Using Google Voice in the Classroom, Part II

Back in January (seems so long ago) I wrote about finding this post from the Innovative Educator on using Google Voice in the classroom. Lisa describes an excellent lesson for English Language Learners using Voice. I really wanted to use Voice in the classroom, but was not sure how to integrate it.

Last week, as students were finishing their projects in geography (small groups were jigsawing the region we were studying), they started adding audio to their presentations. Some were more successful than others, but all of the students who used Google Voice seemed very comfortable with the idea that they could call and leave a message rather than having to record on the computer or use a video camera.

One group created an audio tour of the Wix site they created. Basically, the audio contains narration of the content as well as instructions on where to go next.

I hope to use Google Voice more in the classroom. I could see using it as a check for learning each day. Students could record brief messages at the end of class or afters school to show what they have learned. One thing that I DO need to do is make sure that the Google Voice assignments are more closely related to our state standards for Speaking. This brief use was more of an experiment, than a focused lesson, but with the success we had this time I would use it again.

Top 10 List via Teach42

Last Saturday, Steve Dembo shared this Prezi at the NICE Miniconference and was kind enough to also share with his Twitter followers. It's his list of the Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Educators.


Many of these are fantastic tools for the classroom, some I have never tried. I love Glogster, but still have to deal with blocks in my district. Teachers at my site got some great work out of students using Glogster before it got blocked last winter. Why was it blocked? It was flagged as a social networking site. This year, I've discovered Wix and my students really like it. Many of them now have their own accounts and regularly create Wix projects for class assignments.

I've also had pretty good luck with Edmodo and Wallwisher as I've described here and here, respectively. Prezi is a fun way to do presentations and is much more interesting than more traditional presentation tools. I've also used Wordle with good success. I've even used Poll Everywhere and really need to do so more often. It's really kind of funny that I was thinking of Poll Everywhere last week while at our district budget community meeting. When community members arrived, they were asked to check out an Activote clicker to participate in the session. I wonder how, if we're so deeply in debt, the district can afford the price tag of an Activote system with nearly 100 clickers. They could have done the same thing for less than $100 with Poll Everywhere. Go figure.

I haven't used Delicious, but instead use Diigo, a similar social bookmarking tool. Unfortunately, both services are blocked in my district. Why? They are flagged a social networking. I recently signed up for Kidblog, but haven't started using it with my students quite yet.

Next on my list to try is Voicethread. We're currently working on a project in class that will fit nicely with Voicethread so those students who are up to the challenge of trying a new tool, will be able to check it out. I hadn't heard about iPadio, but I'm very intrigued by it. What can beat a podcasting solution from a phone?

This is a great list of tools to try in the classroom. If you haven't used any of them try one (Wallwisher is probably the easiest). If you don't like it, go to another. That's how this stuff works. There's something out there for everyone.

Wix for Everyone!

After losing Glogster last year, my students and I were devastated. They enjoyed creating multimedia projects to show what they had learned. My AP World students created BioGlogs (see Prince Henry the Navigator and the two-page Enlightenment Thinkers) to have an easy way to learn about important figures in history. All of that ended when the district's filter found Glogster. It was a sad day at school.

Over the summer, I heard about Wix. I didn't get around to trying it at the time, by started working on it a couple of months ago when trying to figure out how to get my students to show what they were learning about World Heritage Sites. I played around with Wix and found that it's just as easy to use as Glogster, so I jumped in. The project page with instructions went on to our class wiki. For many of my students this was the first time they had to add or move text boxes, hyperlink text, add photos, rotate photos or other elements and the like. I also required them to embed their presentation into our wiki for everyone to see. As you can imagine, the learning curve was very steep for some students.

Many of the projects turned out great. Salamanca seemed to be the one recognized by my geography classes as the best of the lot, but Westminster Abbey and Alhambra were pretty good too. A few weeks later, when working on a group project, nearly all of the students decided to use Wix for their final product.

What are the challenges to using Wix? First, since Wix is a website builder they have layouts specifically for MySpace which will NOT allow you to get and embed code for anything other than MySpace. Also, the hyperlinking ability isn't as smooth as I'd like (it appears that you can't use more than one link per text box). Wix does not have an education version, so students have to create their own accounts which could be an issue in some schools and districts. Overall, though, my students and I liked Wix so we will continue to use it. Stay tuned for more.