Board Builder                   

As an independent contractor, I have the unique privilege to be a teacher to teachers and to their students. We are constantly looking for ways to engage the students with authentic assessment that will "show what they know." Classically, we have depended upon PowerPoint for the bulk of our presentations (as teachers and as students), but in the last few years we have seen the emergence of Web 2.0 tools that we couldn't even visualize a decade ago. Some of my favorites have been Voice Thread, SlideShare, Prezi, Glogster, Haiku Deck and more. All of these presentation formats are great, but we must be sure the students understand and can explain the concept before their dive into any tool of presentation. Good teaching and learning affords multiple modes and a variety of means to explain what we know. This "tuesdays" is the introduction to what just might be the best web-based presentation tool available today.

Whether you have a Discovery Education account or not, I would like to encourage you to provide your students with open options for presentations. In other words, when you assign a topic to be researched and explained by the students, don't feel that you have to understand all the technologies available. Depending on the age of your students, they will be have already tried a variety of tools, apps or other means of communication. Give them the opportunity to choose their platform and you will increase the quality of their presentation. Overall, it is most important that our students are creating, innovating and sharing their learnings. Board Builder is one of many tools available, but may just be my absolute favorite at the moment. I created a Board Builder for you to review about my favorite strategy for using video in the classroom. You will have to have a Discovery Education account to check it out. Go to http://tinyurl.com/Video4Square.

How do your students build a "Board?" First of all, the school/district will have to have an account with Discovery Education. Next, I highly recommend that the students storyboard their presentation idea on paper before they even log into their Discovery Education account. Once they have their idea solidified, they can begin to gather digital assets from the Discovery library or their own digital creations. Next, they can build their Board by adding a background, headline, and multiple text boxes to explain concepts and add up to five digital assets of their own. The best part is that the students can intuitively learn to build a Board. Teachers do not need to teach them how. Let them go at it, just set the expectations and create a rubric that works for you. Good news! Teachers will have their own Board Builders within the next month that they can use for instructional purposes. Kudos to Discovery Education for the new Board Builder!

"If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour."   

Dianna Booher 

Sample beginnings of a Board in DE's student Board Builder. 

ipadio   

LiveBinders 

Doceri 

NASA's Image Gallery 

Popplet 

Zoey's Room
Finance in the Classroom
Fotopedia 

The Common Good Forecaster  

Google Earth 

UJAM 

Symbaloo.edu 

Google Science Fair 

Stossel in the Classroom
Word Sift 

Lee Kolbert