Building an interactive WWI timeline as a collaborative for History 20

During our study of World War I, my Grade 11 History students were intrigued by a number of the stories and battles that we were reading about. Out of this grew a project where each student picked an event that took place during the war and then produced a video or presentation to tell its story. The best place to collect these stories seemed to be a timeline. Students independently researched, wrote about and produced a video or presentation in the format of their choice and then we assembled them together on an interactive timeline, using Time Toast. Some of the tools that the students used to create their videos or presentations included Prezi, YouTube Video Editor, Wideo and the trailer feature on the iMovie App for the iPad.

Students were also asked to create multiple choice questions that their classmates could answer while watching their video that we assembled into Socrative. Students then presented their projects and while we were viewing the videos, we responded to their multiple choice quizzes.  A great way for students to stay engaged while watching numerous presentations.

Please check out our interactive timeline: Histoire 20 Collaborative WW1 Timeline

Incorporating Video into the Classroom

Since becoming a YouTube Star Teacher in 2011, I have worked to incorporate more video into my classroom and I use my YouTube Channel to share and organize videos that I use in my classroom through playlists.

I use a lot of videos to help my students discover and better understand the content they need to know. My favourite way to engage my students is to allow them to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or topic that we are studying by making a video. Working at a new school with new students can be a challenge and I have experienced mixed success with this tool in my classroom. Most students have embraced the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding through video rather than simply writing a paper or a test. But there are always students who don't put as much effort into their projects as others and that is something we are working on. I find that they haven't had much opportunity to create masterpiece videos and we are all working together to become better videographers. Here are some of the projects my students and I have been working on over the past few months based on small or large inquiry group projects:

Francophonie 30 - Qu'est-ce que c'est la Francophonie?


Sciences Humaines 9 - Explorateurs vs Premiers Nations (Our understanding of World View)


Sciences 10 - Explorer 3 cycles en Biologie - l'azote, carbone ou nutritif

City Slicker Magazine - Cool and Clever Teachers

Recently, I had the opportunity to be interviewed by City Slicker Magazine for a feature that they were doing on Regina teachers, as part of their Back To School themed issue. It was a real honour to appear in this issue, along with some of the other fantastic teachers we have in our city.

You can read more about it here on the Regina Public Schools' news blog.

Presentation to Key Women Educators

Here is the online version of my slidedeck for my presentation to Key Women Educators in Regina, SK, on February 8, 2012 about the use of technology to engage in lifelong learning for both students and educators.

The use of technology to engage in lifelong learning

View more presentations from Joanna Sanders

How video in the classroom helps digitally-savvy students learn

Article from the Toronto Star
September 8, 2011 13:09:00
by Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press

Zara Cruickshank’s Grade 8 science class is a little different from those of yesteryear. Students regularly make mini films or podcasts for class projects, reams of notes are a thing of the past and video is an important part of learning.

As the new school year begins, a number of Canadian classrooms are increasingly implementing video as an educational tool to keep their digitally savvy students engaged and interested.

“It’s just easy to focus when it’s visual,” says Cruickshank. “You can be creative and have fun doing it because you’re putting your ideas together to make something for school, to make school easier.”

The 13-year-old at Regina’s Ecole Wilfrid Walker is talking specifically about Joanna Sanders Bobiash’s classroom.

Bobiash — who travelled to Seattle’s Google Teacher Academy this summer to brush up on her web and video skills at the first ever YouTube Teacher Studio — plans to use video a lot more extensively in her classroom this year.

“Everyone has different learning styles, they learn best in different ways,” she says. “Video provides the opportunity to almost deliver both (visuals and text) at the same time. You have visual, you could have written and you have audio at the same time and students can refer to them at their own pace.”

The days of classroom video consisting of a TV and VCR rolled in for a lengthy film students could zone out on are over. Bobiash, who teaches science and social studies, uses digital video to deliver information in short, interactive bursts and encourages students to make their own films for projects which can later be posted online through her YouTube channel.

“Before they could only express themselves in the written form, but now they can express themselves in different ways,” said the 35-year-old teacher. “They’re really drawn to video when doing research, it helps blend different learning styles better than just reading a bunch of text online.”
A concept that really struck her during her time at the Google Teacher Academy was what’s being referred to as “flip teaching.”

It’s when teachers film themselves explaining a concept, or assign an educational video and have the student watch it for homework so they’re actively thinking about the subject before it’s explored in class the following day.

Bobiash plans to implement more flip teaching at the start of her subject units because she finds students really benefit from the visual component.

“They’re not just being given text to memorize,” she says. “I would say they’re retaining the information better because they have to understand it.”

When that understanding is later demonstrated through class projects, Bobiash says her students often blow her away.

“They really get into what they want to know about and their ability to communicate that is phenomenal,” she says, adding that her students often produce videos she would have expected to see at a high-school level.

“It’s a big change in how education is being delivered,” she says of the video component. “It’s an actual shift in how we perceive education itself ... that more in-depth thinking is coming out in the curriculum more.”

Shelly Wright knows what Bobiash is talking about.

The high school teacher at Cornerstone Christian School in Moose Jaw, Sask., plans to use flip teaching in her classroom more extensively this year and says students respond remarkably well to video as part of their learning.

“My students really love it,” says Wright, adding that video really helps cater to multiple learning paces.

“You have kids who need to go over different pieces over and over, and for those kids, they can watch the video three or four times, they can stop it where it doesn’t make sense ... for students like that flip teaching is really powerful.”

This year, for the first time, her students will also have the option to hand in video labs in place of paper-based lab reports — the outlining of the hypothesis, process and evaluation will remain the same, but students can convey them via film if they want.

Students respond more enthusiastically to video for homework than reading a textbook, says Wright.

“You could have essentially world class experts teaching your kids, which is one of the exciting things about the flip classroom,” says the chemistry and biology teacher, adding that video also allows her to show students unstable experiments she wouldn’t be able to demonstrate in the classroom.

That’s not to say teachers are assigning videos for homework every night.

“You use it for very specific purposes and you don’t use it all the time,” Wright says. “Then you can take your time in class to do hands-on stuff so it actually makes sense to them.”

For Wright, video, when used in the right way, helps hone her students’ problem solving and negotiating skills as they grapple with concepts on their own.

“Video is the medium of the future,” she says. “With all the stuff there is today, there is the opportunity for school to be really exciting in ways that it hasn’t been in the past.”

The Flipped Classroom

Here is an interesting infographic that explains what a "Flipped Classroom" looks like. The statistics are American, but I think the message is just as relevant in a Canadian classroom as it would be south of the border. What do you think of the concept? Have you considered using it in your own classroom?


Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

YouTube Teacher Studio

I've arrived at Google!

Today, I had the honour of participating in the first ever YouTube Teacher Studio and can now proudly call myself a "YouTube Star Teacher".

Our sessions were held at the Google Offices in Kincaid. Just being inside the Google buildings was an experience in itself. Google treats their employees really well to ensure that they are the most productive they can be. As guests, we also got to experience some of their many perks. I can't go into much detail, but I do have to say that all the teachers were very envious of the cafeteria and the readily available snacks and beverages available throughout the day. We thought that we would be very productive educators if we could enjoy some of these many perks in our staff lounges.

During our day, our small group of 15 educators was treated to a number of presentations and  smaller workshops. We learned so much I can't share it all in one blog post! I know I will be posting more about what we learned in more detail as I start to apply and use what I learned in my practice.

New Tools from YouTube

To start our day, we were lucky enough to receive three wonderful gifts, a YouTube Flip HD pocket video camera, a mini tripod and a Bamboo tablet. All these tools will help us produce our future videos that we will be hosting on our channels on YouTube.

During our first session with history teacher James Sanders, we learned about how to use the power of  YouTube in the classroom to support instruction and engage students. We were saw numerous examples of how Sanders uses video to support his students and to differentiate instruction. One idea shared that particularly resonated with me was how to help students to dig deeper into concepts by providing them with YouTube playlists that support what they are learning to watch when they are done their assignments in class. Students who are done earlier than everyone else are often a challenge to keep engaged and busy in a classroom so I thought that this was a great idea to deepen their understanding and let them go further. I also really liked the idea of having a YouTube center where students watch videos made by the teacher that gives them the content they need and administers an assignment or quiz through the use of Google Forms. The other students are then working in a smaller group with the Teacher answering questions and getting further explanation and practice.

During our next session with chemistry teacher, Ramsey Musllam, we learned all about screencasting and the power of capturing direct instruction and assigning it as homework. This approach is know as flip teaching. Musllam demonstrated how to make screencasts of his explanations in chemistry and gave us examples of how he uses them in his classroom. His website, flipteaching.com has wonderful examples and resources anyone could use to try flip teaching in their classroom. This is an approach I plan to explore further in my classroom this year. We also got some hands on experience with our new Bamboo tablets and experimented with screencasting.

Our final presenter was Jim Sill who used to work in the TV and movie industry and is now a video production teacher. He showed us the basics of video production and gave us some simple techniques to ensure we are making quality videos. We also later had a hands on component where we got to practice what he had shown us and make short videos using our new Flip cameras.

The whole day was a fantastic experience to share with other educators how we are already using video in our classrooms, learn so new techniques and to brainstorm new ideas about how we will use video in the future. There is a lot more to come on this topic so please come back to read more about my adventures with YouTube. I'm so excited about the future possibilities of this new adventure.