EDpuzzle

If you ever like to show videos in your class, you may love this resource! It's called EdPuzzle.

With EDpuzzle, you can search through a variety of video streaming websites {or upload your own} and customize the video so it fits perfectly with your class. 

You'll need to sign up for an account before you can do any creating, but it's free and easy to do so. The kids don't need an account unless you'd like to track their views and answers, but EDpuzzle allows kids to sign up with their Edmodo account, which is perfect for those elementary kiddos that don't yet have an e-mail address. 

You can always search for already-made videos, but if you're looking to customize your own, just click the "create" button at the top of your screen {once you've logged in}. 

From there, search through a variety of video channels to find the perfect one to edit {or upload your own video}. 

Now it's time to edit. If you want to crop the video, you can do that first. 

Press the next button to have the microphone light up.

This is where you get to add voice-over to the video. This feature allows you to add your voice over the entire video. The way I understand it, you'd actually be talking while the video is playing, so if the video has useful narration or dialogue, this feature might actually have the opposite intended effect. However, you could voice-over a video with no talking, I suppose.

Click next when you're finished. {You can skip any of these steps by clicking "next" without making any changes.} You'll light up the speaker button.

This feature also utilizes your voice, but this time, you can only add comments. So the video will play until it reaches a comment you've inserted. The video will pause, play your comment, and then resume playing the video. I like this much better than the voice-over feature because it doesn't take anything away from the video. 

Click "next" to get to the quiz portion. 

You can add open ended questions, multiple choice questions, and/or comments anywhere you'd like. It works the same way the voice comments work, in that the video plays until it gets to a question, pauses, shows the question, and resumes only when the question has been answered. 

You can add more than 1 question in each spot if you like. 

When you're finished, you name your video and decide if you want to assign it to a class or not. Assigning it to a class means that all students who are registered for that class {signed up for the website and joined your class with a special code} will see the video as an assignment. You'd be able to see if/when the student watched the video and what answers he/she wrote on the quiz. If you don't assign the video, you can still play it in class, but you obviously won't have individual results. 

You can edit the video at any time, copy it to make something similar, delete, or embed it onto your website. Here's what it looks like embedded:

So far, I am loving EDpuzzle and can't wait to see how it works in my class. 

Smore

Smore is a free website that allows you to make colorful, online posters {You do have the option to print it when you're finished.}

Every year, during the organisms and environments unit in my 4th grade Science Lab class, I ask students to create an organism of their own with certain adaptations. It's a big ordeal, but I am always amazed and so impressed with the results.

I won't go into too many details about the project, but one of the requirements is to create a write-up for the science notebook that includes all of the necessary details. I give students a template, and they just fill it in with their information.

The template gets the job done, but it is rather boring to look at. I think this works against me when I go to explain the project to the students; I am always looking for a way to spice up the lessons!

Since finding Smore, I decided to use it to display my example. Below, I'll show you screenshots of the features of Smore while I'm working on my poster. At the bottom of this post, you'll get a chance to see my finished project.

Features

• Make up to 5 flyers totally free. {After that, it costs 1 credit to make 1 flyer, and the price looks steep for this frugal gal. Check out the screenshot of their current credit prices below:}

• Send up to 200 e-mails per month {links to your flyers}

• Create really pretty flyers either starting with a template or from scratch

The beauty about the template is that Smore has already inserted elements that are common for that type of flyer onto the template, so all you have to do is edit. 

• Choose from 5 different designs

• Choose from 12 different backgrounds -- all of which are pathetic, in my opinion. {If you want to upload your own, you have to pay. Of course.}

• Pick a color from 21 options

• Choose from 6 different fonts

• Add 11 different elements to your flyer. Drag and drop to put them exactly where you want them on your flyer. {The 12th element, payment is added if you purchase a paid plan from Smore.}

Hover over an element to see a plus sign to easily add an element right there on the flyer.

Also by hovering, you can click the "x" to delete an element or click the pencil icon to edit it.

• When you go to publish, you can change your settings to allow/disable comments, your name and profile information, social media sharing buttons, and related flyers. You can also change the privacy of your flyer and any of your profile information. 

• After publishing, you have the option to share via 5 social networking sites, embed it on a blog or other website, and to share via e-mail. 

• Also after publishing your flyer, you have the option to go back and edit it, preview how it will look to your audience members who receive the link, and print it {in standard quality -- not high-res -- and with a Smore ad on it}. You can also see how many people have viewed your flyer, although keep in mind that this does include you when you click the "preview" button. :) Finally, you have the official link so that you can put it in an e-mail on your own without using any of your e-mail credits. 

Cons

• New users get 5 credits when they sign up. Each flyer you make costs you 1 credit. If you pay for a subscription to Smore, you get new credits each month. But if you're just on a free plan, it looks like the only ways to earn more credits is to create a new account with a different e-mail address or to purchase new credits or a monthly subscription. I'm really annoyed about this. However, Smore does have an education plan for a steep discount {compared to their other paid plans, which range from $240/year to $1200/year!} -- read more about it in the next section.
• Limited background and template choices. Not a huge deal, but can be annoying if you're working on something special because, like I said, the background picture options are truly pathetic. 
• As far as I could figure out, the gallery has 3 pictures in it -- no more, no less. Logically, I'm thinking that number has got to be customizable, but I couldn't figure out how!

I've been trying to think of a work-around for the 5-credits thing because I rarely pay for online stuff {why pay when you can get it for free?}. You could just sign up for a new account with a different e-mail address after you hit your limit. OR I suppose you could just edit your existing flyers and download them as a picture file before re-using that template for the next flyer. That doesn't help if you want kids to use it, and it would be a pain, but I think that would be the best option if you're going to go the free route.

I don't normally advocate for paying for things since, you know, teachers aren't typically millionaires. :) However, the educator plan {$60/year} looks like a good deal if you're thinking of using Smore for classroom newsletters or with students during projects and assignments. Here are some of the cool features of the educator plan, in case you're thinking of purchasing it:

• Use your own custom backgrounds
• Make flyers private by default to protect students' privacy
• Send up to 5,000 e-mails monthly
• Get analytics for the e-mails you send out {read more about that by clicking here}. Let's say, for example, that you use Smore as a classroom newsletter website, and you send it in an e-mail to the parents each month. With this plan, Smore allows you to see who is opening your e-mails -- and who isn't -- and who clicks on any links inside them. 
• No ads on the flyer
• Ability to download a high-quality jpg {picture file} of your flyer so that it will print nicely, if you need it
• Make unlimited flyers

Uses for the Classroom

1. As you'll see below, you can use it as an example for any project or assignment. It's nice for those things because it's quick and easy to make, you can add media anywhere in the flyer, you can print it for kiddos who need a copy at their desk while they work,  and it will display nicely when projected on the Promethean. 
2. Piggybacking off of idea #1, you could use Smore to post assignments for a flipped classroom. For instance, if you created 1 flyer per lesson that you teach, you could embed picture examples or a teaching video into the flyer, step-by-step instructions about what you want students to do, etc. Then you could embed all the lessons in a unit or semester onto one class page. All you'd have to do after that is give students the link to that one class page, and they'd know the agenda for the entire class. 
3. Create your classroom newsletter with Smore. You can even utilize the flyer options for parents to subscribe to your mailing list and click a button to e-mail you easily. 
4. Have students use Smore for project creation or even a portfolio. Of course, you'd have to purchase the $60/year education plan, but you could always try to make a case for it to our generous PTOs. :) 

Example
I used Smore to make an example poster for our 4th grade adaptation project. I embedded the poster onto the instruction page of our class website, and I can display the poster on the Promethean during instruction and/or print it so that students have a copy at their table while they're working. Here's my finished poster:

 

SafeShare for YouTube

Our district allowed YouTube access to our employees last spring -- hooray!

But with this new freedom comes great responsibility. We know that YouTube has all kinds of advertisements floating around their site. We also know that there is a list of "related videos" on the sidebar that may or may not be appropriate for the kids to see. 

The good news is, there is a website that allows you to block all the other junk on YouTube and just show the video you want to share. It's called SafeShare.

Features

• Free. No need to sign up for an account.
• Insert the link to any YouTube video into the box above the "generate safe link" button. Click the green button to view the video with a black box around it -- which blocks all the extra {and sometimes inappropriate} stuff that YouTube normally has next to and around the video. 
• Crop the video to whichever starting and stopping points you prefer. 
• Share the cropped/safe video via e-mail or on social media. 
• The link to your safe video never expires, so you can put it on assignments and class websites without worry.

Example:

Take this video, for instance: 

When we watch it on my blog, we get rid of all the weird links that are featured on the side. Here's how the video's page looks when you watch it on YouTube:

Er... video suggestions #5 and 6 don't look like anything I'd like to share with my students. So let's put the link into the SafeShare.tv website and see what happens.

First, I put the link into the box, and then I click the big, green button. 

The bottom half of the picture above appears underneath the green button after you click it. 

Clicking on "customize video" gives you these options:

You can change the name of the video by editing the words in the top text box.

To change the "theme" of the video -- the background color of the box around your video, basically -- click on the black box. You see these options:

Not a lot of theme options, but the black works just fine for my class, so I always just leave it there. 

If you need to crop the video, click the word "full" and see a pop-up screen similar to this:

To set a starting point, play the video, and click "beginning" whenever you're at the part of the video you want to show first. 

To set an end time, just play the video and click "end" whenever you want. If you click "OK," these settings will be saved, and the video will be cropped appropriately in the SafeShare.tv link. 

Once you're satisfied, click "take me to the safe view."

I did crop this picture a little bit so you could see the smaller words on the bottom more easily, but rest assured that the rest of the screen is that dark grey/light black color -- no inappropriately suggested videos on the side anymore! 

By utilizing the links right underneath the video, you can download the video to your computer (with the appropriate crops still applied), save the video by bookmarking it on your computer, or share it in a plethora or ways:

You can even scroll down on that page to view more share options; I haven't even heard of some of those websites! 

The good news, though, is that if you choose to save the link anywhere -- in your e-mail, on your Symbaloo account, bookmarked in your browser, whatever -- you can always go back to that exact video, as long as the original poster on YouTube doesn't remove their content. 

SafeShare even has an app available in the iTunes store. On the app's description page, it shows these two pictures to give you a glimpse of how SafeShare works:

This could come in handy if you use an iPad or two for stations; you could rest assured that students are seeing only the content you want them to see. 

Anyway. That's how I can confidently show YouTube videos in my classroom. It's so much easier than downloading a video at home and transferring it through my Dropbox account to school every time I want to show something!