Student Designers

This week we will focus on Chapter 2:  "Student as Tutorial Designer" from Who Owns the Learning, written by Alan November.

Jasmine's mother is waiting for her daughter to come out of school.  Almost half an hour passes before her mother goes into the school to find out what is taking Jasmine so long.  Much to her surprise, Jasmine's mother discovered that her daughter was busy putting final touches on a math tutorial so that it could be shared with classmates to help them better understand the math concept.  Though her mother was perplexed about Jasmine's focus on creating the tutorial, this task was just as beneficial for Jasmine as it was for her classmates.  Through the video creation process, she also gained significant insight of the math concepts.  In her own words, the tutorial "really mattered" while also contributing to the learning process of her fellow classmates and to anyone in the world who would be able to access the video tutorial.

This concept is not a new method of training or learning.  As you may know, Sal Khan the creator of Khan Academy, first started creating video tutorials to help his nephews learn concepts in math.  You can watch his speech on Ted Talk where he explains his creation of these tutorials and how those led to the development of Khan Academy, which is now available to anyone around the world.  The first few math lessons that he created for his nephews have been expanded to include tutorials for students from Kindergarten through College.  This online resource includes tutorials for math, science, engineering, computing, arts and humanities, economics and finance, test prep, careers and more.  Teachers and individuals who create an account with Khan Academy, can view more about the tutorials available and can add students in their classroom to classes.  Each week, the teachers receive a report of student work and can make modifications to additional tutorials for specific students.  You can create an account by visiting the Khan Academy website.

Another student tutorial site mentioned in Chapter 2 of Who Owns the Learning is MathTrain.TV.  Devoted solely to helping students learn math basics, you can also find episodes of their math tutorials through iTunes.  Episodes one through one-hundred and twenty nine can be viewed by anyone with an iTunes account.  Most of the tutorials on this site were created by students using multiple mobile devices including iPad, iPhones, tablets, and others.  Though the name of this program is now changed to StudentCreated.TV and is still free for students to access.  The topics included on this site include:

• Art, 
• History and Social Sciences, 
• Language Arts, 
• Mathematics, 
• Music, 
• Gym and Physical Education, 
• Science, 
• and Technology and Computers.  

To view the library of tutorials on the expanded site, you can go to studentcreated.tv

Another resource that I would like to share with you is one that I first became aware of when I was a technology facilitator in the local school system.  This tutorial resource, IXL.com was useful to help students improve their skills in math.  At the time I was introduced to this resource, full access to the tutorials and games were free to use, and students in grades three through five enjoyed competing against their classmates and others who were logged on across the United States.  Some of these tutorial sessions were quite competitive, even to the point of many of the students not wanting to stop their session when the computer lab class was supposed to dismiss.  When possible, and time allowing, many of the students were allowed to finish the math problem that they were working on or their session so that they would not have to restart during their next scheduled visit to the computer lab.  An added benefit of this site was that student results were stored from session to session because each student had their own unique login for the site.  Today this site is still available and free for some tutorials.  But the program must be purchased by the school for students and teachers to use as a resource for improving math skills.  The subject matter that is now available on the site includes the following:

• Math
• Language Arts
• Science
• Social Studies
• Spanish (Pre-K through 12th grade)

In addition to the newly added subjects, IXL now offers recommended options to help students improve their skill level.  These recommendations are a result of program diagnostics and analytics built into the activities completed by the students with reports generated for the classroom teacher and parents.  You can view more about this resource by going to the IXL.com website.

Now back to Jasmine and her recording tutorial.

There is a development of personal skill level and motivation in students just like Jasmine, who get the opportunity to create learning tutorials for themselves and others.  Many of the students will create the tutorials mostly because it helps other students to hear an explanation shared by one of their peers.  Also, the work being created by the students is a historical representation of what they learned and are able to apply to their own work in the classroom.  And, as mentioned, in this chapter from the Who Owns the Learning, students are willing to create the tutorials even if the classroom teacher isn't going to grade the tutorial.  The sense of creating something to help others allows the students to become creative and the tools used by them can "empower" them to be creative, and to work harder because their tutorials will be viewed by anyone around the world who clicks the link to their tutorial.  

The benefit for the classroom teacher through this process includes resources to share with students who are struggling with a specific topic.  Also, the teacher will be able to spend more time working with individual students allowing for a better understanding of the progress that individual students have made or to determine what specific skills need to be developed or reinforced.  Therefore, student tutorials that have been created by the student's classmates, or available from previous academic years, can be reviewed by the student to help him/her gain a better understanding of the topic and process to complete the learning task.  Teachers also need to understand that many of the students who create these types of tutorials will not want to copy any ideas created by students from previous years.  Instead they want to do something unique and different so that their product stands out enough for someone to select their tutorial.  By paying attention to the students as they work to create the tutorials, the classroom teacher is able to learn more about the students, thus gaining a deeper understanding of the students in their classroom.  The classroom atmosphere is more exciting, breeds creativity and innovation.  Students generally will complete more of their assigned homework and are more actively engaged in classroom discussions.  By participating in the tutorial process these students are developing skills that will assist them well into adulthood, including the ability to effectively plan, collaborate, communicate with others, and improving their technological skills.

Tools to Use to Develop Tutorials

There are a variety of tools that people can select from to use to create video tutorials easily on a laptop or desktop.  Several of them are listed below.

• Screencast-o-matic
• Screencastify
• Screencast
• Jing
• Camtasia
• Screenflow
• Wink
• Ezvid
• RecordIt
• What Fix

I have personally used Screencast-o-matic, Screencastify, Jing, and Camtasia.  Each of these are extremely easy to learn to use.  I enjoyed using Camtasia probably the most because I could create the tutorial and then would be able to go back and edit sections of the tutorial without losing work that had already been created.  Jing and Camtasia are both products produced and sold by Techsmith. 

Screencast-o-matic is currently the one that I use the most frequently and does have an annual renewal fee.  The benefit of this account, though, is that all of my videos are stored my Screencast-o-matic dashboard and I can open them to view at any time.  Editing of an already created Screencast-o-matic resource is available and with a little practice, the process is quite easy to complete.  

There are also apps available for iTunes and Android devices.  One of the easiest to use for the Apple platform is Explain Everything.  Here is a brief example of a science lesson about the solar system in which the teacher used Explain Everything.

Two options to create tutorial videos in the classroom for android devices are EZvid and Screen Recorder.    

The process for each of these apps is basically the same.  You will probably need to try many of the tools mentioned above before you select the one resource that you feel the most comfortable in using.  The types of devices that you have in your classroom will directly affect your selection.  Maybe, not for you, but for the students.  But once you know the types of devices that are available for you and your students to use, you will then need to practice creating a How-to video using the tools available.  Don't worry if your first attempt does not meet your standards.  It will take some time working with these resources before you become comfortable using them.  But, after you get over the initial mishaps, and repeat recording attempts, the software tools will become second nature and your video tutorials will be easier to create and publish.  

The remaining pages of Chapter 2 from the Who Owns the Learning book provide you with additional details on ways to create and produce how-to-videos.  There are also a couple of websites included that show you examples of student created tutorials.  Those links are below:

• Room 208 vodcast
• Websites mentioned in the chapter (live links to all the resources provided in the chapter)

Additional notes from this chapter

• A group from North Carolina, the Free Linux PC Program (FLPC) did at one time, download the Mathtrain.TV videos onto DVDs.  These files were then loaded to the hard drives of donated, refurbished computers.  Each of these computers were then given to families without funds to purchase a computer to use at home.  Because the tutorials were stored on the computer hard drive, students in these households had the ability to view the same content as other students in their classrooms who were fortunate enough to have access to the Internet and a personal computer provided by their parents.
• Exposure helps produce additional resources to fund ongoing projects.  People in the community became aware of the tasks being completed by the students at Lincoln Middle School.  There work prompted the math department chairperson to persuade the school Parent Teacher Association to donate money to purchase additional computers and recording software for each math teacher at the school.  Due to their generosity all students in the school are able to learn to use the tutorial creation software and to develop their own video-tutorials to share with others.