Using Office Lense

I often find myself teaching in a traditional classroom. Here is an example of how a Windows Phone with the Office Lens app automatically converts a snap of whiteboard notes into something more legible - even given my hand writing

Before

After

Design brief advice for explainer videos

Here is a follow up to my posting on Explainer Videos in the classroom. PowToon offers some good advice on creating effective explainer videos which can be included as part of the design brief

YouTube research shows that the average viewer’s attention span is 63 seconds. This is the time you have to get your message across—and the first 7 seconds are the most crucial! That’s when you have to convince your viewers to actually continue watching.

Our research indicates…

Best cartoon length: 63-92 seconds
Critical start: 7-10 seconds

How many words should your script have?
Clip Length        Number of Words
30 seconds        85
60 seconds        160
90 seconds        230

The maximum optimal length for an animated explainer video is around 90 seconds. 

Explainer Videos in the classroom

Explainer videos are short, conversational and informal 90 second animated videos which generally educate, entertain and explain. The free Adobe Voice app for ipads looks wonderfully effective and easy-to use. Watch this video to get a feel for its potential.



There are also alternatives such as Powtoon which I find a little clunky. I use Camtasia Studio to create videos as it gives so much control over elements although the just launched Snagit 12 also from TechSmith has video creation capabilities - Camtasia Lite

Potential use: asking students to create 90 second explainer videos may well prove a popular homework

Student Personal Learning Checklists for monitoring performance

On reflection, one of the best teaching innovations I have adopted this year is the use of a personal learning checklist that allows pupils to RAG rate themselves on each part of the specification.

Here is an example for F581

I have created plcs for each module in Excel but print them out on paper and ask students to keep a copy in the back of their A4 exercise book which is used to make class notes.

A standing homework is to update the plc weekly

Having a plc in the back of an exercise book means there is a current record  which demonstrates student self assessed progress and missing gaps in understanding. Very useful when SLT make a monitoring visit

Highly recommended

Twitter Research Tools for economics

Twitter is a great source for keeping up-to-date with news and events; ideas and links to resources. The main issue is noise: there are so many tweets gems.

One way of making sure that essential tweets are not lost in the din is to use a predefined twitter search including the relevant hashtag. I have added links for the OCR Economics units: #F581 search | #F582 search | #F584 search | #F585 search on a list of economic resources I share with my class.

Finally Topsy offers some really useful advanced features for a targeted search of past tweets.

Hidden gem in PowerPoint 2013: widescreen

I'm finding the extra horizontal space in PowerPoint 2013 from using a widescreen rather than standard format, a real boon

to convert an existing PowerPoint to 16:9 access the design tab and then slide size