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Free Technology for Teachers: 12 Alternatives to Google Image Search - Comparison Chart

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Free Technology for Teachers: 12 Alternatives to Google Image Search - Comparison Chart

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Unless they're introduced to other options, Google Images tends to be the default image search tool for students and adults. Google Images is convenient, but it's not the best place for students to find images that are in the public domain or to images that have been labeled with a Creative Commons license. That's why I made the following chart that features 12 alternatives to Google Image search. In the chart you'll find links to each alternative and notes about considerations for classroom use. You can download the chart as a PDF through the Box.com widget that is embedded below.

Click here if you cannot see the embedded chart.

I use the sources listed in the chart whenever I need a free image or video clip to use in a slideshow or video of my own. I'll be sharing more about that in Thursday's webinar, 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom.

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12 Alternatives to Google Image Search - Comparison Chart

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Unless they're introduced to other options, Google Images tends to be the default image search tool for students and adults. Google Images is convenient, but it's not the best place for students to find images that are in the public domain or to images that have been labeled with a Creative Commons license.

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Let’s have our students speak Spanish together! Collaborate via Flipgrid – Maris Hawkins

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Let’s have our students speak Spanish together! Collaborate via Flipgrid – Maris Hawkins

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Let's have our students speak Spanish together! Collaborate via Flipgrid

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I have really been enjoying incorporating Flipgrid into my classes. In the back of my mind, I have been wanting to set up my classroom with other classes. But, it keeps getting pushed back on my to do list. Then, Melanie sent out a tweet to connect with her classes!

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My current favorite Chrome extensions – Maris Hawkins

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My current favorite Chrome extensions – Maris Hawkins

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I have had this post on my to do list for a year probably. I love Chrome extensions. And I love Google. I listen to the Google Teacher Tribe podcast. But at times, I feel like there is even MOR...

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Tech for 2018: 10 things worth trying this year | Ditch That Textbook

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Tech for 2018: 10 things worth trying this year | Ditch That Textbook

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The joy of teaching in the 21st century is that there's so much available for teachers and students to use.

Sadly, that's also the frightening, crippling thing about it.

There's so much out there. And tomorrow, there will be more.

One of the biggest concerns I hear from teachers, other than lack of time, is how scattered and all over the place the tech options are. If only there were one place to find the best stuff ...

I have 10 great tech tools worth trying this year below in this post. But there's a bigger, more all-encompassing resource you ought to check out.

The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018

It's called "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018," written by Jennifer Gonzalez of the fantastic Cult of Pedagogy blog and podcast.

She hears it. I hear it.

You need an updated handbook of the best tech tools.

It needs to be searchable and categorized so you can find what you need.

You need to know how the tool works, what the best features are, and what it's similar to.

It needs to be fast, something you can refer to quickly.

That's what Jennifer has created in "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018." It's a compilation of more than 200 tools sorted into more than 40 categories. It's covered in clickable links. There's a glossary of tech terms in the back.
In fact, in this post, I've pulled 10 tools I want to get more acquainted with in 2018 from the book and summarized them in the post below.
As soon as it was available, I purchased my own copy of "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018."

Yep, I said "purchased." It costs $25, and it's worth every penny. No longer are all of the tools scattered across social media, sticky notes on your desk and random documents in your Google Drive.

They're all in one place.

If you'd like to look at some of the tools for free, check out the rest of this blog post. I've pulled some interesting ones directly from the guide.

​ But if you'd like your copy of "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018," click on this link go to get it.

You'll be taken to a "course" on Jennifer's Teachable site. (It's not really a course ... just a way to deliver you the PDF digital handbook.)

Pay for the guide on that site. You'll be given login credentials to her "course."

In the "course," click on the guide and download the PDF of it. You can keep copies for yourself anywhere you'd like.

Although your copy is licensed for your own personal use, Jennifer offers great discounts for schools, districts and other groups!

NOTE: I'm offering this to you as an affiliate. This means that I will -- at no additional cost to you -- be compensated if you purchase by clicking on the links in this post. I only offer products that I believe in, and I know you'll be satisfied with what you're getting!
10 tech tools worth trying in 2018

After getting my copy of "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018" and checking it out, here are 10 tools I want to learn more about in 2018. (I found some of these on Jennifer's episode on the "Cult of Pedagogy" podcast about "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018".)

Some of these may be new to you, which is always great and fun and exciting. Some you may be familiar with. But don't dismiss the familiar ones because you've heard of them! Often, the tried and true options are still some of the highest quality ones.

Price: Free (5 lessons) and paid (unlimited: $99/year)

Sutori lets users create "stories," which are timeline-style lessons. The free version lets you combine text and images in your timeline stories, which can be about the topic of the day is in your class. The paid version lets you incorporate audio, video, quizzes, headings and embedded content. You can even copy pre-created stories and modify them to fit your needs.

Classroom uses: Student-created timelines and step-by-step explainers, teacher-created digital lessons
More: 10 ways to create interactive multimedia in any grade/subject
Price: Free (Flipgrid One) and paid (Flipgrid Classroom: $65/year)

Have you heard of this one before? I'm guessing there's a good chance. I was hooked on it after a Twitter chat where we used it to discuss what got us excited about learning.

Videos on the internet are expected to surge in popularity in the next few years. Social media like Snapchat, Instagram and even Facebook have capitalized on video (especially live video).

There's a good chance your students are very comfortable in front of a camera. Flipgrid takes advantage of that for the sake of learning.

With Flipgrid, students respond to questions or prompts by recording short video clips. They're then able to view each other's video clips. (With paid Flipgrid Classroom, they can reply directly to each other's videos. Plus, teachers have extra class management options.)

Classroom uses: Spoken responses to teacher prompts, book talks, parent/community engagement
MORE: Catch the Flipgrid Fever! 15+ ways to use Flipgrid in your class
Want to try the paid Flipgrid Classroom for FREE for 45 days? Sign up for it and use code "MATTMILLER". No credit card necessary, and when your trial is up, you revert back to the free version automatically.

Price: Free

In Ditch That Homework, the book Alice Keeler and I co-authored, Alice wrote: "The best thing I can do is sit with a kid." That side by side, "we're both in this together" atmosphere is huge in learning.

In some ways, Kaizena is the digital equivalent to that in writing. It lets you provide feedback by adding voice comments to documents students have created. We speak so much faster than we can type, so this can save time. Plus, when students can hear your voice, there's an added personal touch. Kaizena also lets you add pre-written mini-lessons, and you can create groups for your class to keep everything organized.

Classroom uses: Writing feedback, collaborative work, classroom hub
MORE: Kaizena's three-part video tutorial
Price: Free (for five lessons) and paid (unlimited use: $40/year)

With InsertLearning, the entire web is your classroom and lesson plan book, so to speak. Start with any page on the web and add elements to it, including highlighting, text notes, discussions and questions for students to answer. Share that customized version of the webpage with students with a code or through Google Classroom. Grade student work from within InsertLearning.

Classroom uses: formative assessment, current events, collaborative discussion
MORE: InsertLearning as LOTS of great video tutorials on its YouTube channel.
5. Sway (sway.com)

Price: Free with a Microsoft account

Sway lives "somewhere between PowerPoint, Prezi and Adobe Spark," writes Jennifer Gonzalez in "The Teachers' Guide to Tech 2018." Start from scratch or create a template. Add text, images, videos, forms and other content. The design is flexible, and the result is gorgeous. It's pretty easy to create a Sway, and it could be just the change of pace your students are looking for.

Classroom uses: presenting research, replacing posters, gathering information visually

MORE: Here's an example Sway on how to create Sways.

Price: Free

There's a ton you can do when you use G Suite (Google Apps) and images together. The problem: doing anything with those images. G Suite doesn't offer a really great image editor.

That's where Pixlr can come in. It has a few image editing apps on the web that can help the beginner all the way to the expert. Pixlr Editor is a complex image editor -- almost on par with Adobe Photoshop. Pixlr Express is a simple, quick-edit tool. Pixlr O Matic lets users add filters, overlays and more to images.

It's all free and it all runs on the web. It's a great companion to any tool you'll use images on.

Classroom uses: Editing images to add to documents, slide presentations, websites, videos and more
MORE: A continuous feed of photos people have edited using Pixlr products.
Price: Free

If you've ever edited student writing, you've probably corrected the same errors over and over and over again. Bloated sentences. Passive voice. Unclear words.

Hemingway App is your automated first line of defense toward those similar problems. Students write in a document. When done, they copy/paste their work into Hemingway App (a site on the web). Hemingway App instantly analyzes their writing and provides suggestions to common errors. When students find and correct errors before their work even hits your desk, everybody wins.

Classroom uses: Editing student writing (essays, research reports, websites, scripts, etc.)
MORE: Just go over to the Hemingway App page and add some text to see how it works.
(For ages 13+)

Price: Free

Anchor is a quick and pretty easy way to record audio and publish it so others can listen to it. It's kind of like creating a simple podcast with your phone. I've heard it described as "Instagram for audio."

How it works: After installing the mobile app, users can create a channel. They can then record short audio segments (5 minutes or less) to their channel. Add back-to-back-to-back segments for longer ideas. Users can also have guests "call in" with for audio interviews on their channel. Audio segments stay on the channel for 24 hours, where other users can leave audio feedback on the channel. Users can also bundle their audio segments together as podcast episodes and push them out to iTunes.

Compared to traditional podcasting, Anchor puts easy audio publishing in the hands of older students -- or younger students on a class podcast under the supervision of a teacher.

Classroom uses: Sharing ideas learned in class with a large audience, creating a show based on student passion, reporting what's happening in class to parents/community
MORE: A YouTube tutorial on how Anchor.fm works
Price: Free (1o-minute video length, 50 videos per month max) and paid ($2 per user per month)

These last two tools may be pretty familiar to you. They've been around for a while, and I've written about them both.

That doesn't mean you should dismiss them. I love how Steve Dembo put it on a recent episode of Vicki Davis's 10 Minute Teacher podcast: Many of the tools that have been around for a while are polished, are less likely to disappear and have evolved a lot since their inception. There's a reason they're still around.

Screencastify fits this billing. It's a screen recorder that runs in an extension for the Google Chrome web browser. Once installed, click the extension and start recording. It will even record your microphone and/or webcam. When finished, it saves the recording to Google Drive. This is phenomenal, because it means that turning in a Screencastify video is just as quick and easy for students as turning in a document.

Classroom uses: Video reports, explainer videos, how-to tutorials
MORE: 14 ways to create great classroom video with Screencastify
Price: Free and paid (teacher account with student progress tracker, multimedia flashcards, etc.: $34.99/year)

The flashcard has been a staple for studying forever. Just because it isn't flashy (ha ... see what I did there???) and sexy doesn't mean it won't work.

Using flashcards still has great proven brain benefits. It's an excellent way to use retrieval practice, a proven cognitive science technique for remembering. Plus, Quizlet helps you mix up your study with quizzes, games and more. Features have grown over time, and the Quizlet Live collaborative review game is one of the best out there.

Classroom uses: Studying, reviewing material
MORE: Learn about Quizlet Live and other formative assessment tools in this post
Ready to check out "The Teacher's Guide to Tech 2018"?

Head over to this page to purchase it now. Download it on your school computer, your computer at home, on your smartphone -- anywhere you want!
What other tools are you interested in learning more about this year? Let us know in a comment below! For notifications of new Ditch That Textbook content and helpful links: Interested in having Matt present at your event or school? Contact us by e-mail! Matt is scheduled to present at the following upcoming events:

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Tech for 2018: 10 things worth trying this year

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The joy of teaching in the 21st century is that there's so much available for teachers and students to use. Sadly, that's also the frightening, crippling thing about it. There's so much out there. And tomorrow, there will be more.

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Guest post: Google en la clase de español…¡Guau! – Maris Hawkins

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Guest post: Google en la clase de español…¡Guau! – Maris Hawkins

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Today, I am so excited to bring you my first guest post! This year, I have been learning so much about Google, but Kristine Keefe is an expert. She takes what many teachers are doing and applies it to foreign language classrooms. I already have many ideas based on this post, and I hope that this will inspire you like it has inspired me!
Of course, I love Google Forms, Docs, Sheets & Maps and use them frequently. But my favorite G-Suite tools are Google Drawings and Google Slides. I use them constantly for a variety of different purposes. My students have often commented that they used something from G-Suite that they learned in my class in their other classes. The priority in my classroom is language acquisition, but all the better if they can learn something they can apply in other classes as well!
Google Drawings
There are so many ways to use what I like to think of as a hidden gem of G-Suite - Google Drawings. If you are in Drive, you click "New" and then "More". It is under Google Forms. Some of my favorite uses of Google Drawings are interactive posters, digital manipulatives, infographics, timelines and graphic organizers.

My personal favorite is #BookSnaps (check out Tara Martin's awesome blog for a detailed description of #BookSnaps) . Before going any further, if you don't already have the bitmoji chrome extension , stop reading this post for a minute and add it to your Chrome! #BookSnaps are an idea that came from Tara Martin , who is an innovative educator from Kansas. She had the brilliant idea to harness the enthusiasm many of our students have for Snapchat into a 21st century form of annotation. We read novels from Fluency Matters in my ninth grade classes (intermediate low proficiency goal). Creating #BookSnaps using Google Drawings is an easy way for students to react to what they are reading. They are also something that they can complete quickly in class or at home. Tara has created a great video explanation on YouTube that you can check out. Here are some examples of student created #BookSnaps ( & ) for the novel .

Graphic organizers are another great option that are easily created with Google Drawings. To make things even simpler, there are many templates for graphic organizers available free that you can start with and then modify to meet your needs. Some of my favorites come from and Matt Miller (of Ditch that Textbook) .

Digital Manipulatives are simple to create by adding text boxes or images to a Google Drawing. They make great clues for digital breakout games ( here is my blog post on creating your own digital breakout games - I also have shared some games I have created for Spanish class on my blog). The trick to these is knowing the Google hack to "Force a copy" - you get the shareable link from the share box (make sure you allow others to have access), copy the URL into the ominbox of a new tab. Then, change where it says 'edit?usp=sharing' at the end of the link to 'copy'. This forces anyone with the link to make a copy. You can also share digital manipulatives via Google Classroom. In addition to clues for digital breakout games, they are great for sequencing stories, events in from a novel or images from a Movie Talk. A nice feature of Drawings is that if you use the 'Arrange' tab on the menu bar, you can group images and text together which makes them moveable without separating them. One way to make it easy to grade/review if you are using these as any type of assessment (formative or summative) is to change the background color of each phrase/sentence. Then you can simply see if students have the correct order (ex: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, orange).

Infographics, timelines and classroom decor can easily be created with Google Drawings. It works much like the rest of G-Suite, so if you are comfortable in Slides, Drawings has many of the same capabilities. The possibilities are really endless. The only limit is your creativity.

Google Slides
I sometimes have students create #BookSnaps via a collaborative Google Slide Deck. I share a blank slide deck on Google Classroom as an assignment, allowing all students access to edit. Each student takes a slide to create their own #BookSnap. Afterwards, I like to have students comment on the #BookSnaps created by their classmates. I usually have them use the speaker notes for this. This adds to the conversation, inside and outside of class. If you have any concerns about students intentionally or unintentionally editing the work of their classmates, remind them that you can use version history to track everything they did.

Also, in Google Slides, don't forget to check out the "Explore" tool (that thing on the bottom left that looks a little like a cross). It is an easy way to insert images and search the web without ever leaving your slide deck.

Another creative way to utilize Google Slides is to make interactive slideshows. You probably know that you can add links to your slides to external websites. But, Google also gives you the ability to link to other slides within a slide deck. You can create interactive quizzes and Jeopardy games this way. However, the most fun I have with this feature is creating "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories. Think back to those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that you read as a kid. Students can create their own stories and have a variety of different endings. They can also write several different endings to a class novel or story. The steps to creating a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story using Google Slides are:

Create a slide with the title/cover to your story

The next slide could tell a portion of the story and offer two or more options to choose how the story continues.

Each option is linked to different slides in the presentation.

Then, you can branch off to different slides to tell alternate versions of the story.

An organizer is helpful for planning a Choose Your Own Adventure story on Slides. Here is a link to a simple organizer and one that is more complex . The first time I tried having my students create their choose your own adventure stories was during state testing. My students had so much fun (and it was a low stress activity to do in groups after testing all morning). Here is one of their stories. For these to work, make sure you view them in "Present" mode and click on the links, do not just advance the slides like you normally would.

Hopefully you found something that you could use in your language class!
Kristine Keefe is a high school Spanish teacher in Edison, NJ since 2001. She has experience teaching level 1 through Advanced Placement Language & Culture. Kristine is passionate about getting her students to love learning Spanish and to continue their study of the language beyond high school. Kristine is also always looking for new ways to integrate technology in her classroom (and to make her life easier). She is a Google for Education Certified Trainer and has given workshops in her district, at technology and learning conferences, helped organize edcampWL for language teachers in NJ and will be presenting this spring at the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey Annual Conference. You can find her on Twitter (@kkeefe_hassan) and on her blog La profe alta.

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Guest post: Google en la clase de español...¡Guau!

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Today, I am so excited to bring you my first guest post! This year, I have been learning so much about Google, but Kristine Keefe is an expert. She takes what many teachers are doing and applies it to foreign language classrooms. I already have many ideas based on this post, and I hope that...

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Free Images & Free stock photos - PxHere

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Free Images & Free stock photos - PxHere

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Free Images & Free stock photos - PxHere

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Over 1155429 high quality photos. Free for commercial use. No attribution required. Do whatever you want (CC0).

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Kahoot! | Learning Games | Make Learning Awesome!

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Kahoot! | Learning Games | Make Learning Awesome!

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Create Easy Infographics, Reports, Presentations | Piktochart

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Create Easy Infographics, Reports, Presentations | Piktochart

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Infographic Maker Trusted By 11 Million Users - Piktochart

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With Piktochart AI, you can create stunning infographics, reports, presentations, and more in seconds. No design experience needed. Start for free.

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Pear Deck is on a mission to help teachers create powerful learning moments for every student, every day - using the tools you already know and love.

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Thinking About Syncing? Technology Resources for the World Language Classroom - Catherine Ousselin

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Thinking About Syncing? Technology Resources for the World Language Classroom - Catherine Ousselin

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Thinking About Syncing? Technology Resources for the World Language Classroom - Catherine Ousselin

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Creating interactive input by combining resources – Kristy Placido

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Creating interactive input by combining resources – Kristy Placido

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If your students are like mine (normal American teens), they are probably a little antsy right now. We are halfway through the semester, a week away from Thanksgiving, they are still hyped up on Halloween sugar, and apparently the honeymoon phase is LONG GONE. Add to the mix I am heading to ACTFL later this week and my favorite and most reliable sub is not available due to a long-term gig.

What's a comprehensible-input aficionada to do? I can't just stop giving them input because they can't shut up right now or because I need to be gone for two days. There has to be a way.

This year, I have tried out a whole bunch of cool online technology resources. I am enjoying all of them, and having students do activities on their Chromebooks a couple of days per week has really freed me up to drink some tea and relax while I dream up new and cool ways to provide input. The key for making these resources work for me and my students is finding ways to make them input-rich. I've stumbled upon an idea this year that is really making me happy, and I hope you will like it too.

First, I start with PowerPoint (Google Slides is also great). I create a slideshow of something we are currently working on. It could be a story we made up together as a class, a story about a current event, a description of a short film, or a description of a chapter we are reading in a novel.

If it is a film short, music video, or feature movie, I simply take screen shots on my computer and import them into my slideshow.

If it is a current event, I find photos online to add to my slideshow.

If it is a story we invented or a novel, my next go-to is a wonderful online resource called StoryBoardThat.com. With a free account, you can create 2 storyboards per month. (With a paid account, you can assign your students to create storyboards which is also really cool, but we can talk about that another time.) For my purposes, 2 per month is just fine. With this resource, I created characters from the novel Noches misteriosas en Granada. I create scenes for them, and then I screen shot each scene and put it into my slideshow. I originally started using StoryboardThat last year and I was having my students create the storyboards. Why couldn't you recruit some students to make them for you all the time? Once I have screen-shotted a scene, I just keep using the same little characters over and over and creating new scenes on the same storyboard. That way, I never need more than my allotted two per month.

I can add additional details to my scene right in PowerPoint. For example, I found an image of paella for the table, pictures of rabbits, edited them in PowerPoint (PowerPoint allows you to "remove background" on an imported image which is great for this!), added the thought bubble, etc.

The next thing I do is make my whole slideshow into a video. I use the Google add-on Screencastify. I start up Screencastify, set it to record my desktop, and then I simply show the slideshow in full screen as a presentation and I talk about it. Screencastify records anything I show on my screen and the microphone in my laptop picks up my voice.

I don't READ the novel as I record (you also need to be careful here that you are respecting copyright. This may be considered creating a derivative work, and could be copyright infringement, especially if it is something others could freely view online. If you are unsure, send an e-mail to the publisher!). I am discussing the novel just as I would review over it with the students verbally the following day after reading a chapter. For some texts, I add the text to the slide. Your call. Sometimes I like them just to listen, and other times I like them to also see the words.

Finally, I download my Screencastify video and upload that to EdPuzzle (also free!). I edit the video in EdPuzzle, using the scissors tool to crop away anything I don't want at the beginning or end.

I use the audio notes tool to insert a verbal question that I record myself.

El Libro de la Vida original slideshow by Arianne Dowd is available here.
My modified version of Libro de la Vida slideshow for novices:

Parte 1:
PDF: El libro de vida part 1
PPT: El libro de vida part 1

Parte2:
PDF: El libro de vida part 2
PPT: El libro de vida part 2

Parte 3:
PowerPoint: El libro de vida part 3

Immediately after I record the verbal question, I hit the "Quizzes" tool (looks like a green circle with a question mark). I type "Answer the question you just heard." Then, I can add 2 or more possible answers for students to select from. You can even add photos to your answers!

Here are two examples of EdPuzzles I have made using some of these techniques:
El libro de la vida slideshow Clip from Gran Hotel
I have been using EdPuzzle quite a bit this year in place of other types of quizzes. EdPuzzle grades my students for me, and even tells me if they watched the entire video or not. I highly recommend you experiment with some of these tools, especially if you will be absent or if you are simply looking for a different and new way of presenting, reviewing, or assessing!

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Creating interactive input by combining resources

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If your students are like mine (normal American teens), they are probably a little antsy right now. We are halfway through the semester, a week away from Thanksgiving, they are still hyped up on Halloween sugar, and apparently the honeymoon phase is LONG GONE. Add to the mix I am heading to ACTFL later this...

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Turning 17 seconds into 15 minutes – Language Makerspace

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Turning 17 seconds into 15 minutes – Language Makerspace

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A couple of weeks ago I happened across some absolutely adorable videos on YouTube that I wanted to use with my Novice Lows because the videos all started with a short introduction. Video can be a powerful tool in the language classroom for communication. Alternately, it can easily become background noise for students if it isn't made comprehensible. I used the video option in Google Slides to add video directly to my slide deck and the video options allowed me to maximize the languages and images for my class. Here, the tools I used to turn 17 seconds into 15 minutes of awesome.

(Google Slides has wildly simple and effective videos options that can be used for a whole class activity as long as the teacher has access to YouTube. If students have access to YouTube you can also use these tools for video that students would interact with on their own.)

Find a video...

You can search directly in Google Slides for a video, but that is #nofun so I suggest finding the video in YouTube and then copy and pasting that video into the Insert video box. Click on the video and then Select. The video will automatically be inserted into your slide.

And know what you want to do with it.

Why are we watching this video? How will students' language be different after watching this video? What's the point?

I thought about putting this first, but I think with the YouTube rabbit hole sometimes you know you want a video for a vague reason and then when you find the right video your mind goes crazy with ideas for using it. Let's say they should happen concurrently. Here I'm using a bunch of videos from "Détecteur de mensonges" as input and interpretive listening for the second and third hour of French class. I want students to listen to what these peoples names are and we are also going to talk about them using the (limited) vocabulary they have at the end of three hours and to introduce some new vocabulary (man, old, young). The first 20ish seconds of these videos will be comprehensible. The rest will be noise, so I am going to crop them out.

Set the start/stop time

Google Slides video options allow you to set the time the videos run. First insert the video into your slide.

Next, select the video and choose video options and set the time you want the video to start and stop. In this example I am only using the first 17 seconds.

Faux-Cropping

You can faux-crop any video using the start/stop time option. Found a 4 min video where you don't want to show the middle 2 minutes? No problem! Make a slide and import the video. Set the run time for 0:00 to 1:00. Copy that slide and in the copy set the run time for 3:00-4:00. Voilà! Video crop done. When you present your slide deck and click from one slide to the next the video will automatically start after the crop.

Mute Video

In my lesson after the students watched the video several times and after we talked about the "characters", they "role-played" the conversation themselves. One person played the role of the little girl and the other the détective. I wanted them to do this in time with the video because that seemed more fun than just role-playing on their own. I used the same 17 seconds of the video and muted the sound.

The "Mini" Lesson

My lesson involved several slides (because I do everything in slides.) I didn't just start off with the video. First, I used screenshots of the "characters" to talk about them using the limited vocabulary of the students. I introduced the new words: mignonne, jeune, homme and we talked about the characters using that.

I added three guiding questions for the students as they were watching the video. Giving the questions helps students focus on what they should be listening for in the video. We'd been practicing this all class.

Next, I used a slide of all of the "characters" to ask questions about them. This was at the end of the second hour of French, so the questions were pretty simple.

For me, this is what I think of as "disguised" input. We had talked over and over about il s'appelle, elle s'appelle and I wanted them to hear that again in a different context and not about us.

The whole thing took about 15 minutes from beginning to end.

Resources

You can click here to access the slides I used. Someone asked me over the summer about how I do all of the stuff I do, so for this lesson I made a "workflow." Literally, I just recorded myself making it and it includes the rational and shows the tools I used. I hope it's useful.

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A couple of weeks ago I happened across some absolutely adorable videos on YouTube that I wanted to use with my Novice Lows because the videos all started with a short introduction. Video can be a powerful tool in the language classroom for communication.