One of the things I noticed a lot when we first started distance learning in March, was that right away publishers and educators started coming out with helps for online learning. They often were created with “eye-catching” graphics, logos, icons, etc. Some of these were distributed to teachers on slides and were used in Google Classroom and Seesaw for distance learning in the spring. I heard complaints from a number of parents who were trying to decipher what their kids were supposed to do. They were under a lot of stress and the technology tools were new to them and many of the students. I remember one classroom in particular where the teacher was sending out slides as is with few instructions that were made by a committee. The teacher asked if I could help and after looking over what she was sending home, I asked if I could edit a bit. I learned for myself what Jennifer Gonzalez describes in her article 9 Ways Online Teaching Should be Different from Face-to-Face, that content needs to be simplified and slowed down. It is really important to keep things simple with a few visual cues and instructions that are easy to find. In my example, all I did was remove all the extra “noise” from the slides by taking all the unnecessary graphics and images away and then simplified the tasks and instructions. I didn’t change the content at all. I sent the revised slides back to the teacher to send home for the next week. We both got immediate positive feedback from students and families that they found the new slides so much easier and that students were able to complete the work more independently.
So with this experience in mind and the work we’re doing in our 791 class about the impact of visuals on learning, I tried to find tools that would help me be more impactful with presentations or collaborative work that I do with teachers or with students. The tools I chose are Snagit and Kaizena. I chose Snagit because I often need to share directions or steps with staff about a new tool or program so I thought this would be a great way for me to create mini tutorials. Rather than sending out long emails with a lot of text, I can “snag” shots of each step and add simple annotations to help give visual cues. I also have seen Jamie demonstrate this type of app for creating content and she described it as super useful.
Another tool that I chose was Kaizena. This is a Google Add-on that allows me to add voice comments to google docs or slides. I love this app! I’m sure for all of us it seems like our whole work lives are housed in our Google drive. Much of my work is collaborative with my leadership team as we make plans for professional learning, or with a grade level PLC as we plan curricular units, etc. Much of the time, my role is to try to probe people’s thinking and to ask why? I am often the facilitator while the teams are where I want the thinking to come from. Using voice comments, will be a huge help in giving feedback and suggestions without having to clutter up their work. I do this all the time in Seesaw with students, so now I have a tool to share a quick thought or response with our adult learning.
As I shared in a previous blog, I do use a lot of video in my presentations for professional learning so I’m anxious to explore how Edpuzzle can be used as a tool for adult learning as well as in the classroom.
So with this experience in mind and the work we’re doing in our 791 class about the impact of visuals on learning, I tried to find tools that would help me be more impactful with presentations or collaborative work that I do with teachers or with students. The tools I chose are Snagit and Kaizena. I chose Snagit because I often need to share directions or steps with staff about a new tool or program so I thought this would be a great way for me to create mini tutorials. Rather than sending out long emails with a lot of text, I can “snag” shots of each step and add simple annotations to help give visual cues. I also have seen Jamie demonstrate this type of app for creating content and she described it as super useful.
Another tool that I chose was Kaizena. This is a Google Add-on that allows me to add voice comments to google docs or slides. I love this app! I’m sure for all of us it seems like our whole work lives are housed in our Google drive. Much of my work is collaborative with my leadership team as we make plans for professional learning, or with a grade level PLC as we plan curricular units, etc. Much of the time, my role is to try to probe people’s thinking and to ask why? I am often the facilitator while the teams are where I want the thinking to come from. Using voice comments, will be a huge help in giving feedback and suggestions without having to clutter up their work. I do this all the time in Seesaw with students, so now I have a tool to share a quick thought or response with our adult learning.
As I shared in a previous blog, I do use a lot of video in my presentations for professional learning so I’m anxious to explore how Edpuzzle can be used as a tool for adult learning as well as in the classroom.