If you haven't seen this commercial from Kaplan University, please take 60 seconds and watch it. 

 
(Video link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_5SjeUKQ-g)

Despite being a couple years old, I think this ad does a great job of illustrating where education is headed. Actually, I believe it’s already there. One line from the commercial states, “It’s time to use technology to rewrite the rules of education.” As we see in the commercial, learning should no longer be confined to the four walls of a classroom, between the hours of 8:30 am and 3:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The reality is that learning can (and should) take place at 6:30 pm at the kitchen table, in bed on a Saturday morning, or in a subway station on a Sunday afternoon. Let’s face it, students don’t always “get it” the first time a concept is taught. Students benefit from reteaching and/or review sessions. But what happens when the bell rings and a student needs to see or hear it again? Should he/she be told, “Sorry, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to learn.” What about those students who don’t want to wait until tomorrow but are excited to learn now? What’s the solution? If only students could take the teaching, not just the textbook, home with them. Oh, wait. They can!

Mobile technology continues to find its way into the hands of students. I’m an administrator at the middle school level, and it seems like every student has a cell phone, most capable of playing audio and video files. What if teachers leveraged that technology instead of fighting it? Now, I’m not saying students should have free reign of their cell phones during the school day – that’s a discussion for another day. But what if teachers delivered content to their students that could be accessed on their cell phones, iPods, and iPads after hours? What if the reteaching and review sessions previously mentioned could be put in a format kids embrace, namely audio or video on their mobile devices? Fortunately, the technology tools available to teachers make this not only possible, but actually pretty easy.

While in the classroom, I provided my 5^th grade students with audio review sessions called StudyCasts (you can listen to them here). I got the idea from former Missouri Teacher of the Year Eric Langhorst who graciously shares his ideas with other educators. Before each Social Studies and Science test, I recorded myself going over the material that would be covered on the test. What I love so much about StudyCasts is that in addition to going over the notes students took in class, I was also able to review examples I gave or stories I told during class that weren’t necessarily in the notes. I didn’t do any editing of these recordings. If I coughed during a recording, I said, “Excuse me” and kept going. They weren’t meant to be polished works of art, they were meant to help my students study. StudyCasts weren’t intended to replace traditional studying, but rather to provide an additional study aid.  I posted the broadcasts on my classroom website and in iTunes, making them easily to download to iPods or iPads. For students without Internet access, I would burn the broadcasts onto CDs for them. I would also burn a few extra CDs and raffle them off to all students. Their reaction? You would have thought I was giving away gold. Seriously, I worked my students into a frenzy by doing what? Giving away my teaching. I just packaged it in a way my kids thought was cool.

There are several applications out there you can use to easily create audio broadcasts like StudyCasts. Here are a few free resources I have used:

• Audacity – Free download for PC and Mac (here is a series of tutorial videos I created for Audacity)
• GarageBand – Comes preinstalled on all Macs and available as an iPad/iPhone app for $4.99 (here is a series of tutorial videos I created for GarageBand)
• Cinch – Cinch is a free online service that allows you to create audio recordings using your computer’s microphone. Broadcasts are posted online on your personal Cinch webpage. In addition to listening on the Cinch website, recordings can be downloaded as MP3 files or embedded on your website or blog. There’s even an app for iPhone and Android phones that allows you to make a recording from your phone. If you’re looking for a really simple way to make an audio recording to post online, especially if you’re looking to do so while on the go, I’d definitely recommend Cinch.

While audio review broadcasts are great, what about students who are visual learners? Or what about math teachers? Standalone audio is not exactly the perfect medium to teach math concepts that are best explained visually. This is where video comes in, and fortunately for teachers, there are many ways to easily create videos for students. When I was teaching, I used a mobile interactive whiteboard to create math review videos for my students (you can view these on my classroom website or on my YouTube channel). Since complex math concepts often require reteaching for students to achieve mastery, many of my students needed extra instruction, often requiring more time than I had in class. I offered tutoring before and after school and during breaks, but not all students could attend. I needed to make my teaching available to students on their time. By creating videos my students could watch at home (over and over and over if necessary), I essentially gave my students the opportunity to take me home with them, showing them how to do a problem as many times as it took for them to learn the concept. Really, I created my own mini-version of Kahn Academy, only it was my familiar voice teaching them.

Here are some video-creation resources I’ve used:

• Interactive Whiteboards – many of the software applications used with interactive whiteboards or tablets have recording capabilities. If you’re already doing the math problems in class, record what you’re doing and post the video online for your students to view.
• Jing – Free screencasting software available for PC and Mac. Easily create up to 5-minute videos of your computer screen while recording voice-over audio. Great for showing students how do something online.
• SonicPics – If you have an iPhone, this is a great app that can create a video from a series of images. The app is currently priced at only $0.99. I paid $2.99, and it is well worth the higher price. This is a great way to create a video StudyCast based on PowerPoint or Keynote slides. Start by saving each slide of your presentation as a JPG image and transfer the images to your phone. Then import the images into SonicPics and discuss each slide, swiping to the next slide whenever you’re ready. You control the timing. The result is a video of you narrating your presentation. Very easy to use. I highly recommend this app.
• ShowMe – If you have an iPad, this is a free app that allows you to create videos with voice-over audio. When you’re done recording, you upload your video to showme.com. Post the link on your website or blog and your students are ready to go.
• Explain Everything – This is another fantastic app for creating videos on the iPad. The app retails for $2.99 and is definitely worth the price. It allows you to draw/write on the screen, and even import and annotate pictures. The app records your voice and everything happening on the screen. It’s a great way to illustrate math concepts, or this is another way make a video StudyCast by importing PowerPoint or Keynote slides and discussing each slide. A big perk of this app is that videos can be saved in the Photos app on your iPad, enabling you to export the video and embed it on your website or blog.
• Flip Video or Cell Phone Cameras – Don’t have an iPad or interactive whiteboard? No problem. You can use a Flip Cam or the camera on your cell phone to record yourself making a tutorial video. I have friends who have set up a video camera or had a colleague hold the camera while they do math problems on the whiteboard or even a piece of paper. These videos can then be uploaded to your website, YouTube, or TeacherTube. Remember, the goal is not to produce an award-winning video, but rather to provide students with opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.

Don’t think providing these types of learning opportunities is necessary? I’ll close with this. When I asked my students to let me know what they thought of StudyCasts, here’s how one student responded:

“I like the StudyCasts because I can listen to them on my computer while I’m doing my homework.  I listened to the Puritan StudyCast five times and I got a good grade.”

If we build it, they will come.

It’s easy to get frustrated as a teacher. We’ve all been there. The students aren’t behaving well. A lesson bombed. Students didn’t do well on an exam. All can lead to frustration on the job. Recently, I’ve been battling frustration at work, but not for one of the reasons mentioned above. First, let me say that I have an absolutely wonderful class of 5^th graders this year. The students are sweet, have a great attitude toward learning, and I have no major behavior problems. Now some of you may be thinking, “Gosh, Brent! You’ve got it good.” Nope. I have it great. I am incredibly blessed to be able to teach the kids in my class and work with not simply colleagues, but friends. So what’s the problem, Brent?

Ironically, it has to do with technology, and the fact that my students have access to it. With the exception of one, every student in my classroom has a computer at home with Internet access, and more than half of them have an iPod (please don’t be a hater – I know I am fortunate). Yet despite these facts, most of my students this year are demonstrating apathy toward the resources I’m providing for them on my website (e.g. iPod flash cards, StudyCasts). For example, despite year-long offers of extra credit for downloading sets of iPod flash cards or the corresponding PowerPoints, only three students have taken advantage of this opportunity. Last week, I embedded a secret, “extra credit” password in a StudyCast. Twelve students said they listened to the broadcast, yet no one came to me with the password (a subsequent classroom discussion revealed they had not listened to the StudyCast, but were simply telling me what they thought I wanted to hear).

Again, I know I am fortunate. There are countless teachers who have students with limited or no access to technology. But my students DO have access to it, and they aren’t using it. Therein lies my frustration. I’ve asked myself, “Should I continue to spend my time and energy creating these technology resources if most of my students aren’t going to use them?” The answer is…absolutely.

In my frustration, I was reminded of the timeless story of the boy and hundreds of starfish that had washed up on a beach (if you’re not familiar with the story, watch this short video). It would be very easy to give up, saying, “What’s the use? These technology tools aren’t making a difference for all my students.” But the reality is, if even ONE student is able to use these resources to be more successful in the classroom, the time and effort spent creating them has been well worth it. While I’d love for all of my students to use these tools, one is enough, because after all, what if that one student was my son or daughter? Would I be grateful to the teacher for providing learning resources for my child, even though others in the class weren’t using them? You bet.

It’s my sincere hope that readers won’t view this post as an attempt on my part to say, “Look what I’m doing with technology!” Rather, my goal is to encourage teachers who, like me, have been frustrated because we feel like we’re not making a difference. If you’re providing your students with “extras,” let us remember not to get caught up in how many are using them, but rather to celebrate those that are. Because like the boy in the story, we can then say, “I made a difference for that one.”