I’m looking for a little tech support from my PLN (personal/professional learning network) today. I just found out our school will be getting wifi at some point in the near future (yay!). I’ve already been encouraging a “BYOD” (bring your own device) atmosphere in my own classroom, namely cell phones and ipods so far. I am envisioning what wifi could do in terms of our ability to be productive with a multitude of devices, especially considering the large numbers of kids with ipod touches.
My question is, what would be the best and most efficient way for me to be able to have students making video recordings of themselves engaging in interpersonal speaking tasks with others and sharing those clips with me?
Considerations:
- Limits on data storage
- Access outside of school and inside school (need cloud)
- I don’t want to have to visit many locations to find clips
- Must be easy to use and readily available
- Multi-platform is a must
- I need access but I don’t want other kids to be able to take vids of classmates and upload to youtube, etc.
- App or utility needs to stick around for a while, not disappear on me
- Should be free or very cheap
Possibilities:
- Dropbox
- Skype
- MMS
So, my friends, how can you help me with this? Thank you!
Kristy Placido 
Hi all,
I’ve been using a Wiggio site much like Scott uses Edmodo (actually glad to learn that Edmodo works well, too). Students are finding success and reliably easy operation using Vocaroo to record speaking tasks. Sharing (“turning it in”) is easy by emailing me the link or by uploading it to my Wiggio site.
I offered my students a menu of online recording options and gave a brief overview of each by projecting their homepages and talking a bit about their capabilities, strengths, drawbacks. I showed them: Voicethread, Evernote, Voki, Vocaroo, Blabberize, and others. Although Blabberize is hilarious, it is quirky and kids became frustrated with it and turned to Vocaroo. It’s strictly audio and uploads easily.
Hi Kristy,
I would check out Voicethread.com. It is: web based, not blocked by school networks, there is an app for it. You can share easily and set privacy. I think it might be a good solution for you. Let me know if you think it would work for you.
We like Edmodo.com. It’s free to use, is restricted to only those with the group code, and it’s like facebook for schools. Kids can upload links, files, videos, etc and make comments a la facebook. My kids really like it. It’s also great to dissiminate info to students and parents (parents get a separate code to access all of the groups their child has joined to monitor activity if they wish.
Our district has adopted it and so far, I like what I see.
Thanks Scott! I’ve not tried edmodo but have heard a lot of good things about it!
Playing around with edmodo now and it looks very promising! I already had an account, didn’t even remember making it! Thanks again!
As I said, we really like it. The kids already know how to use it because it’s just like facebook. You can get notifications via sms or email, give kids assignments on it, have them turn them in on it, add video, sound, and other files. It’s very versatile. And best of all, it has great privacy settings to keep the rif-raf out and keep our kids private.
I recently started using Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/), and I like it. My students and I can access Vimeo from school. It hasn’t been blocked “yet”. And, while I haven’t tried this, it appears that you can create your own private group on Vimeo.
Do you know if I can control students’ ability to take video made my others and re-distribute? I don’t want it “out there.”
And can they upload from ipod touch?
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Kristy
I think that this video about Vimeo’s privacy settings will answer your question: http://vimeo.com/232857
However, this would not preclude someone from recording their computer screen while the video played and posting the result, but this is a problem for any site. I admit that I haven’t actually tried this, but I assume it’s possible.