Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Tips for Creating a Board in Discovery Education

I've had access for Discovery Education for years through my district and on and off I go through phases where I will find a video and share it with the entire class.  I've loved using it has a visual for our content learning or a way to front load some work we are doing together.  Earlier this year I was talking with my college roommate on the phone and she started rattling off all these things I could do using Discovery Education.  My head started spinning because I knew none of this.  As with new learning, I felt a bit overwhelmed and wanted to spend some - one on one time with her to see and learn more. 

I recently had this opportunity while traveling south for spring break and stopped in NC to visit her.  She is currently in a position helping teachers embed technology into their days and encouraging them to try new things.  She's a natural teacher.  I loved hearing her share how she guided kindergarteners through using a Discovery Education board for research.  You can read about Wanda in a Discovery Education Community Member highlight post.  She showed me the feature Board Builder and her example for front loading a new classroom read aloud titled, Stone Fox.  You can search it in Discovery Education, if you have an account and see her work.

                                         


Think of board builder as virtual bulletin board.  You can gather and post images, videos, files, and documents in one place for students to access, view, and work with.  We are starting my new favorite book - Book Uncle and Me and I thought my students could benefit from some background knowledge about the setting and the concept of a lending library.  As I created this board on Monday, Wanda was able to answer some of my help text messages.  I learned a few things on my own and became very determined to create something for my students to use.  I had to do some trial and error attempts and search within the internet for some help. I thought I would share some initial tips with anyone who wants to explore Discovery Education and the board builder feature.  Creating a board  and personalizing it is so easy and fun.  A bit of artistic expression for creators.  

In general under the Professional Learning tab, you can find how to video clips under the Lead section.  These were super helpful and easy to follow.  These are some things I learned during my first attempt at creating a board for students to use.

1.  You can find lots of images and videos within Discovery Education.  

2.  You can use an image or video or image from an outside sources as long as they are saved on your device. It got a bit tricky for me here, make sure you visit the original site to save the photo and not from a search page of images.

3. You can click the edit button once to get a menu of activities you can use to change and create a box of information you want to insert.  

4.  On my Macbook Air I used an app, ClipGrab to save videos from Youtube and place within my board.

5.  A text box is the perfect spot to place any type of direction, an action you want your students to do after interacting with the board.  I had my students post a comment within a Schoology discussion.  

I thought I would share just five tips so here's a plus one bonus tip -

You can set the settings for sharing your board.  I suggest you save it to the DE Community so others can use it as a mentor for creating their own.  Once you select the DE Community you can select the permission level.  You can let other members view your board and possibly save a copy and edit for their own use.  How fun is it to have help from other users to enhance your own work with students.

Look for Book Uncle and Me in Discovery Education to see my final project.

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