Have you seen Zigazoo?

 

Have you seen the new app, Zigazoo? Zak Ringelstein, co-founder of Zigazoo describes it as a "Tik-Tok for kids."  I discovered this app early this summer. I discovered it right about the time I was getting disheartened with all of the tech tools that went against so much of what I know about children and their learning.  When I saw Zigazoo, I was so happy to see something that is so grounded in what we know about children and their learning.  This app is brilliant--it shows all that technology can be for kids. It invites playfulness, and creativity and joy.  You can read more here, here, and here. 

Zigazoo is a Video Sharing App that gives kids of all ages (mostly preschool and elementary although it seems fun for adults too!) a daily challenge.  The challenge could be anything from "What's the Weather?" to "Can you make a treasure map?" to "Can you make a hopscotch design?" to "Can you read to a stuffed animal?"  to "What math problems can you make with 5 things around home?" And kids respond with a video.  Every single day, a new question for kids to answer.

I love that the questions are interesting to so many ages. I also love how open-ended they are and how many different ways kids can respond. Kids can work on these alone or with families. They can spend 2 minutes or 200 minutes.  Everyone can approach things in a way that makes sense for them.  For families looking for fun things to do, this seems perfect. 

There are also huge education benefits. The topics cover pretty much everything from music to science to literacy. The app builds oral language skills as kids work to think through and explain.  It invites creativity and confidence. Kids in charge and sharing their own brilliance every single day.  And it highlights the power of technology. Zigazoo has created a safe online environment for kids to use technology to share learning and to learn from the ideas of others.  So many lessons about digital literacy and being a digital citizen in one fabulous app.

Zigazoo has grown incredibly since I discovered it.  They have projects organized in a few different ways and they are adding more exciting components. I see so many possibilities for families and classrooms and it is a piece of pure joy during this pandemic. It seems like the perfect invitation to use this time at home well and to create fun!

With remote learning (or not), I see huge possibilities for Zigazoo in the classroom.  Remember when I started the Solve It Your Way site? I have always believed that when we throw out a question for kids, they have the chance to show their brilliance in ways we could never imagine. I see Zigazoo as an app that does this--invites kids of all ages to show and celebrate their brilliance, to share their thinking and to find joy in learning. 

Zigazoo has also worked on safety and moderation and you can read more about this on their safety page.  

I had a chance to talk with Zak Ringelstein, Zigazoo's developer last week and I asked him a few questions. 

What is your hope for families and classrooms?

During such a challenging time, our first hope is that Zigazoo's projects and video creation tools simply make life a little less stressful by removing some of the planning burden. Our other hope is that families and classrooms can find joy in the learning process together by doing Zigazoo projects that engage them in the stuff that matters. Life is already stressful enough and we feel like students should be exploring and creating and dreaming and growing in their self-confidence with peers instead of doing meaningless busywork quietly over a video call. Zigazoo is built in the philosophy of project-based learning, where children have ownership over their own learning and aren't just regurgitating facts.

Which have been the fan favorites of daily challenge?

Students like hands-on activities in all subjects, but I have really enjoyed watching students fall in love with science! They've loved exploding ziplock bags with chemical reactions and making slime in their kitchen and doing "sink-or-float" challenges and making raisins dance in seltzer water. Of course, students also like to sing and dance and do yoga and find ways to express their emotions through social-emotional learning activities.

What features other than the Daily Challenge are on the app or coming soon?

Starting next week, teachers can create their own private communities where they can assign Zigazoo projects to students. In early September, we have invited museums, zoos, puppet acts, children's musicians, authors, and more to create their own channels on Zigazoo! Teachers will be able to use their media to jumpstart projects with their students.

We know that our students know how to use technology for entertainment. And, as I've said for years, I think it is our responsibility, as schools and families, to help our students see the power of digital tools for learning. Zigazoo is definitely a learning app that is also VERY entertaining. Zigazoo is a free app with so many possibilities for families and classrooms. Check it out!

Austin Kleon on the Importance of Attribution

"If you share the work of others, it’s your duty to make sure that the creators of that work get proper credit. Crediting work in our copy-and-paste age of reblogs and retweets can seem like a futile effort, but it’s worth it, and it’s the right thing to do. You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care."

"All of this raises a question: What if you want to share something and you don’t know where it came from or who made it? The answer: Don’t share things you can’t properly credit. Find the right credit, or don’t share."

Austin Kleon is the author of Show Your Work!, Steal Like an Artist, and Newspaper Blackout. The above quotes are from an older blog post of his (Credit is Always Due) that he shared via his weekly newsletter.

Thank you for this important reminder, Mr. Kleon. Some believe that students should be able to use media that is not licensed for reuse in projects that never leave the classroom. But I believe that we need to teach students the importance of using only that media which is licensed for reuse (plus giving proper attribution to the source) EVERY time they borrow from others. 

I want my students to be the MAKERS, not just the USERS, and as such, they need to use unto others' creations as they hope others will use unto the things they make and share in the classroom, in the school setting, and in the wide world.

Digital Writing: The First Six Weeks of School

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a few days of the Ohio Innovative Learning Environments Conference.  Every time I attend this conference, I feel so so lucky to have this opportunity so close to home. It is such an amazing week of brilliant speakers and lots of learning.

During the first day of the conference, I had the opportunity to hear Will Richardson. I've read his work and learned from his blog, articles, videos, etc. for years. I was so excited to finally get the chance to hear him in person. I ended up going to every one of his sessions so I pretty much spent the full day listening to him.  He helped me connect some things about digital writing workshop.   I have been thinking for years about what it means to be a writer today. And I struggle with how to make things work for elementary students. I believe strongly that any digital writing experiences need to be embedded in the things I believe about writing workshop in general.

Will Richardson helped me think through the whole connected piece of digital writing. He said several things that stuck with me about the networking that is so much a part of the digital writing experience. He helped me see that so much of life as a digital writer is in the behaviors and stances we have as writers, the expectation for participation, for changing our thinking, for conversation.  I know this about myself as a writer but I have struggled with making this work for kids.

One of the struggles of elementary age students is the safety and policy issues around social networking and young children. After hearing Will Richardson speak, I revisited the NCTE definition of 21st Century Literacies as well as the framework. He referred to this document in all of his sessions and listening to his thoughts around the document helped me solidify my own thoughts:

I thought about what had been missing in my thinking about digital writing in the classroom and I realized it was these connected behaviors of writers because of the tools available.  I realized that just as in any writing workshop, living your life as a writer is key. Building in routines to support children as they grow as writers and learn behaviors of writers is key. I believe our children are already digital writers in their lives outside of school and I want to authentically give them opportunities to bring that digital writing life to school too.

So, I thought through the routines outside of the possible genre or format studies we will do. I asked myself to think about the ways in which we as a class would build our digital footprint, how we would think about purpose and audience, and which routines I could put into place during the first six weeks of school to make that happen. I came up with a four-part plan that would give kids opportunities for many kinds of writing.  Below is the visual of the four types of writing that will hopefully become routine in our classroom:

And below is my thinking about the role of each of the four components:  

4 Components of Digital Literacy in 4th Grade Classroom

Public Relations--District Website/Teacher Webpage

This site will be the “face” of the classroom.  It will house weekly to biweekly posts with general news. Links to newsletters, information, other sites that we are using as a class will be part of this District Page. This will be the formal piece that I, as the teacher, create on my own, just updating community on what is happening.

Individual Opportunities--Social Networking/Connected Learning in Protected Environment

District ELGG

ELGG will give the 4th graders the opportunity to write in a networked environment that is safe and secure.  We will utilize individual blogs as a way to communicate information. Blog focus will be on personal interests with a focus on writer’s craft and audience. We will also utilize the Social Bookmarking tools, as readers/researchers, and the “wire” as a way to understand the difference between quick messages and actual posts. Use of ELGG will help 4th graders learn what it is to be networked, how to make sure they are creating quality work, and to think about purpose and audience.

Collaborative Communication--Dublin Wikispaces (internal district users)

As a way to create collaboratively, we will use the Dublin Wikispaces to share our story as learners.  This wikispaces wlll be focused on classroom learning and will grow as the year goes on. It will serve as parent/family communication as well as a way to review and reflect on learning.  We will build the site in a shared way during the first few weeks of school and then will move forward to everyone in the classroom adding content about our learning.  Because this is an internal site, we will make the pages “members only” so that we can be honest about learning, include photos and student work.  

Global Audience--Shared Experience/Teacher-Only (Moderated) Account

To help the students understand the importance of a more global audience, a class blog will be created to share our classroom with the world.  I will create a Blogspot blog in my name and set it up to be moderated by me. As the only person able to publish, I will oversee the blog, moderate comments, etc.  As a class, we will be able to learn about what is okay to be “out in the world” by having this as an option for sharing.   I will also create a class account for a Google Reader, Google Doc (For survey creation, etc.), a Twitter account (for news to families), and a Skype account (for expert visits when needed).  As the teacher, I will be the sole moderator of all of these accounts.  These tools will allow us to connect to other classrooms, authors, blogs, etc. in a safe way.

By having this variety of tools, students will not only grow as readers and writers, but they will learn technology skills as well as important online safety behaviors. Audience, purpose, and safety will be part of many discussions as we learn to be readers and writers who connect with others.

**The first 4-6 weeks will be dedicated to learning to use these tools and type of writing required for each of these tools well. Much of the experience early in the year will be modeled and shared so that students understand the purpose and role of each tool.  

I am hopeful that these routines will help me to teach the qualities of good writing with traditional and digital tools.  Below are the slides I created to share with some teachers at a district  conference this week.  It was a good time for me to think through how I can think through the first six weeks of school in a way that builds behaviors that will carry us through the year.  You can see Will Richardson's quotes that stuck with me spread throughout the slides. I would love feedback or thoughts on the plan and I'd love to hear other people's routines for launching a year of digital writing.

Digital Writing: First 6 Weeks from Franki22

Poetry Friday -- Digital Citizenship

No poem this week. Sorry. I've got other issues on my mind. Please read this post as a PSA, not a rant or a finger-pointing accusation. 

Earlier this week, I received this email from J. Patrick Lewis (used here with his permission):

Dear Mary Lee,
Could you please answer a question for me? Suppose you wanted to post a poem on your blog that was written by say, Philip Larkin or Elizabeth Bishop (or any famous poet not in the public domain). Could you do so without securing permission and paying for rights? I see such poems all over the internet, and I always wonder if the poet's permission to post was secured.

Here's my answer (not exactly as I wrote it -- I edited it a bit for this post):

The short answer to that question is that no, a person should never publish a poem on one's own blog/site that's not in the public domain unless permission has been secured (and is included in the post).

The true answer is the one you've discovered for yourself -- people do it all the time.

The grey space between the short answer and the true answer is the digital citizenship that many Poetry Friday bloggers try to teach by example. If we can't get permission for the poem, we post part of it and link to the site where we found it. Or we link to the book it is from, so that our reproduction of the poem is a form of advertising for the author. The same is true for the images we use on our blog. I mostly use my own photos, but when either of us use a picture that's not our own, we take it from Flickr Creative Commons and cite attribution. We do use book cover images without asking for permission, but always in the context of a positive review of the book and a link for purchase as our form of attribution.

Thank you for your question. It pulled my mission as a teacher into sharper focus than ever: it is so essential, so necessary, so mandatory that at school, children are given the opportunity to live the creative life -- reading, writing, making stuff (actual and digital) and sharing their own creations. If they never live on the creative side (even just playing at it, practicing it at school), they will never understand the importance of securing permissions. Because they will fail to see why it matters until they have THEIR stuff out there and they want others not to steal/misuse THEIR creation.

Kate Messner wrote on this topic yesterday in a post that's a little closer to home -- how to share content from other blogs: "About Copyright and Sharing Content".  Her bottom line is a good one to keep in mind:

"When in doubt, don’t copy and paste. Link to the original content on the site where it was originally published."

Thank you for your patience with this departure from the usual light fare of Poetry Friday. Go check out the other offerings on the Poetry Friday Roundup at A Teaching Life.