PBS Teachers is delighted to welcome Janet English to the new Media Infusion. Each month, Janet will share her award-winning teaching experiences and challenge readers to try new instructional approaches. This month, Janet suggests using VoiceThread and clips from Ken Burns’s The National Parks: America’s Best Idea to practice cross-disciplinary narratives. Take the challenge and let us know how it goes!

I can’t wait to get back into the classroom!  I’ve been working at KOCE, a PBS affiliate, for the past four years and I’m excited to get back to teaching students again. The excitement to do well pushes me – and it pushes me hard.  I’ve learned so much about the vast amount of media that is available for the classroom that when I think about using the textbook to teach, it makes me cringe – not because it’s not a worthy resource but because there are so many resources I can use to bring learning ALIVE.

PBS, National Geographic , and the Library of Congress provide GREAT content – and when I use this content along with current events, state of the art research, interviews and explorations, I can create a “humming” classroom. The WORLD is so much bigger than the four walls of my classroom and a five-year-old textbook. The kids love media and they love technology. I need to rise to the challenge to meet them where THEY are – not in the educational institution of my youth, which was, definitively, less exciting.

The purpose of Media Infusion is to help bridge the gap between the theoretical use of media and educational technology and the realities and practicalities of the classroom.  Let’s face it; teaching is hard work, but a classroom that has students who are learning and enjoying themselves can be a real joy.

Many people think it’s easy to use media and technology in the classroom but in reality even the best technology tools can be a challenge to use effectively.  That’s why teachers get discouraged! Technology has to be effective and fit well into the curriculum, and it can’t waste time and energy. When students are excited and working on technology-based projects, I have to harness the joy of their creative process and keep them focused on their educational goals. In order to do that, I have to practice the project beforehand and try it out on a small group of students to see if it works. By doing so, I’m building my own technology skills so I that can be adaptable across the curriculum.

Media and Technology in the Classroom

Here’s how I approach the use of media in my classroom:

STEP ONE: I try to find the most powerful (and appropriate) media resources for use in my classroom.  I organize them by subject area and content standard.

STEP TWO:  I determine the best use for this media and then I identify the technology tool that fits best into my instructional plan.  (I can use the technology tool either for a teacher/student presentation or for a student-created project.)

STEP THREE:  After I use this “project” in my classroom, I evaluate how it helped my students reach their educational goals (or not). I adjust the project, as necessary, for the next time around.

OUR NEW STEP:  To share our successes here on Media Infusion.

The National Parks Project

This month, PBS is releasing the greatly anticipated Ken Burns series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.  With breathtaking cinematography, Ken Burns’s production highlights our national treasures and uses personal narratives to illustrate our human connection to the natural world.   The question is, “How can we use this great content and adapt it to our classroom?”

Here are some ideas:

• When you watch the series, listen to the people tell their stories (personal narratives).
• Look for video segments that highlight geologic features (earth science).
• See how democracy is used to help settle disagreements between people when land use is in dispute (civics).

This series was created to tell a story and there are many visual and narrative “nuggets” that can be used to inspire and engage our students.

Monthly Challenge

I’d like to challenge all PBS Teachers (and all you newbies out there) to embark on a monthly challenge to use great media and enhance our technology skills.  This monthly challenge is a great way for us to improve our teaching craft and share our successes – and learning challenges – with each other.

For the September 2009 challenge, let’s use the National Park series to work on students’ personal narratives. I’m going to start with a test run of VoiceThread with a small group of students.   VoiceThread allows us to create a multimedia slide show with video and/or stills, and then students add their own voice, text, and video.  For an introduction to Voice Thread, see: http://voicethread.com/#q.b409.i848804.

My hope is that this tool can help my students learn to write and present a personal narrative and share it in a collaborative environment.  The inclusion of students’ voices is often what gives VoiceThread projects their charm.

Here’s a Flat Stanley project about the national parks using Voice Thread: http://voicethread.com/#q+national+park.b276593.i1455121

Here’s an example of a teacher who is using media and technology to help her students raise their social consciousness by creating a project to help save a national park from becoming a shopping mall: http://voicethread.com/#q+national+park.b13298.i84004

Here’s a simple Voice Thread created by a couple who visited the Rocky Mountain National Park: http://voicethread.com/#q+national+park.b151359.i804758

To use VoiceThread, you’ll have to open a free account, upload a video or an image or series of images and then ask students to add their own narrative. With the free version of VoiceThread, students can create the narrative with a microphone, audio file, text, or video.

Images for you and your students to use are available at The National Parks website.  There are also video collections here and on YouTube that you and your students can use to get inspired about The National Parks series.

Once you’ve created your VoiceThread, please leave a comment here to let me and other readers know how to find it!  I’ll post my students’ VoiceThread later in the month.

Additional Resources

Copyright-friendly pictures are available for classroom use (please see rights and availability for each image) through www.creativecommons.com.  Images of a local national park or geologic landform may be used for classroom projects in VoiceThread or merely for discussion within the classroom environment.

If you’d like your students to make a phone interview and use the voice recording for your project visit www.gabcast.com.  (The cost is $.10/minute.)

If you’d like your students to create audio blogs, they can use AudioBoo, an iPhone audio blog app.  Here’s an example of an audio blog that a student created after visiting Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC: http://learningsigns.speedofcreativity.org/2009/07/03/learning-about-lincoln-at-fords-theater/.

For a collection on how educators are using Voice Thread in the classroom, visit http://voicethread.com/#q+classroom.b128285.i668501 and http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/.

I hope you’ll take me up on this month’s challenge and that you’ll comment on the ideas and resources presented above.

Janet