal information aside from an e-mail address. (I have them use their safe monitored emails from ePals). Students do not have to create an account to use Kerpoof, but the site will be a more useful tool if they do. With an account, the students can save, edit, share, and e-mail their work. Anyone can use Kerpoof - and create pictures, stories, and movies - as a guest only, but all their work will be lost when they navigate away from the site. Students may chat with each other, post creations on a class message board (moderated by you), and collaborate on a project in real-time from different computers.
 * [|Classroom Ideas] -** Visit this page for broad Kerpoof brainstorms that you can mold into your own lesson plans.
 * [|Educational Standards] -** cross-referenced Kerpoof activities with the state and national standards they can be used to meet.

[|SchoolTube] This monitored site is very like YouTube, but all content is student-appropriate. You must be a member to submit a video. Every video that is submitted is checked before being posted, and that process can sometimes take up to 24 hours. Comments are also monitored, and student comments are allowed in the form of choices from a list. You can search by topic, grade level, person posting (when you become a member, you get your own "channel"), and school district. Posting a video on SchoolTube also provides you with an embed code for adding a large video to a site.



Podcasting Creating audio recordings published on the Internet and played on computers and portable devices is a highly motivating authentic-audience experience - and this process is becoming easier and more streamlined all the time. There are so many methods for creating podcasts now - you don’t need a media player (like an iPod), or specialized software to make or listen to a podcast – just your computer and an Internet connection will get you started. I recommend using the free site [|Audacity]if you use a PC and using GarageBand if you are a Mac user. [|This blog post] has AWESOME step-by-step instructions for getting started. [|Podcasting takes students beyond the classroom](blog post)