Tip Tuesday: Skip the Video or Slideshow, Make an Animated GIF

You remember animated GIFs, right? If you're about 25 or older you first saw them this way. This was really the only way to get "video" at 56kbps speeds.

http://cute-pictures.blogspot.com/

They had a renaissance a couple years ago and people started using them for new media.

http://tatemillerton.com

http://littleplasticthings.tumblr.com/

Why should artists and web designers have all of the fun? Animated GIFs are perfectly suited for short, procedural based instruction that is often unavoidable.

Advantages Over Video

Shooting quick video will, in fact sometimes be quicker than creating an animated GIF, but think about these advantages, first.

1. Animated GIFs run the same across desktop and mobile browsers, PC/Mac, and IE/Safari/Chrome/Firefox. Having your students with easy access to internet-ready devices is handy in enhancing their opportunities and extending your classroom, but opening your lesson plan to that many more devices, connection speeds, and architectures is asking for some compatibility issues. Since GIFs have been around so long, you don't have to worry if a student is on a 2002 iMac running IE 5 - they'll be seeing your content.

2. Connection speeds don't matter - there is no buffering. I often have to forgo playing a video for students during class because I don't want to wait for it to buffer. If I can't play a video, I know I've got no chance of 20-something kids all attempting at once via my wireless network.

3. Camera shy teachers (and students) can create animated GIFs without having their faces or voices included. Ever stutter? Voice crack? Are you a perfectionist that doesn't want any misspoken lines or "uhs" in your video? I feel you - I have one YouTube video that for some reason gets crazy play, and my voice cracks right from the get go.

How do I create an animated GIF?

If you can take a photo, you can create an animated GIF. There are several creation avenues to choose from:

• Photoshop - Tutorial
• Gimp - Tutorial
• Other Mac software - Download page
• Other Windows software - Download page
• Websites
• Picasion - Limited to 10 images
• Gickr - Limited to 10 images
• Myspacegens - Unlimited images
• iOS or Android apps

I choose myspacegens... Now What?

I chose MySpaceGens because I wanted a tool ALL of my students (and you) would have access to no matter if they were at school or home, and I hate downloading new software.

1. Take step-by-step images of your procedure
2. Fine-tune your images for brightness, contrast, and cropping
3. Upload your images to www.myspacegens.com
   
4. Arrange your photos
5. Set the transition timing speed. Since you want your students to be able to read most of the slide on a pass through, set this as long as possible. My example is set at 3000 ms.
6. Generate GIF
7. Save and upload to your website, social media, or LMS!

How'd You Do?

These images taken with my phone. Best case would be with a doc camera or screenshots.

Adaptations for YOU:

Honestly, GIF animation is much easier with the app I use, GifBoom, but I'm glad I've got several more options at my disposal.

Besides using this for steps of a math or science problem, you could use an animated GIF for...

• slideshow of student work
• lyrics to a song
• parsing phrases and other grammar constructions
• digital flipbook
• comic strip

Tech Tip: Get More Out Of Your SMARTBoard By Changing Defaults

This SMARTBoard tip really upped the customization factor for me.

Did you know you can change the default colors of your pens and backgrounds? I stumbled upon this by accident one day and kept with it because I was inspired by the white text on black (or dark) backgrounds that Salman Khan uses on all of his Khan Academy videos.

I found out after the fact that my default changes did not only apply to my profile on the server, but to anyone logging in to that machine with that SMARTBoard, so my friend that was sharing the room with me that year was in for quite a surprise the next hour when she went to write with what she thought was a black pen on the default white background. So if you're sharing the hardware, inform your colleagues, and make sure its a change you can all agree on.

Lessening My Lesson Load

This photo was taken from my camera phone right after 1st hour was over.  I read pieces of a book over Christmas Break called Never Work Harder Than Your Students, and those few pages did a lot to free my time and rethink the priorities of my time in the classroom.  I think it has improved my instruction because I've had to be more creative in order to present my lessons with "less" work.

One factor that significantly contributes to my workload is rewriting notes and homework assignments on a different board when I move between the 3 different classrooms I travel to.  Using the SMARTboard for notes and interactive tools alleviates some of this hourly repetition, but if the computer is down or the server is slow, then I end up having to use the whiteboard and rewriting notes in subsequent classrooms.

The kids give me some trouble over having my cellphone out, but I think it models good mobile device use, which is a good thing.

Facebook in the Classroom: Should I Heed the Warnings?

First off:  I WISH.  I think that using it as a networking tool COULD be worth exploring.  I understand from a liability (and time-wasting) perspective that the risks are probably too great to open up school use.  So we'll experiment with use on the other side of the firewall.

Last night I dipped my toe into the Facebook pool for use with my classes.  I set up a fan page for Mr. C Baker's Math Class and plan to use it as a communication tool for both students and parents and a holding place for notes, links, and resources.

My fears are not founded upon students finding incriminating photos of past transgressions (nor present).  I am not concerned with crossing any lines of professionalism in interacting with students online (because I do not believe I am).  I do not fear opening my classroom or teaching to criticism from the outside (because it brings accountability and transparency with it).  I have been a believer even since student teaching that if you are afraid or wary of observations and eyes in your classroom, then you probably know that there are deficiencies in some manner of your teaching (and need to be humble enough to address them).

So, then, the fear I do keep is in boundaries for myself.  As it is so natural for me to interact on Facebook for my personal social networking, I worry about being sucked in with the allure of building "fans," addressing students' and parents' questions, and monitoring my discussion board to see if students are using it.  What can I say; I'm a sucker for unique hits.  I think this is a healthy fear, however.  A fear that springs from self-awareness of my weaknesses and obsessions is a fear that keeps me in check.  It's a fear for improvement.

In the end, I'd say my Facebook fan page is really just an extention of having my own class website on freewebs with discussion board, or my class twitter account.  I know there are many educators (including the official NEA stance on the subject) that would criticize my decision; even some close to me.  I guess all I'd have to say to them, is that I reserve all rights to act now and ask for forgiveness later.  I think that has to be the nature of any educator acting as an early adopter of technologies.

We'll see how it goes!

Prezi for Math Notes

Prezi is a presentation  tool that allows you to create concept maps and notes on a single canvas.  You can zoom in and out, create frames for emphasis, resize text, doodle, and map paths to create a slideshow.  Think tag cloud on steroids as one analogy.

I'm sure that it would work great in an English, Social Studies, Science (minus chemistry equations), or other general elective class, but using it for math notes is a big chore.  Writing in the presentation is easy enough, but you cannot permanently group the numbers together (as is a snap in SMART Notebook), which makes resizing written text next to impossible.

So, all told, it took me about 2 hrs to create this.  To best understand a Prezi, check out mine.






















It probably goes without saying, but my Prezi does not nearly capture the potential for the tool. Much better examples and ideas exist on their website.

Math use:  Unless I get dramatically faster at creating these notes, Prezi's practicality is nearly nonexistent when compared to just jotting notes in my IWB software.  The extra pizazz could be worth it occasionally, however.  One thing I really like is the ability to embed my Prezi into this blog or an assignment on our district's class website/news service, Edline.

Other word of note:  The computers at our school are going on 3 years old, so keeping up rendering the javascript was quite a task for them.  It worked better at home on the laptop from this summer.