Resources for Teaching Poetry

Just came across Google's tool, Search Stories, for creating a video out of your online searches. I did one on Resources for Teaching Poetry.

It's a pretty nifty tool, and students might get a kick out of using it as a way to present their initial searches in a content-based project.

Teaching Poetry

This great little slideshow, Teaching Poetry, at Slideshare, illustrates many of the types of poems taught by Kenneth Koch in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams, my all-time favorite book on how to teach poetry.

Teaching Poetry

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You can analyze each slide/poem and then have your students write something similar. It is amazing how rapidly they come to understand what metaphoric language is and how to use it. I have also put some more specific directions and other examples of poetry on my Website at Quicksteps to Teaching Poetry. This was one of the favorite parts of my Liberal Arts Teachers class in English.

A related site, Poetry Tools, offers a nifty little Flash tool so that students can generate some nice little Metaphors right online, or download the tool for desktop use. This is a nice way to introduce the poetry writing sessions suggested by the Teaching Poetry slideshow.


And be sure to get Koch's book if you want to know more. It's available at Amazon.com.

280 Slides

I was directed to 280 slides by Nik Peachey's Ten Teacher Development Tasks for Web2.0 Tools (yes, I am still slogging on with them...) The presentation tool is really fun to use, and here is my exercise task completed. It's for intermediate students, who watch the two videos and make notes using an online dictionary, thesaurus, and/or translator, then write up a description of "My Favorite House."



You can also send the embedded video to Slideshare, or email it to friends.

My writing activity is very similar to Nik's, but I gave it different twist by using pairs at the computer, some online vocabulary resources, and a writing process with note-taking and discussion built-in.

Here is Nik's simpler version: Getting Video Tasks Online

Archival Video Sites

Both OurMedia and the Internet Archive are unbelievably slow and have made their interfaces much more difficult to use. OurMedia just transferred my video to a new address without telling me, and I can't find it at all on the Internet Archive. In OurMedia, a search for tags and for titles and for owner--none of them--didn't come up with the video, but it was still there. Go figure!

I also tried to edit the description in OurMedia to include the Web address of the wiki that also contains the presentation, but with no luck. I was asked to join a group before I could edit my own work--couldn't find any with "education" through the search engine, though I could see a few with that word in the title from a list. I then was told I hadn't completed the CSID (the test of human user), but that box wasn't available at the page where I was doing the editing. No win!

I hope to get the video from the 2008 TESOL presentation embedded here in the blog below. We'll see how long it lasts as a real link!

The address is now http://www.ourmedia.org/node/88432



Another video archive site, AuthorStream is also very slow. My presentation there (no audio) is at
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/ElizabethHS-224813-effect-tech-sla-entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/. The sound version apparently has just vanished or was never accepted as an unload because it was too large or the wrong format.

Blip.tv still has the presentation, and seemed to load about the fastest. Unfortunately, it's not a place to take the children...

These sites are very frustrating, and I'm glad I uploaded the presentation to multiple venues. With the economic downturn in 2009, there has been a lot of moving and shaking, and I think there will be more changes in store in early 2010.

Animoto

Animoto is easy to use and a lot of fun! You can upload photos and video, and the app puts them together in a kaleidoscope of shapes and forms. You can also add music from your desktop or purchase something from iTunes. Once the video is completed, you can edit it, and share via email or embedding your blog or Website, as I have done here:



The free version of this editing tool is only 30 seconds long (about 12 photos). For $3 US you can upgrade to an any length video, or for $30, you can make any length videos for a year. Ronaldo Lima's school uses the latter option, and students use Animoto extensively as a way of publishing their projects.

To use the program, students would take and select photos and video of their project, arrange and upload the shots, and select appropriate music. (There is very little writing involved, unlike other programs where there might be titling on each photo.) I believe students could, however, create a desktop recording (e.g., with Audacity) describing the photos as they flash by, and use that file instead of the "music" accompaniment. For an additional $5 per video, you can make a higher resolution or MPG4 version that can be downloaded and/or burned to a DVD.

Thanks to Ronaldo Lima of the Webheads for mentioning this app.

VUE - Visual Understanding Environment

I have explored VUE, a project of Tufts University, while looking at a variety of mind-mapping or concept-mapping sites and software. VUE is free and has an excellent, visually attractive video explaining its features. It seems to combine the best of mind maps, presentation software, and the flexibility to link across several different concept tracks. It is well worth exploring for advanced student projects, for example, involving research and media, and is a free download and cross-platform (but not for Mac X.3). It looks to be an excellent presentation platform because, unlike PowerPoint, it can combine linear and non-linear approaches to presenting.

AuthorStream

Authorstream is an interesting way to quickly get your PowerPoint presentation online--without going through the fuss of saving it as html, and then mounting all the pages and files to a Web page.

I created a wiki for my presentation at TESOL on CALL and SLA research, copied it to PowerPoint slides, and then uploaded the resulting ppt to my Authorstream page. If there were video or audio attached, AuthorStream would convert the file to a YouTube format. Mine is just a slideshow.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who visited the slideshow. I now have the audio uploaded to both AuthorStream and Ourmedia.org.

50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story

50 Ways is a treat--lots of examples to give students ideas on storytelling through all the new Internet interactive tools.

Thanks to Bee Dieu of the Webheads for this tip.

Review of SlideShows

This blog entry by Webhead Ronaldo Lima, Jr., has a nice comparative review of three slideshow tools--Voicethread, Splashcast and Qlipboard--with short examples of each. Comments by fellow Webheads are also very useful.

Using the Internet with Young Learners

Nicky Hockley has a fine presentation, Web 2.0: ICT & Young Learner Teachers, with links to resources, handouts, and video tutorials at the Consultants-E site.

QlipBoard

QlipBoard is a nifty little application that allows you to make screencasts with the addition of your own photos and Webshots and decorate/enhance them with whiteboard-like tools. It's a free download. The downside: It's not Mac-enabled.

A couple of video presentations and how-tos are found at YouTube.

(Thanks to Carla Arena, Webhead, for this find!)