Primary Access: Projects with Primary Sources

The University of Virginia has established a free site for teachers to use where students can create movies and storyboards with primary sources.  It's called Primary Access. 

One of the reasons I really like this site is the fact that a teacher can create classes and assign students activities to do with the plethora of primary sources available on the site. After students make their assignment, the teacher can view it on the primary access site.  Everything is in one place.  It's so easy to do.

When one creates an account, the directions for adding classes and students are simplified and detailed.  Making assignments are also easy to do.

I can see this being used in a large variety of courses.  Social Studies, Language Arts, Science and Foreign Language definitely, but even some other courses could find value with this site.

I decided that this is going to be one of the tip sheets I share with colleagues this school year because many of them can use this in their classroom.  I think it will be a great PBL tool.

Simple ways to caption: Movie Maker

When it comes to accessibility, captioning is by far one of the best ways to make a flipped classroom an accessible classroom to many learners.   Microsoft Movie Maker has the capability of placing captions over video clips to help the visual learner.   I have located a tutorial on Microsoft's website that explains the process of using Movie Maker's title/ credit component. You merely place the credit over the video.  You can see the tutorial here.

I have used Movie Maker often for putting together tutorials for students and staff. It is an easy program to use and the fact that it is free makes it even better. It is available on every PC computer and if it doesn't appear, it can be downloaded to your Windows PC.  It isn't compatible with an IOs system.

There are several good tutorials for Movie Maker in general on YouTube as well.  It's worth looking into.