Cases+of+Innovative+Uses+of+Technology


 * Searching for Innovative Uses of Technology: **

** An Individual Project **

** By **

** Courtney Verellen **

** Case #1: United Streaming **

** 1. Reference Information: **

“In Missouri, discovery education //unitedstreaming// turns new technology into teacher’s friend.” Retrieved from [|http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/home/pdf/Camdenton_MO_Case_Study.pdf on February 6], 2011.

** 2. Brief Description of the Case: **

This site is from Discovery Education and has a case study from the Camdenton School District in Missouri. The librarian found that she was buying videos and teachers were not using them. Their school had current technology, so when she heard about United Streaming, she researched its relevance for teachers. After being trained on the technology, she saw that it correlated videos with the teachers’ state standards and introduced the idea of using this technology to the teachers.

** 3. The Purpose of the Innovation: **

United Streaming is a website created by Discovery Education that contains video and audio clips and movies for teachers to access in their classroom. It allows for teachers to still use differentiated instruction, because instead of taking one to two class periods to view a film, teachers can incorporate many different clips that could take a total of ten minutes and still discuss, lecture, take notes, do collaborative work, etc. Other features of this technology is that the video clips are critiqued so teachers can see how many stars this clip was given, also it breaks movies down into parts so that teachers can show shorter segments at a time. Also, quite a few of the videos offer teacher’s guides that can assist the teacher in teaching the information.

** 4. The Technology and Resources Involved: **

To use this technology, a teacher would need to have a computer and the Internet. Also, to show the videos to all students, a teacher would need to have access to some sort of projector that would be hooked up to his/her computer. As stated in the case study, the librarian knew that her school could use this because their school had current technology and Internet speeds that would handle showing these videos. Also, to fully use all of the videos, the school and/or teacher would have to subscribe which includes a price for the year of use.

** 5. What Prior Skills and Knowledge are Required of the Students: **

For the case of United Streaming, the students would not need any prior knowledge, that would be something the teacher would have to invest time in. The students aren’t asked to do anything specifically besides with some videos there are questions to answer before and after the video is presented. The teacher would be the one who would need to be trained on how to use United Streaming effectively. The site offered the teachers in Missouri a preview account for them to check out and use the site. “Those teachers who used the preview account were excited about getting a paid subscription, and were instrumental in encouraging others to use the service.” (“In Missouri” website) Afterwards, the librarians received School Kits that they used to inform and train all of their teachers.

** 6. What are Students Asked to Accomplish Exactly: **

Once again, the students are not the ones who are creating something, but the teachers. The responsibility falls on the teachers to try and incorporate a variety within their daily lesson plans. Incorporating some of these videos can help students understand more clearly what the teacher is trying to explain. Also, it benefits by hitting more of the different learning styles of the students; especially those students who are visual learners (which most of this generation are).

** 7. What are the Procedures of the Project: **

Another case study I found had a teacher explaining just how to use United Streaming for teachers who had not used it previously. The first step would be for teachers to access the preview account so that they could learn more about the offerings United Streaming has for teachers. A thorough understanding of just what the site can do, can help teachers use it in their classrooms. Basically, once a subscription is purchased, a teacher logs in, and then is brought to the site’s basic search engine. A teacher has to type in some keywords on what content they are searching and then click the “Go” button. The search also has the ability to be advanced so that a teacher could look for more specific content, a full video, or find something appropriate for a certain grade level. Once a video is chosen from the list of results, a new screen will appear that allows a teacher to show the video (if it is a full video) or break it into shorter clips. When a teacher is ready to play, the option then is to “Play” the video or stream it right off of the Internet or “Download” the clip so that it can be stored on a teacher’s computer.

** 8. What are the Advantages of the Project: **

The biggest advantage the case study discusses is how easy United Streaming is to use. Teachers simply have to log on and they could find visuals for certain content areas. The article also stated how using United Streaming gave teachers, “the impetus they need to overcome their reluctance to master new in classroom technology.” Teachers were able to find more and more uses in their classrooms. The school’s proof of the site being useful is in the numbers. “The rapid growth in users from zero at the beginning of the school year to 134 registered users with 904 log-ins in three months has demonstrated how dramatically these materials worked.” (“In Missouri” website) In another study by Ray Blair, he discussed how he uses United Streaming and embeds the clips right into his PowerPoint presentations. He goes on to discuss other advantages like the “Teacher Center” that allows teachers to use services like a “Writing Prompt Builder” and a “Calendar” option. Two of his particular favorites are the “Quiz Builder” and the “Assignment Builder”. “The quiz builder is a very versatile tool that is ready today to allow for a paperless evaluation given through the United Streaming service.” (Blair, 2009)

** 9. What are the Disadvantages of the Project: **

The biggest disadvantage to the site is the fact that it is a website. The case study discussed how there were “technical difficulties” in using the site. Most of these however were not problems of the site, but more problems with school’s individual servers, like if a server was down, a teacher could not access the clips. The technology that a school has would be the biggest hindrances. If a teacher did not have access to show the site to the students it would also be ineffective. Lastly, the cost; with school districts being cut financially, some districts may not be able to cover the cost of a subscription or a teacher may have to subscribe by him/herself.

** 10. What Types of Effective Instructional Strategies are Included: **

In the Missouri case study, the article discussed how an English class that was studying the play __The Crucible__ used United Streaming to watch clips about the Salem Witchcraft trials “that made their encounter with the play more vivid.” (“In Missouri” website) They also used the site with students who were suspended to keep up on assignments. The other article discussed how the teacher felt that using this site has truly helped his teaching. “It has helped me create more seamless, integrated lecture/discussion sections in class and has helped dramatically reduced the number of times I have to prod my students to return from wherever and get back on task.” (Blair, 2009)

** 11. What are the Possibilities that the Innovation Can be Transferred to other Teachers, Subject Content, and Different School Settings: **

The basis of the case study was that the librarian found out about this site and wanted the teachers to be able to use it in their own classrooms. The site is available to all teachers, regardless of what they teach. There is content for almost every subject matter. While having a subscription, the school can give the opportunity to all teachers to use this site. Teachers would most likely have to be trained on how to use it first, but then the possibilities are endless on how they would like to incorporate it within their classroom. Overall, the purpose of the whole site and technology is for teachers of all grades and content areas to be able to use it in their classrooms.

** 12. Other Resources: **

Blair, R. (2009). “Using film clips in the classroom: United streaming.” Retrieved from [|http://thwt.org/unitedstreaming.html on February 6], 2011.

Sachteleban, M. (2008, March 3). “United streaming: media resources you need in your classroom.” Retrieved from [] on February 6, 2011.

** Case #2: YouTube  ** ** 1. Reference Information:  ** Dyck, B. (2007, May 15). “Using YouTube in the classroom.” Retrieved from [|http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/dyck016.shtml on February 6], 2011 ** 2. Brief Description of the Case:  ** This article discusses how teachers can use YouTube effectively in their classrooms. It discusses the purposes of YouTube and how the effect on students depends on what the teacher expects the students to do after watching or using YouTube. Also, the article discusses ways to get around YouTube being blocked, since in a lot of schools, it is not allowed to be viewed. ** 3. The Purpose of the Innovation:  ** YouTube is a website that was created to allow anyone to post a video clip to a free site so that anyone could view this video. In the years since YouTube has emerged, it has been started to be incorporated into the education world. Many teachers use YouTube for demonstrations, science labs, historical video clips, video clips from movies or television shows, etc. Some teachers have even had students use YouTube to create their own videos in regards to projects students have to do for classes. ** 4. The Technology and Resources Involved:  ** To use this technology, a teacher would need to have a computer and the Internet. Also, to show the videos to all students, a teacher would need to have access to some sort of projector that would be hooked up to his/her computer. Also, since YouTube is not just educationally based, some district’s servers have YouTube blocked, so a teacher could not just access any video to use without using some kind of proxy or downloading clips at home and using a different viewer to watch them. ** 5. What Prior Skills and Knowledge are Required of the Students:  ** For the case of YouTube, the students would not need any prior knowledge, that would be something the teacher would have to invest time in. The students aren’t asked to do anything specifically besides what the teacher decides to incorporate, like in asking students to answer questions based off of what they saw. The teacher would be the one who would need to be trained on how to use YouTube effectively. In another article, Chris O’Neal wrote tips on how teachers could use YouTube and gave a basic outlay of what they could do to find clips that were worthwhile for their students. “Children love to produce, and teaching them the skills to make good productions takes advantage of their interest and provides them with a wealth of skills.” (O’Neal, 2006). If a teacher has students using YouTube for a project, it would be beneficial to go through and show them how to use the site by creating an account with log-in and password and then show them how to upload their videos. ** 6. What are Students Asked to Accomplish Exactly:  ** The students are not accomplishing in this case study as the teachers are. The teachers are effectively using YouTube in their classroom to show students particular videos that pertain to what they are studying at this point in class. The teacher’s role is to go through YouTube and pick out clips that are effective and show the students something that they have described, or something that they have a hard time explaining so it would be easier to view. ** 7. What are the Procedures of the Project:  ** First, a teacher would have to create an account with YouTube to view the videos. Then, after logging into the site, they are brought to the site’s search engine where they could type in the keywords of the content they are looking for. After seeing a list of results, they could choose to play a certain video clip. To use YouTube, the article discusses the precautions teachers have to take first…as in viewing the videos before showing to students to make sure of their accuracy and whether they are appropriate. For some of the examples in the study, students were creating projects themselves to post to YouTube. In this case, the student would have to create the account and upload their video. This does not happen instantaneously because there is a period before it is able to be viewed by others where it is viewed for content. Afterwards, the student could then provide the teacher with the address of their video clip. ** 8. What are the Advantages of the Project:  ** The biggest advantage the case study discusses is how YouTube is so popular with students that they are usually more than willing to watch what the teacher is showing them. In this case, students are somewhat more familiar with the technology then the teacher can be. Another advantage is that it can offer students a visual of what they are currently learning. One of the case studies had a science teacher from a low-income school who couldn’t afford a lot of the chemicals needed for a particular lab. Through YouTube he was able to show what the lab would look like to the students, by having them watch the video clip. Also, each of the videos is able to be critiqued by others and have comments posted to. Overall, there were different advantages to each of the teachers’ highlighted. For the students who had to post their videos to YouTube, they gained the advantage of being able to use the technology and were given a creative way to showcase their projects. Another advantage mentioned in the case study was how YouTube has an “off-shoot” called TeacherTube that only allows educational material that teachers could view to use in their classrooms as well. ** 9. What are the Disadvantages of the Project:  ** The biggest disadvantage the article discusses is that YouTube can be “completely unfiltered and only mildly moderated.” (O’Neal, 2006) A teacher must view the content of videos before showing them to students to make sure that all parts are appropriate. Another disadvantage the article discusses is the validity of some of the videos. Since anyone can post a video, the information in the video does not have to be 100% accurate. He encourages teachers to talk to students about what is appropriate of what they are viewing. “Are the videos truly what they say they are? Might some of these clips violate copyright? What constitutes a "good" video?” (O’Neal, 2006) Another disadvantage the case study discussed is how many schools (because of the unfiltered content) have decided to block YouTube from viewing. The author provided alternatives for teachers to use, “Many teachers download YouTube videos at home using KeepVid or Oyoom -- sites that allow users to download FLV (flash video) files to their computers.” (Dyck, 2007) This allows the teacher to still show the videos to students to get around the filters. ** 10. What Types of Effective Instructional Strategies are Included:  ** In the case study the author discusses five different examples of teachers using YouTube effectively in their classroom. One site had students doing a webquest where they had to watch different video clips from WWII and then respond to what they watched afterwards. Another provided a video on deforestation and how the science teacher used it in his classroom. Lastly, there was the example of students who posted their own videos to their English class projects. ** 11. What are the Possibilities that the Innovation Can be Transferred to other Teachers, Subject Content, and Different School Settings:  ** All teachers could use YouTube effectively in their classrooms in some way; you do not have to teach a core subject to see its benefits. YouTube offers videos on all kinds of contents, so any teacher could benefit from it. Also, teachers can create projects where the students have to create a video and upload it to YouTube as well, so students can use this technology and from the research, most already have. The biggest issue is whether a school has access to the site in the first place. Also, a teacher would have to have the capability to show the video to his/her students by having the Internet and a projector to display it for the whole class or access to the computer lab so students could watch on their own. ** 12. Other Resources:  ** O’Neal, C. (2006, Sept. 25). “Online interactivity for educators: a teacher’s tour of   YouTube.” Retrieved from [|http://www.edutopia.org/teachers-tour-you-tube on February 6], 2011 Dyck, B. (2007, May 1). “Have you tried YouTube?” Retrieved from [] on February 6, 2011