Technology Integration Project II- LiveBinder

LiveBinder is the invention we have all been waiting for. It takes "the binder concept and [is] continually improving it to be a leader in the next generation of content sharing". Essentially, LiveBinder is taking all of those stacks of papers on your desk and in student's backpacks and compiling them into a digital binder that the user can organize anyway they need. Days of franticly searching your computer can be over! With LifeBinder, you have the capability to connect files stored in clouds, links, and more in one simple and organized location. While this program has been well received and heavily used by people in all different fields, educators and administrators have really taken it and ran with it. While researching standards to use for my literacy infused unit, I found that many school districts had compiled LiveBinders for different grades that provide a copious amount of resources for teachers to use that support their teaching.

I was first drawn to LiveBinder when I noticed my cooperating teacher relied heavily on it. Their's is obviously private and only they have access to it, but I have created a binder similar to what they have. He explained to me that their fifth grade team decided to try it out this year to share materials and professional development resources. He explained to me that they all found it easy to use and convenient to have. In the past they used an online drive where they all submitted information. It got a bit disorganized and hectic because nobody really knew how to work it and anybody who did had a different vision for how it should be organized than the others did. Through LiveBinder, each teacher had their own tab color. If they wanted to add something to the binder, they could upload it and change the tab color so that everybody knew whose resources were whose. During professional learning community (PLC) meetings, they would be able to talk about an online resource they found and it would be connected in their part of the team's LiveBinder. They were able to name each tab in a specific manner and only one object was present under each tab. By doing this, there was no confusion about which resource they should be looking at.

Aside from sharing ideas and new resources with team members, I have heard of teachers using LiveBinder either in place of  or in addition to a classroom website. One of my sister's friends is a middle school Pre-Algebra teacher. She supplements her classroom website with a different LiveBinder for each unit they cover. By doing this, her students have access to a resource that has all of their notes and homework assignments as well as additional resources students can use if they need additional support on a certain topic. This teacher used to utilize the "Flipped Classroom" technique. When she did, her videos were connected to the LiveBinder so the students would always know where the videos were located. They also did not have to completely scroll through weeks worth of posts on a blog or class page to locate what they needed.

Creating a Binder can be bit confusing at first, but once you create your first few tabs, it gets much easier. First, you need to make an account. I am operating off of the free account, which gives you the basic features, such as creating tabs and inserting content like documents, links, images, and videos. On a free account, you are limited to creating five binders. However, if you have 1,000 people view your binder, then you can get five more for free! You have storage of up to 100 MB on each binder and the maximum upload file size is 5 MB. There are three more levels of memberships that cost from $25 per year to $100 per year. These upgraded memberships allow you to create an unlimited number of binders and give you more storage and upload capabilities. These are very reasonable prices for a great service and I can see myself investing in a basic membership so I can utilize this resource in my classroom.

Once you have created an account, you are ready to make your first binder. You can do this by

clicking the "New Binder" button on the home page once you have logged in. After you have done this, you are able to name and describe your binder, tag it with relevant terms to be included in the worldwide pool of binders, and make it either public or private. If you decide to make your binder private, you can set an access key so that only certain people can access your binder. This would be great to use if you were having students create a LiveBinder of their own to organize materials for a project. Now that you have your binder created, you can start adding tabs. This function is located in the top left corner. Once you have a tab created, you can edit it to fit your needs. You can organize the tabs by assigning them different colors, naming them different things, and uploading a variety of materials. The website offers a helpful tutorial that assists you with learning how to create and organize your first binder. It automatically appears when you open your first binder. If it weren't for this brief ten-step walk through, I probably would have lost patience with the program. 

As a future classroom teacher and school leader, I can see myself using LiveBinder frequently. The possibilities are endless. As previously stated, using the virtual binders is a great way to keep PLC information organized and available to those who are involved. It is also a great way to share resources amongst grade team members. If you upgrade to a paid membership, you can implement the "sub-tab" tool, which allows you to create tabs to organize information within the main tabs, like subcategories within categories. By using this option, you could group resources together based on lesson plans and activities rather than having them all under separate tabs within the binder. While researching examples of teachers using LiveBinder, I came across a great resource through PB Works. It is a community of teachers that all contribute to a compilation of binders. They have multiple different virtual shelves that are organized based on grade level and subject. I am student teaching in a fifth grade math class, so to experiment, I clicked on the fifth grade word problems binder. In this LiveBinder, there were an abundance of tabs filled with tips, tricks, lessons, and examples of word problems that can be adapted and used in any classroom.

Another way I can see myself or other teachers using LiveBinder is by having students create digital portfolios of their learning. This is a great resource to be able to pull up during parent teacher conferences to discuss student progress. By having a portfolio full of work in a medium that won't take up an abundance of space, the teacher can reference pieces of a student's work in this format. The portfolio could also be accessed by the parents at home. This would be a good time to utilize the private option, as the only people who have access to a student's portfolio should be the student, the teacher, and the parents or guardians. It would also be a great resource if a student moved and relocated to another school. Their new teacher could see the kind of work they were submitting and figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are by getting to know the students and reviewing their portfolio. It is an excellent tool to show students how much they have grown and learned throughout the year.

LiveBinder can also be used for student projects. For example, if students were asked to create a multi-genre project or a research project with a lot of aspects to it, they could use a LiveBinder to organize their materials. For example, in this binder, the students created a yearbook on characters from ancient mythology. They include pages for characters such as Helios, Odysseus, and Poseidon. Each character has their activities, superlative, favorite song, and favorite book listen on their page. The answers are accurate to the character's depiction in ancient myths. In this example, the student was required to create and plan a trip to India. The student separated the criteria she needed to include into tabs. She included sections for the flight, hotel, and activity costs as well as itineraries for each day she was there.

LiveBinder is one of my new favorite technology discoveries. It is a great way to organize and share information in an easy to navigate and condensed manner. I look forward to using this program in professional learning community, personal, and classroom settings, as it is a tool that is convenient and fitting for all.

Resources:

LiveBinder. Retrieved November 2, 2016, from http://www.livebinders.com/welcome/about

LiveBinder Logo. (2009). Retrieved November 2, 2016, from https://edshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/icon-livebinders.png

Technology for Effective Leadership I- Periscope

Periscope sums up their purpose in one well written sentence from their About Us page. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but live video can take you someplace and show you around.

Periscope was created to connect people worldwide in order to share experiences and learn about different cultures through the eyes of a native. While this is a common use for the app, its users have branched out into other areas, making Periscope a diverse online community. The program was released on March 26, 2015 as an extension of Twitter. Originally, it was launched so that people could broadcast their lives through live video streaming to share with people form all over the globe. It started off as just an app for Apple devices. Periscope became an incredibly rapid growing community with over 10 million accounts created in the first four months and 40 years worth of footage being streamed each day. Due to the popularity of the program, they developed an Android app as well, which was released on May 26, 2015.

I was first drawn to Periscope during the summer of 2015 with some other friends from the School of Education. After visiting and falling in love with the Ron Clark Academy, we discovered that many of the teachers from the academy were very active on social media. Originally, I just stuck to taking all of their wisdom and fun lessons through Instagram and Twitter, but I were intrigued when their captions started telling their followers to "tune in on Periscope" at a certain time to hear more about their lesson.

The first stream that I watched was one done by Hope King, the 5th and 6th grade ELA teacher at RCA. She had crafted a spy themed lesson, complete with over the top classroom decorations and

engaging activities. Once I got over the shock and amazement about her incredible lesson, I could not get over how impactful Periscope was. I am a visual kinesthetic learner to an extreme level, meaning that I need to see something done and then need to try it myself in order to completely understand the material. While I may not have had the opportunity to manipulate the classroom decorations or demonstrate a question about a specific incident, Hope King did a phenomenal job of being very active with what she was explaining to us. During a live stream, you are able to ask questions to the person who is hosting the event. They appear on the screen for everybody watching to see as well. Hope King did her best to thoroughly answer the questions that her hundreds of viewers were asking about her intricate decorations and exciting activities. We was able to explain her answers verbally, as well as physically demonstrating the action or response if that was what the question was asking for. One example I remember very vividly was, "How did you create your laser beams?" Hope King actually partially remade her "laser beams" that she had created from white yarn and backlights to show the viewers exactly how she had done it.

Aside from sharing ideas and new skills, another teacher from RCA, Kim Bearden, uses Periscope for a weekly professional learning community (PLC) meeting with whoever wanted to watch using her book Crash Course. For a few months, Kim Bearden would focus on one chapter of her book and discuss it with her viewers. It was conducted similar to a book club, where everybody is free to share their thoughts and ask questions. It ended up being like one big support group. While I did not have time to tune into these sessions as often as I would have liked, I noticed that it was generally the same group of people tuning in week after week. This being so, they were familiar with each other's situations, needs, and strengths. It was a very comfortable environment and you can't help but feel great and learn something along the way with Kim Bearden at the helm of the ship.

If you are just trying to access a live stream to watch being conducted by somebody you are following on the Periscope app, it appears on your home screen. In order to join the group, you just

tap on the link. Creating a broadcast is quite easy as well. Currently, you can only broadcast from your phone, somewhat limiting your filming abilities. When you open the app, the homepage gives you multiple popular broadcasts to choose from. You can also search on a world map, by user name, and by broadcast title. If you would like to start your own broadcast, you select the camera button on the tool bar located on the bottom of the screen. Once you have selected the broadcast option, you are able to personalize your live stream. You can change the title, enable or disable commenting for the people who follow you, only allow certain users to view your stream, and share the broadcast on Twitter. When being used for educational purposes, it is smart to restrict who can view your live stream. To test it out, I did a quick two minute broadcast. Just in that time, ten random people joined my broadcast to watch my phone aimed at my keyboard. This made me realize how important it is to utilize the private tool. Once you have started your broadcast, you are able to "sketch" on the screen for the viewers to see, hide the chat bubbles, and flip the camera to face towards or away from you. When you start your broadcast, Periscope gives you directions on how to stop the broadcast and access the "advanced controls" such as "sketching" and camera flipping.

As a future classroom teacher and school leader, I can see myself using Periscope frequently. The possibilities are endless. As a lover of all things ELA, it has always been a dream of mine to create a variety of different book clubs that would appeal to a variety of different groups. I personally think that nothing can bring a group of people closer together than a good book. I would love to develop an assortment of different book clubs that would encourage students to read outside of school. This could also be done for a STEM club with experiments and project presentations. Some students may not be able to stay after school or come early due to transportation restriction or parent work schedules. Periscope would be an excellent tool to use. When creating a live stream, you have the ability to create a private streaming. The book club meeting could be streamed and those who are unable to attend could watch from any Apple or Android device, as well as from their website. The students would still be able to contribute to the conversations and ask questions in a private, digital way.

Another way I can see myself or other teachers using Periscope is to deliver additional tutoring on a subject. Let's face it, school can be hard. Sometimes students need some extra support on certain topics and their family cannot afford to hire a tutor and they are unable to get the child to or from school because they rely on bus transportation. Once or twice a week, the teacher could establish a set time to provide a Periscope review session. Almost like digital office hours. If students have questions on the material, they could tune into the private Periscope stream for clarification. This could also be used for test review sessions.

Periscope could also be used to conduct parent-teacher conferences if a parent is unable to meet at the school. The teacher could conduct meetings through the private live stream and the parents could ask questions and seek clarification or elaboration through the question/comment option. Teachers could also hold a weekly/monthly session to provide classroom updates along with the classroom newsletter. When the newsletter goes home, the teacher could include the time and date for the Periscope session, during which the parents could ask questions about classroom happenings. The streams can also be recorded and saved. Many users opt to upload their streams onto YouTube as well as leaving them up on their Periscope profile.

Periscope is probably one of my favorite technology discoveries. It is safe, user-friendly, and easily controlled, which makes it an excellent tool for a teacher to use to expand their teaching beyond the classroom. I look forward to seeing the presence of the education community grow in Periscope as well as using it in my own classroom.

Resources:

Periscope. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from https://www.periscope.tv/about

Periscope (App). Retrieved October 5, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periscope_(app)

Periscope Logo. (2015). Retrieved October 5, 2016, from https://www.periscope.tv/press

Spy Headquarters. (2015). Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://www.elementaryshenanigans.com/2015/06/spy-headquarters-creating-engaging.html