Old Guy Moments…Argh!

So, AI is all the RAGE or FEAR depending on your view of the future…of education…of the world…of humanity. I believe it is here to stay, at least in some form, just like the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, and other forms of technology. I have been playing/experimenting with it for a while now, I want to learn more so I can address it APPROPRIATELY with my students. There will be other posts on that later, or you can listen to our discussions on the PAECT Pod. I am off-topic from the start of this post…let’s redirect…

For my classes Civil Rights/Black History Month Projects we once again were creating video projects, this time using Canva.  I have some students who are a bit shy and do not like recording their voices for projects.  The idea was to find a TEXT TO SPEECH TOOL my students could use for their projects, like VOKI. I went through my lists of resources from my PLN and Google and played with other free AI tools.  Some worked, but some were not really free if you wanted to download and use the text-to-voice file elsewhere.  Students used several of the free tools, one that worked well, we broke when it read every student using it in our building as the same user.  It found us “SUS” and shut down our attempts.  I have to reach out to them and see if I can correct that issue.

Anyways, yesterday I had a student who had been absent finishing up their project, but could not record audio due to losing their voice from illness,  Instead of going to Wakelet to look over my curated resources, I had the student open up the apps tab in Canva…THERE IT WAS THE ENTIRE TIME!!!! A TEXT-TO-VOICE app right within the tool we were using!!!!  ARGH!!!!  In the immortal words of Mr. Dierks Bentley, “What was I thinking!” Murf.AI was right there.  We connected through Google, and the student copied and pasted their script from Google Docs into the Canva-connected app which automatically pushed the audio into their project.  No downloading MP3s uploading MP3s then dropping them in to the projects, which is easy enough, but this is integrated right in the same program.

Why I did not check on this first, I have not a clue, but alas and alack, I now know better. I learned from my error, which I attribute to my age…yes, it is a low-hanging fruit of an excuse, but it works today.

Below are screen shots of Canva and Murf.AI along with an embedded video made with that app.

Search for Murf.AI in apps.


Create or log into your account, we used our school Googler Signins.

You can choose which voice to use, some are PRO Account only.

Choose tone of voice and type in or copy and paste what you want the app to say.

You can test the voice and adjust as you feel is necessary. When you are satisfied, click “Add to design.” Once you add the audio, you may need to adjust the length of your clip to get the audio and image to match up.

Granted, there are limitations to what AI can accomplish at this time.

 

Our Second StickTogether

My classes participated and completed our second StickTogether as an OPTIONAL ENRICHMENT ASSIGNMENT, It went well and more students worked on completing this activity than the first StickTogether.  Once they work on the activity they are to take a screenshot of their work and submit it to me via email or messages in Schoology so they can be given the points they earned.  At times I put the activity on the big board, the interactive TV, in the front of my room.  Students could come up and click squares to complete the puzzle.

You can read more about StickTogether here.

A screenshot of the completed  activity is below:

Storify from TRETC November 4 2015

TRETC, the Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference was held at Bethel Park Senior High School this year.  TRETC is an excellent educational conference held in Western Pennsylvania every year, it has been growing regularly since I began attending them back in the early 2000’s.

Below is a Storify of the event, I collected Tweets and here they are:

 

Orientation 2012/2013

Once again, school has started at NBHS and we are getting into the groove of the year.  This year I have 3 senior Econ/POD/Psych/Soc classes, 1 World Cultures Class, and 2 Honors Civics Classes.  The grades in order listed are 12th, 10th, and 9th.  I run a basic orientation every year to introduce the students to the tools we use in class, such as Edmodo, Edublogs, and the iPods and iPads.  Over the years I have scaled back what I introduce to the students, some of the items introduced were rarely used, or used so much later in the year students had to relearn how to use them, no need to mention them here.

This year is nice, orientation is moving much more quickly, almost all of my seniors already use the tools that were introduced, a few need to learn Edublogs, but have used Edmodo, my are similar.  All of them used Edmodo last year, but need to learn Edublogs.  A few of my freshmen have used Edmodo in the past, but none have seen Edublogs yet.  Almost all of my students, if not all, have read or written blog posts, so they understand the basic concepts, they just need to see the specifics of Edublogs.  Every one of my students has had experience with some sort of mobile device, specifically iPods or iPads, possibly just not in a learning situation.  The students familiarity with these tools makes my job so much easier. No longer do we need to start at square one and move forward, most students have some experience and they willingly mentor those students who may need assistance.  This frees me up to troubleshoot issues like resetting passwords, reconnecting devices to the Internet, or working with students who need a lot of assistance.

Three days into class and all but one of my classes have logged in to Edmodo and field tested the iPods with Edmodo, along with the new Edmodo interface that will soon be released to the public.  The only class that did not log in will do so on Tuesday, we hd abbreviated periods due to a pep rally schedule.  We had a few hiccups and bumps in the road, which is par for the course when using technology.  Fortunately we turned all of them into learning situations, with students helping each other out, mentoring others, and even helping me troubleshoot and test different workarounds to the issues.  The most important lesson students learned was patience and not to stress if things go awry, I emphasize the fact that if things don’t work as planned, we adjust and move on without penalty.

At the end of the day, only about 4 students had to use one of the laptop computers to access Edmodo and complete the assigned tasks.  if we would have had more time, or preferably block scheduling, I could have kept those students on the iPods and worked out a solution to the log in issues. If time was not short, I also could have had the students start on their blogs.  The biggest consumer of time today was the handing out and collecting the iPods from the students.  Most of my classes are 20+ in student numbers, it takes time to hand out the devices and collect them with the system in place, manually handing out the devices and students initially a sheet of paper.  The good news is that it took under 10 minutes to hand out and collect devices in each class, and history has proven that the time improves as the year goes on and we all become more familiar with the process.

Next week we jump into Edublogs and students start writing posts about course expectations, then we move into the course curriculum.  The students’ familiarity with 21st Century tools and skills as enabled us to move forward at a faster pace into the purpose of the courses, the actual curriculum.

 

 

 

 

Class Orientation Day Five: Getting caught up

Today, the last day of week one, we headed back to the computer lab.  The plan was to have the students go into Edmodo and check their grades, then work on any assignments from this week that they had not yet completed.  I had graded everything that they had turned in so far and placed grades in the Edmodo gradebook.

We discussed why some of them had submitted assignments but not received grades.  This meant something was not right, they may have submitted the wrong assignment, a name was missing, or I may have missed the assignment.  This process of submitting work through Edmodo will keep all of us informed as to the status of work and what we need to to do keep EVERYONE successful.

The students worked well, many went back and “officially” turned in assignments through Edmodo that they had completed but not submitted through the online classroom.  I was able to work more one on one and with small groups on technical details for Edmodo and Edublogs.

We did encounter an issue with Edublogs where some students could not log in and their password resets to Gaggle were not working.  I submitted the issues through the Pro Support tab in my dashboard and before the period was out I had the issues resolved.  Sue W. and Ronnie B. were the specific helpers in Edublogs support.  They did inform me that Gaggle disables the password resets from their site, but they were working to resolve the issue.

I had one or two students who were new additions to my classes and they were once again added into everything.  I was able to sit down with a couple of students who were behind and assist them with tasks.  As more students asked for help we went to the mentor approach.  Some students who were asked to mentor others were a bit surprised; they did not think they knew enough to help.  They were wrong, they did an excellent job helping others which made the day a success.

There were a few parent concerns sent in on the signed information sheets.  I was able to zip off email replies to answer their questions.  The main concern was about a lack of home Internet access and if it would affect student grades.  I assured the parents that time is given in class to complete assignments, and my room is open during the day for students to come in and work.  A lack of home access should not be a problem unless students are wasting time in class and not utilizing time during the school day.

Overall, the day was very productive and the students cleared out most of their due assignments, which left me with a ton of work to grade.  The pace was much more relaxed, which I greatly appreciated.  It has been a bit tiring this week, but the groundwork is in place for the rest of the year.  There are a few more tools that need to be rolled out, but they can wait until they are needed for specific assignments.

Class Orientation: Day Four Computer Lab

Today, my students went to the computer lab around the corner from my room…they experienced working on the iPods, now they needed back in their comfort zone.  The assignments that needed to be completed could be done more efficiently on a larger interface than what the iPods could provide.

We met in my room to review the lesson for the day.  We ran a quick overview of what needs done by looking at the assignments in Edmodo.  They saw haw to use the “Grades” tab to see what they have turned in, received grades for, or owed.  The Blog Expectation Parent Sign-off sheets were handed out, and I showed them the Dashboard of their blogs on the Polyvision Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). The last lesson for Orientation was also rolled out.  After the students post to their blog, they are to personalize their blog to their liking.  It is their blog, hopefully they will use it beyond mandatory class assignments.  They should be allowed to place their stamp on it.  There is a rubric for basic minimums required, it is their blog to personalize, but there still needs to be some requirements in place.  I shared a folder with links to a few widgets for them to use in Edmodo.

Once in the computer lab the students jumped into the assignments.  Some caught on rather quickly and became student mentors to others.  This helped me out tremendously; since there were still a few new students in some classes that needed put into the class system, Edmodo, Edublogs, and all of the previous assignments.  Once again I could handle the administrative tasks and have my students mentor the new students and get them up to speed. Once those were completed, I floated about and worked one on one or with small groups answering technical questions.

Overall the day was rather fast paced and a bit hectic, but very productive.  Two more days in the computer room and we are jumping into the curriculum.