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