Tech Playtesting 3: Creativity Tools
This week I enjoyed searching new creativity tools that can be used in the classroom to help students operate at the Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy highest level of “Creation”. As I have been out of the classroom for 3 years, I found there to be many tools I wasn’t aware of that I’m excited to potentially bring to new teachers or my school if I am given the opportunity to be a librarian. My choices for searching for creation tools this week were colored by my experiences as a 4th grade teacher; I searched for those tools and apps I could see using in a 4th grade ELAR classroom easily.
Animoto - I wanted to find an easy-to-use video tool for the classroom that could be used on an app and modified easily by students with voiceover features. I had heard much about Flipgrid but found that you needed a paid plan to get started with this tool so turned to Animoto instead. Animoto is a video creator where you can use text, photos and video clips to stitch together to a final creation. What I didn’t like about this tool is that there weren’t very many templates for students to choose from at the beginning or intro of the tool. This tool doesn't appear to be built with education in mind but instead a broad view of videos, and seems likely with a main goal or purpose closer to helping businesses or marketers easily create videos instead of being used solely in the classroom. This means that while the interface was fairly user-friendly there was not an abundance of instruction or templates that were geared towards classroom learning or student-created work. However, I did find through my search on the internet that a lot of different classrooms use this tool to have their students create work so I thought it was still worth digging into further.
I started with a template for a lesson that would be best used at the Pre-K or Kindergarten levels about fruits. I found that from the template it was easy to modify the pictures, text and add voice over content to the video. I think this would be easy for students to modify on their own for any lesson. Also, while I enjoy having a template to manipulate, I think students could also do well in creating their own videos from scratch using this tool and easily find ways to manipulate it for their own creation. I would say I didn’t love this tool for my own use but could see it really potentially being a good tool for students with their capabilities for video likely being higher than mine. Video is not my favorite medium to work with but I recognize it is for a lot of students so I definitely want to give those options to my students.
Toontastic - This turned out to be the most surprisingly delightful tool I found during my search. A caveat and potential downside to this tool is that it is an app so cannot be used with desktop computer or general laptops but can be used with phones, tablets and Chromebooks which I think most schools are generally geared towards. This app is a tool that allows students to create their own animated cartoons with an upside being it is completely free and doesn't require login emails or passwords (elementary teachers rejoice!). What I liked about this app is that there are templates for the students to use for storytelling cartoon that follow closely to Texas 4th grade TEKS for a plot mountain or diagram with an exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action and conclusion. Students can create a story by filling in each of these spots on the plot diagram by using pre-made backgrounds, characters and music or by drawing their own backgrounds and characters that the tool can then make 3D. Students can identify music to set the mood for each scene as well as record voiceovers for the scene. Students can also cause the different characters in the scene to move simply by using their touchscreen or mouse to move the character. I think this is a really simple, user-friendly way to have the students create complex plots and explain their thinking for a story, or create an extended and 3D version of stories they might have simply wrote on a piece of paper. As the actual interface is simple to use, the students are able to spend less time actually "figuring out" the tool and more time creating the final product. This tool also has an option to fill in aspects of a science project which I think could be a very useful and neat thing to use in a science classroom experiment. I liked this tool myself because I thought it was fun to use even though I am not very good at drawing! I see great potential for this tool for my students because it really felt like a cross between video game like Minecraft (which we know they love!) and a cartoon movie. I think with the right stipulations, rubrics and desired outcomes this could be a super fun and engaging tool for student involvement and creation.
Seesaw - Seesaw is an extremely useful tool I wish I would have had in my previous classroom, especially when considering the easy affordance of parent interaction that comes with this tool. This tool allows teachers to set assignments for students using the inherent tools in the system which include creating videos, annotating photos and videos and drawing on photos and videos to demonstrate thinking and learning. The tool allows you to provide step by step instructions so, again, the students can focus on demonstrating knowledge and creating a final product in order to show their thinking. What I think is neat about this tool is that all the different assignments come together to create a portfolio of sorts that can be shown easily to parents and teachers (great for distance learning!) and other students in the classroom can comment on each others’ work creating a more holistic dialogue and real time feedback for students. I like this tool, I believe, most for myself but I can definitely the way it could serve students and put learning and creation in their hands easily and on a consistent daily basis rather than just being for a one-time creation large project. While those large projects definitely have a place in the classroom and can be incredible learning opportunities, I feel the way Seesaw allows ease of micro-creations is an effective way to put creation in the student hands on a regular basis.
The affordances of this tool is that students can show their individual thinking and learning by easily creating videos or annotated photos of their thinking. Another key helpful affordance of the tool for teachers is that there is the ability to easily give instructions that have icons that correlate to the instructions that the student should follow.
The creation tool inherent in the app allows for uploading or taking photos or videos "live" as well as tools for drawing, adding text and adding voiceover content. This all allows the students to further explain their thinking and easily create posters, mini movies and audio content that demonstrates thinking and in turn is added to their portfolio. By combining a physical product or visual with the student's thinking through audio voiceover, the student is constructing their own understanding of their learning through several different learning styles. Through the way that the teacher can individually assign projects to students through the tool, a key affordance is the ability to scaffold the learning for students at different levels of learning within the classroom. Another affordance is that other students can comment on each others’ work once it is posted, allowing for feedback and students modifying their thinking in real time. When work is published in this way, the affordance is that students will create differently knowing their thinking will be up to scrutiny from not only their teacher but also their peers, and additionally, in the case of Seesaw, can be shown directly to their parents' devices. This creates a transformation in the way the student views their work and will hopefully boost the end result knowing they are creating a published work for their direct network.
Using Seesaw in the classroom: Substitution / Augmentation
In my fourth grade classroom, I had many students who struggled with fluency in their reading on grade level texts, a skill defined by the 4th grade TEKS 4.1b as: The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell. The student is expected to: (A) demonstrate and apply phonetic knowledge by: (i) decoding words with specific orthographic patterns and rules, including regular and irregular plurals
In this way, by having the student create the assignment for their peers, they are showing me that they understand the different elements of nonfiction text, and to take this one step further I could have them build out an "example" to showcase understanding what the elements are individually. I think this tool allows the learner to really create their own thinking for this content lesson, putting the power of creation in their hands (Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy) in order for them to show mastery of the subject and think about these informational texts in a new way. I also think because an affordance of the technology is that they can share with other students, I think it would allow them to truly feel like the teacher and get feedback from other students, other students can read and tell how they are confused by their instructions, and the students can therefore revise their lesson plans in order to fix holes or make it more clear for their fellow students.
I think it’s important to know about and use these tools in order to give students the capability to be in charge of their own learning and demonstrate the way they are thinking and using their knowledge. Many of these tools require the students to think about and plan what they are going to do before executing a final product; this helps teachers monitor student thinking and be able to have checkpoints to ensure learning and adjust or scaffold if a student might be struggling. Using technology to create final products allows the students to take ownership of their learning in a new way. Through tools such as the ones I explored today, students can have actual files of work that they can showcase such as in a portfolio, that they can demonstrate their thinking, there are opportunities to explain their work in a larger context and have a record of what they have done in order to create their own portfolios and see how their thinking and learning has evolved and changed. Whereas drill and practice game, tutorials and instructional games afford skilled practice, the only thing to show for the student at the end of it is a letter grade or perhaps advancing to a different level, they are simply filling out answers as they would on a paper and pencil test or assignment but instead are doing it on an online screen. This merely substitutes or augments the process of standardized testing or assignments given by teachers. With creativity tools, however, we are putting learning into the students’ hands; they are able to use their thinking to create something new that has never been made before and have a final product to show for it. In this way they demonstrate higher levels of thinking and are forced to give evidence for their thinking and learning, moving to a constructivist classroom where they are the ones creating rather than sitting them in front of a screen to answer questions just as you would during a paper and pencil test at a desk.
I definitely do see the value in using certain creation tools in the classroom for students, even if I am not the biggest fan of particular tools. In a discussion this week in one of my classes, a fellow classmate said that introducing new technology is a challenge because the teacher has to be an expert in every bit of technology that is introduced. I do not agree with this statement because I believe the point in introducing technology in a creationist or constructivist way is to put the power of learning in the students’ hands. In this way the student can become an expert of sorts in a way the teacher doesn’t need to be; students can help one another in finding solutions and the teacher can learn from the students about certain positives to the particular technology. This allows the teacher to focus on other areas of instruction, small groups, and one-on-one attention that is needed in the classroom that might be hard to find time for if the teacher is focused on only providing instruction and expertise and not allowing the students to create, explore, learn, and make mistakes on their own. I think as long as the technology is not providing barriers to learning (i.e. is too complicated, cumbersome, has too many hangups, glitches, etc) and the students are finding solutions on their own, it shouldn’t matter how the teacher views the tool or if they find it hard to use. This is potentially very freeing for teachers and should allow more technology to find place in the classroom as they don’t have to be the expert and can instead allow the students to take the lead in being the expert on the actual tech tools. As long as final product from the tool demonstrate learning, growth and ability to assess their thinking, I think any tool can be used whether or not the teacher is proficient or particularly enjoys using it.
Creativity tools provide a wide variety of opportunities to students to generate new thinking and final products that students can build off of and share with others, allowing even more learning experiences and feedback. There is great potential in these tools to transform the classroom and truly allow the focus of the learning to be focused on the student and what they desire to create, rather than focusing on the teacher's direct instruction. I am excited about the continued creation and potential of these tools in the classroom and to see what students are able to produce if we allow them more opportunities to create on their own with guidance from our content standards.
Overview of 3 Creation Tools
Animoto - I wanted to find an easy-to-use video tool for the classroom that could be used on an app and modified easily by students with voiceover features. I had heard much about Flipgrid but found that you needed a paid plan to get started with this tool so turned to Animoto instead. Animoto is a video creator where you can use text, photos and video clips to stitch together to a final creation. What I didn’t like about this tool is that there weren’t very many templates for students to choose from at the beginning or intro of the tool. This tool doesn't appear to be built with education in mind but instead a broad view of videos, and seems likely with a main goal or purpose closer to helping businesses or marketers easily create videos instead of being used solely in the classroom. This means that while the interface was fairly user-friendly there was not an abundance of instruction or templates that were geared towards classroom learning or student-created work. However, I did find through my search on the internet that a lot of different classrooms use this tool to have their students create work so I thought it was still worth digging into further.
I started with a template for a lesson that would be best used at the Pre-K or Kindergarten levels about fruits. I found that from the template it was easy to modify the pictures, text and add voice over content to the video. I think this would be easy for students to modify on their own for any lesson. Also, while I enjoy having a template to manipulate, I think students could also do well in creating their own videos from scratch using this tool and easily find ways to manipulate it for their own creation. I would say I didn’t love this tool for my own use but could see it really potentially being a good tool for students with their capabilities for video likely being higher than mine. Video is not my favorite medium to work with but I recognize it is for a lot of students so I definitely want to give those options to my students.
Toontastic - This turned out to be the most surprisingly delightful tool I found during my search. A caveat and potential downside to this tool is that it is an app so cannot be used with desktop computer or general laptops but can be used with phones, tablets and Chromebooks which I think most schools are generally geared towards. This app is a tool that allows students to create their own animated cartoons with an upside being it is completely free and doesn't require login emails or passwords (elementary teachers rejoice!). What I liked about this app is that there are templates for the students to use for storytelling cartoon that follow closely to Texas 4th grade TEKS for a plot mountain or diagram with an exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action and conclusion. Students can create a story by filling in each of these spots on the plot diagram by using pre-made backgrounds, characters and music or by drawing their own backgrounds and characters that the tool can then make 3D. Students can identify music to set the mood for each scene as well as record voiceovers for the scene. Students can also cause the different characters in the scene to move simply by using their touchscreen or mouse to move the character. I think this is a really simple, user-friendly way to have the students create complex plots and explain their thinking for a story, or create an extended and 3D version of stories they might have simply wrote on a piece of paper. As the actual interface is simple to use, the students are able to spend less time actually "figuring out" the tool and more time creating the final product. This tool also has an option to fill in aspects of a science project which I think could be a very useful and neat thing to use in a science classroom experiment. I liked this tool myself because I thought it was fun to use even though I am not very good at drawing! I see great potential for this tool for my students because it really felt like a cross between video game like Minecraft (which we know they love!) and a cartoon movie. I think with the right stipulations, rubrics and desired outcomes this could be a super fun and engaging tool for student involvement and creation.
Seesaw - Seesaw is an extremely useful tool I wish I would have had in my previous classroom, especially when considering the easy affordance of parent interaction that comes with this tool. This tool allows teachers to set assignments for students using the inherent tools in the system which include creating videos, annotating photos and videos and drawing on photos and videos to demonstrate thinking and learning. The tool allows you to provide step by step instructions so, again, the students can focus on demonstrating knowledge and creating a final product in order to show their thinking. What I think is neat about this tool is that all the different assignments come together to create a portfolio of sorts that can be shown easily to parents and teachers (great for distance learning!) and other students in the classroom can comment on each others’ work creating a more holistic dialogue and real time feedback for students. I like this tool, I believe, most for myself but I can definitely the way it could serve students and put learning and creation in their hands easily and on a consistent daily basis rather than just being for a one-time creation large project. While those large projects definitely have a place in the classroom and can be incredible learning opportunities, I feel the way Seesaw allows ease of micro-creations is an effective way to put creation in the student hands on a regular basis.
Exploring Seesaw Further
The affordances of this tool is that students can show their individual thinking and learning by easily creating videos or annotated photos of their thinking. Another key helpful affordance of the tool for teachers is that there is the ability to easily give instructions that have icons that correlate to the instructions that the student should follow.
The creation tool inherent in the app allows for uploading or taking photos or videos "live" as well as tools for drawing, adding text and adding voiceover content. This all allows the students to further explain their thinking and easily create posters, mini movies and audio content that demonstrates thinking and in turn is added to their portfolio. By combining a physical product or visual with the student's thinking through audio voiceover, the student is constructing their own understanding of their learning through several different learning styles. Through the way that the teacher can individually assign projects to students through the tool, a key affordance is the ability to scaffold the learning for students at different levels of learning within the classroom. Another affordance is that other students can comment on each others’ work once it is posted, allowing for feedback and students modifying their thinking in real time. When work is published in this way, the affordance is that students will create differently knowing their thinking will be up to scrutiny from not only their teacher but also their peers, and additionally, in the case of Seesaw, can be shown directly to their parents' devices. This creates a transformation in the way the student views their work and will hopefully boost the end result knowing they are creating a published work for their direct network.
Using Seesaw in the classroom: Substitution / Augmentation
In my fourth grade classroom, I had many students who struggled with fluency in their reading on grade level texts, a skill defined by the 4th grade TEKS 4.1b as: The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell. The student is expected to: (A) demonstrate and apply phonetic knowledge by: (i) decoding words with specific orthographic patterns and rules, including regular and irregular plurals
A way to use the Seesaw tool at the augmentation level of the SAMR to develop this skill (rather than have to do individual fluency checks with each student in real-time) is to have students video themselves reading a few pages of a grade-level text in the Seesaw tool. Students can then provide an audio summary of the pages or chapter they read and identify certain words that tripped them up or places of the reading that they didn’t understand and ask specific questions using the annotation tool in Seesaw. This allows the student to modify the way they think about their reading as well as potentially increases their performance as they know it will be filmed and played back later by their teacher. This substitutes a simple fluency check but the pedagogy being used here is that the student is in charge of what they are reading, creating a constructivist environment and again uses the tool to explain their thinking and hangups or confusion, allowing them to think about their fluency in a potentially new way.
Using Seesaw in the classroom: Modification / Redefinition
For the modification/redefinition of SAMR here I really tried to think of something that would redefine the use of the tool and put the creation entirely in the students’ hands. I think to do this I would want the student to take control of the tool in the “teacher” role to create assignments for their fellow students. I could see this working in a variety of lessons but the content I will focus on today is a lesson in non-fiction text identifying the different aspects that make something a nonfiction text, how to identify nonfiction text and some of the common features that are found in a nonfiction text, defined by the TEKS 4.9D as follows: recognize characteristics and structures of informational text, including: (i) the central idea with supporting evidence (ii) features such as pronunciation guides and diagrams to support understanding; and (iii) organizational patterns such as compare and contrast and 4.10C: analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes
Using Seesaw in the classroom: Modification / Redefinition
For the modification/redefinition of SAMR here I really tried to think of something that would redefine the use of the tool and put the creation entirely in the students’ hands. I think to do this I would want the student to take control of the tool in the “teacher” role to create assignments for their fellow students. I could see this working in a variety of lessons but the content I will focus on today is a lesson in non-fiction text identifying the different aspects that make something a nonfiction text, how to identify nonfiction text and some of the common features that are found in a nonfiction text, defined by the TEKS 4.9D as follows: recognize characteristics and structures of informational text, including: (i) the central idea with supporting evidence (ii) features such as pronunciation guides and diagrams to support understanding; and (iii) organizational patterns such as compare and contrast and 4.10C: analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes
For this particular lesson, I would have the student create assignments for their fellow classmates as if they were a teacher using nonfiction text and diagramming the functions of nonfiction text as the end goal. It could be framed as that they are a "magazine editor" and to contribute to their magazine, each student needs to create a page that has nonfiction elements. First, they would need to have each student in their "magazine" identify a subject they want to research and create a page of text for, for example sharks. They would need to find information on sharks and through Seesaw can create a "magazine page" for learning with different elements of nonfiction text about the subject such as images, drawings, captions, text boxes and diagrams. The students would need to identify what other elements students should have on their "poster" with a description of each element (caption, diagram, etc.).
In this way, by having the student create the assignment for their peers, they are showing me that they understand the different elements of nonfiction text, and to take this one step further I could have them build out an "example" to showcase understanding what the elements are individually. I think this tool allows the learner to really create their own thinking for this content lesson, putting the power of creation in their hands (Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy) in order for them to show mastery of the subject and think about these informational texts in a new way. I also think because an affordance of the technology is that they can share with other students, I think it would allow them to truly feel like the teacher and get feedback from other students, other students can read and tell how they are confused by their instructions, and the students can therefore revise their lesson plans in order to fix holes or make it more clear for their fellow students.
Digging Deeper
I think it’s important to know about and use these tools in order to give students the capability to be in charge of their own learning and demonstrate the way they are thinking and using their knowledge. Many of these tools require the students to think about and plan what they are going to do before executing a final product; this helps teachers monitor student thinking and be able to have checkpoints to ensure learning and adjust or scaffold if a student might be struggling. Using technology to create final products allows the students to take ownership of their learning in a new way. Through tools such as the ones I explored today, students can have actual files of work that they can showcase such as in a portfolio, that they can demonstrate their thinking, there are opportunities to explain their work in a larger context and have a record of what they have done in order to create their own portfolios and see how their thinking and learning has evolved and changed. Whereas drill and practice game, tutorials and instructional games afford skilled practice, the only thing to show for the student at the end of it is a letter grade or perhaps advancing to a different level, they are simply filling out answers as they would on a paper and pencil test or assignment but instead are doing it on an online screen. This merely substitutes or augments the process of standardized testing or assignments given by teachers. With creativity tools, however, we are putting learning into the students’ hands; they are able to use their thinking to create something new that has never been made before and have a final product to show for it. In this way they demonstrate higher levels of thinking and are forced to give evidence for their thinking and learning, moving to a constructivist classroom where they are the ones creating rather than sitting them in front of a screen to answer questions just as you would during a paper and pencil test at a desk.
I definitely do see the value in using certain creation tools in the classroom for students, even if I am not the biggest fan of particular tools. In a discussion this week in one of my classes, a fellow classmate said that introducing new technology is a challenge because the teacher has to be an expert in every bit of technology that is introduced. I do not agree with this statement because I believe the point in introducing technology in a creationist or constructivist way is to put the power of learning in the students’ hands. In this way the student can become an expert of sorts in a way the teacher doesn’t need to be; students can help one another in finding solutions and the teacher can learn from the students about certain positives to the particular technology. This allows the teacher to focus on other areas of instruction, small groups, and one-on-one attention that is needed in the classroom that might be hard to find time for if the teacher is focused on only providing instruction and expertise and not allowing the students to create, explore, learn, and make mistakes on their own. I think as long as the technology is not providing barriers to learning (i.e. is too complicated, cumbersome, has too many hangups, glitches, etc) and the students are finding solutions on their own, it shouldn’t matter how the teacher views the tool or if they find it hard to use. This is potentially very freeing for teachers and should allow more technology to find place in the classroom as they don’t have to be the expert and can instead allow the students to take the lead in being the expert on the actual tech tools. As long as final product from the tool demonstrate learning, growth and ability to assess their thinking, I think any tool can be used whether or not the teacher is proficient or particularly enjoys using it.
Creativity tools provide a wide variety of opportunities to students to generate new thinking and final products that students can build off of and share with others, allowing even more learning experiences and feedback. There is great potential in these tools to transform the classroom and truly allow the focus of the learning to be focused on the student and what they desire to create, rather than focusing on the teacher's direct instruction. I am excited about the continued creation and potential of these tools in the classroom and to see what students are able to produce if we allow them more opportunities to create on their own with guidance from our content standards.
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