Tech EDGE - Teaching World Language with Technology: Pixton

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05/03/2023 Added

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[00:00:00.299](upbeat music plays)
[00:00:05.190]So welcome to Teaching World Language With Technology
[00:00:09.120]And I'm Chrystal Liu from Nebraska
[00:00:11.910]Department of Education. I'm the World Language Specialist
[00:00:15.240]And I'm Guy Trainin.
[00:00:16.110]I'm a professor of education at the University
[00:00:18.240]of Nebraska Lincoln, and today I'm really excited to learn
[00:00:21.900]about a new app and website.
[00:00:25.290]Pixton. I've never heard about this
[00:00:27.660]so Chrystal is actually going to walk me through it.
[00:00:31.530]Yeah. Pixton is actually a platform that allows teachers
[00:00:35.730]and students to make comic books.
[00:00:38.100]And besides that,
[00:00:40.980]it allows people to create their own avatar.
[00:00:44.430]Not only one, multiple.
[00:00:46.170]You can change your facial expressions, your outfit,
[00:00:49.680]and your gestures.
[00:00:52.170]And so that's why my students really enjoyed it.
[00:00:55.560]They create different avatars for different courses
[00:00:58.500]and on different days when they are feel happy,
[00:01:01.110]they have their happy avatar on their assignment.
[00:01:04.260]If they are sad, they put on a sad face.
[00:01:07.920]And so I'm creating an avatar
[00:01:09.930]and you can see some of the options.
[00:01:11.460]I actually chose an animal, so I'm an elephant today
[00:01:14.910]and I'm actually choosing to put my avatar
[00:01:19.380]in a wheelchair and see what that looks like.
[00:01:23.370]I need to choose an outfit.
[00:01:26.880]That's a hard decision, but I think this would work well.
[00:01:32.970]And...
[00:01:36.060]a bit tall.
[00:01:37.110]I'm going to be a bit tall.
[00:01:39.660]Okay? And...
[00:01:44.190]that's a good expression.
[00:01:47.040]And so you can see that you've can fairly quickly
[00:01:49.470]I did this now in 30 seconds, you can also
[00:01:52.050]see kids spending a lot of time creating avatars.
[00:01:55.500]One of the things that I like most is
[00:01:58.050]that you can create more than one.
[00:02:00.960]So we can tell them, let's create one quickly
[00:02:03.060]and later you can go back
[00:02:04.590]and create one a little bit more slowly.
[00:02:07.800]And the other thing I like
[00:02:09.060]and we haven't mentioned this yet
[00:02:10.740]is you can log in with your Google.
[00:02:14.520]And so any school that uses Google,
[00:02:18.690]it allows kids to log in without remembering new passwords
[00:02:22.020]and all of that, which is always, always, always helpful.
[00:02:25.650]Alright, so I've got an unnamed
[00:02:27.900]and this is the, I will name it.
[00:02:30.720]Obviously it's me.
[00:02:33.360]All right.
[00:02:34.560]And obviously it does not have to be you.
[00:02:36.810]You can create a full cast of characters.
[00:02:38.910]Okay, so I have a character.
[00:02:40.110]What happens next?
[00:02:41.400]You can make a comic.
[00:02:43.290]All right, so let's see.
[00:02:45.420]So I'm going to my comics.
[00:02:47.580]It's very easy to navigate.
[00:02:49.260]I love that.
[00:02:50.220]And I'm saying, okay, create now.
[00:02:52.740]Actually, I don't know that I have an idea
[00:02:54.900]so I will browse for an idea.
[00:02:57.210]Let's see if I can find an interesting writing prompt.
[00:03:03.150]My sibling.
[00:03:05.370]How many siblings do you have?
[00:03:06.930]I have one sister.
[00:03:08.640]But, I can imagine, I mean, this is about imagination.
[00:03:12.750]Yeah, I'm imagining that I have at least three.
[00:03:15.480]So I'm going to remix this comic,
[00:03:21.990]and that means I can play with the characters,
[00:03:24.480]add things, take away things.
[00:03:26.970]So I'm changing.
[00:03:29.130]This happens inside someone's brain.
[00:03:31.920]All right, so what do I do next?
[00:03:34.470]This, we'll call this me and my sister.
[00:03:43.110]All right, so this is, we are starting to have
[00:03:46.680]episodes here.
[00:03:47.940]How do I add myself into it?
[00:03:51.630]So how do I add my character?
[00:03:54.570]Because I've got my character.
[00:03:59.160]Mm.
[00:04:00.420]Characters and add a person
[00:04:05.100]and I can take any person and add them in.
[00:04:07.410]That's great.
[00:04:08.280]I love cowboy hats.
[00:04:09.450]We will use this one.
[00:04:14.460]So now I've added a character into this...
[00:04:20.310]comic.
[00:04:21.143]All right, so I've got characters and what do I do now?
[00:04:25.350]And you can create conversation,
[00:04:28.830]add bubbles and everything.
[00:04:30.510]All right, so I go to edit.
[00:04:33.330]And I will add some word bubbles.
[00:04:35.250]So words again, very logical.
[00:04:38.430]And you can see that there's also captions.
[00:04:40.410]But I will create a caption.
[00:04:42.570]And so, okay, I'll say change words and it'll be,
[00:04:47.100]oh I'll have a thought bubble.
[00:04:48.690]I will add a thought bubble
[00:04:50.457]and I will write, of course, I love my sibling.
[00:04:55.110]I have only one. And I will change this to sister.
[00:05:00.240]All right and you can see that there's actually, again,
[00:05:03.210]if we're thinking about world language,
[00:05:05.100]there are other characters that you can use.
[00:05:08.070]There are accents.
[00:05:08.940]So you do not have to stick only
[00:05:11.220]with standard Roman alphabet as a way to write.
[00:05:16.500]And what languages does, can you use in this app?
[00:05:20.280]Students can use if they're learning
[00:05:22.080]French, German, Chinese, they can all use it, and Arabic.
[00:05:26.460]Yes. So here I've added the text
[00:05:31.560]and I put it back and add words for this character.
[00:05:37.950]And this will be,
[00:05:42.457]"Hi,
[00:05:44.391]I am here."
[00:05:48.720]All right, so I've added this to the text.
[00:05:52.297]"Hi, I am here."
[00:05:53.880]I love the fact
[00:05:54.713]that you can actually use the recording of voices.
[00:06:00.060]So that allows this, that takes this
[00:06:02.610]from a writing exercise to potentially a speaking exercise.
[00:06:06.450]All right, and so let's do
[00:06:12.030]another bubble and say,
[00:06:16.357]"Why are you here?"
[00:06:18.570]He has this face that says
[00:06:21.810]I don't know what you're doing here.
[00:06:23.220]So eh, I will add this.
[00:06:29.730]And you can see how quickly or fairly quickly
[00:06:33.900]you can really start writing in the language.
[00:06:37.860]What I love about comics is it's motivating, it's fun.
[00:06:42.330]Yeah. Right?
[00:06:43.163]I'm having fun while I'm doing this.
[00:06:44.220]I might actually play with this a little bit later.
[00:06:46.890]And it allows for really practicing conversations.
[00:06:51.630]Yes.
[00:06:52.463]And also we can download students' books.
[00:06:57.510]Once your students join your class,
[00:07:01.740]all their work will show up in your class.
[00:07:04.440]Yes. And if you have an educator account
[00:07:07.530]as a teacher, you can get all of that.
[00:07:10.530]But you can also skip that whole download thing
[00:07:13.830]and just print it out and then you can print it to a pdf.
[00:07:16.890]Yes. And share it that way.
[00:07:18.750]Yes. Actually I always use a free account.
[00:07:22.680]But if you want your students to have a background
[00:07:26.760]of different themes, for example, Cinco de Mayo is coming
[00:07:30.450]and you want some specific background so students can talk
[00:07:34.170]about how they celebrate Cinco de Mayo
[00:07:36.600]and what activities they want
[00:07:38.130]and some other cultural elements.
[00:07:40.710]You can buy a packet and all your students
[00:07:45.210]have access to it.
[00:07:46.200]They can use it in their comic books.
[00:07:49.110]So we talked about my characters, we talked
[00:07:51.150]about creating a comics, which is really the creating
[00:07:54.900]of the comics is the heart of the use you can make
[00:08:00.000]from this in the classroom with kids.
[00:08:03.600]So the next thing that you told me
[00:08:06.000]about and I haven't seen yet, is the resources tab.
[00:08:08.940]So we're gonna go there
[00:08:10.410]and what can you see in the resource tab?
[00:08:13.380]There are lesson ideas actually for
[00:08:15.060]different subjects.
[00:08:16.020]So if you click it and on the right side you can see,
[00:08:22.200]you can see grade level and.
[00:08:23.770]Okay, so let's say I want to
[00:08:25.830]know what's available for seventh grade
[00:08:28.380]And objectives.
[00:08:29.910]And objectives.
[00:08:31.470]So I want to do something descriptive, all right.
[00:08:35.133]Yes. And then you can scroll down
[00:08:37.050]and at the bottom, you can find what language.
[00:08:39.990]All right, so I am looking
[00:08:42.180]You just missed it.
[00:08:44.010]It's right there. World language.
[00:08:45.720]Oh, on the left hand side
[00:08:47.670]I need to listen to directions a little bit better.
[00:08:50.220]All right, so here is a simple exercise in world language,
[00:08:56.400]places in the house.
[00:08:57.690]And now you practice vocabulary.
[00:08:59.790]And this is done with a little bit of French I can see.
[00:09:04.590]And what I love about this is it does give you the standards
[00:09:09.240]at least the actual standards.
[00:09:11.100]And it does give you also the amount of time
[00:09:13.710]that something like that might take.
[00:09:15.240]So you get a sense of how it is.
[00:09:17.700]I love the ability to have pre-made lessons
[00:09:22.290]that are standards aligned.
[00:09:24.240]Because we are always wondering
[00:09:26.040]are we doing this just for fun and other people can too?
[00:09:28.980]Or is it standards aligned?
[00:09:30.540]So this is very much standards aligned.
[00:09:32.610]It can mesh with anything else you're doing
[00:09:34.650]in this case around the house.
[00:09:36.420]So you can see the example,
[00:09:38.280]but you can do it again in any language.
[00:09:40.020]This is just happens to be in French.
[00:09:43.350]Yeah. This is really cool
[00:09:44.580]because sometimes we need ideas.
[00:09:47.160]You know, we don't have time to really create something
[00:09:50.430]from scratch.
[00:09:51.263]And this is a perfect example you can adapt
[00:09:53.850]to your own classroom.
[00:09:55.290]Yes. And you can see as I'm changing the options,
[00:09:59.550]it changes what kind of lessons are available there.
[00:10:03.930]Or sometimes there aren't.
[00:10:05.280]And by the way, there is a world language as a subject
[00:10:08.670]but actually you can use ELA because language is language.
[00:10:12.450]You can use ELA and just match the level of expectation
[00:10:16.350]from the language.
[00:10:17.790]And so you borrow that lesson and you play with it
[00:10:20.220]a little bit to make sure it matches the level
[00:10:22.770]that your students are at.
[00:10:24.240]But eh, for example, eh
[00:10:27.150]practicing roots is something that you can do in many
[00:10:30.090]at least romance languages.
[00:10:32.760]So eh, it is not completely divorced from that
[00:10:36.420]or using denotation and connotation
[00:10:39.180]or cause and effect in other languages.
[00:10:41.340]That works across languages.
[00:10:42.630]Yes. For sure.
[00:10:43.950]That's true. We adapt a lot of lessons actually
[00:10:46.170]from ELLs, (indistinct) courses and also ELA.
[00:10:52.620]All right.
[00:10:53.453]So we talked about the lesson ideas and what we're really
[00:10:56.520]saying is there's a lot in here.
[00:10:58.620]Go and explore, have fun.
[00:11:00.390]You don't have to pay to get access to this.
[00:11:03.300]There are paid tiers to this.
[00:11:06.600]If you want to have a classroom of a certain size
[00:11:08.970]and different sets of resources.
[00:11:11.460]But there's a lot that's available just for free.
[00:11:14.400]And the last thing we wanted to talk about is...?
[00:11:18.690]We can actually create class photo
[00:11:21.030]or staff photo with this all the avatars we have created.
[00:11:26.430]That really helps me.
[00:11:27.810]You know, we all remember
[00:11:29.220]like a couple of years ago, we have COVID started.
[00:11:34.080]So all of a sudden the class moved online
[00:11:38.130]and all the kids felt isolated
[00:11:41.040]and they are not even connected even
[00:11:43.170]though they are in the same classroom, in the same class.
[00:11:46.740]So that's why I use it to create,
[00:11:49.260]use Pixton to create a class photo
[00:11:52.230]so the kids can create their own avatar and, but they're,
[00:11:56.700]we can take a picture.
[00:11:58.590]We are all in one class.
[00:12:00.750]I use this photo every time when I'm, you know,
[00:12:06.030]for each Chinese class.
[00:12:08.490]So they always see, oh, okay, I belong to this.
[00:12:11.400]I can see my avatar among all those other kids.
[00:12:14.940]Yeah, I'm one of them kind of giving them
[00:12:17.130]a sense of belonging.
[00:12:19.440]So this is what happens.
[00:12:21.090]You get a background and then
[00:12:25.920]you can add, and you can see
[00:12:27.930]that the format here is a Google Classroom banner,
[00:12:30.180]which is great. It's a-
[00:12:31.530]And you can change it as well if you want.
[00:12:33.347]I'm going to do a fairytale one
[00:12:35.910]because that's where I want to be.
[00:12:38.160]And then how do you add staff?
[00:12:40.620]The link. Oh, can you go back?
[00:12:42.720]The link is right there.
[00:12:44.973]The link is...
[00:12:45.850]Yeah, if you open your staff photo.
[00:12:48.810]Yeah.
[00:12:50.490]And the link is right there.
[00:12:53.430]So any people get their link can add themselves
[00:12:58.260]as a staff member in your photo.
[00:13:00.630]Okay. So the link would be staff invite link.
[00:13:06.720]And that can create a link that we can all then use
[00:13:12.420]and add our own picture to the picture with the rest
[00:13:17.400]for everybody else.
[00:13:18.540]And again, you can do that with staff, but you can do that
[00:13:20.700]with your class.
[00:13:21.533]So every student in your class is part of that photo.
[00:13:24.420]And you can put it on your Google classroom
[00:13:26.160]if you have a Google classroom or on any website
[00:13:28.800]that you use.
[00:13:29.730]And it represents everybody the way
[00:13:31.680]they want to be represented.
[00:13:33.480]And it creates a sense of belonging.
[00:13:36.900]And we talked about this, Chrystal was talking about how
[00:13:40.320]especially during COVID, when we were learning online
[00:13:43.530]and students were feeling disconnected as did we.
[00:13:47.160]Yeah, I'm in your class now.
[00:13:49.069]All right.
[00:13:52.413]I am not seeing you.
[00:13:53.910]Maybe I need to refresh.
[00:13:59.610]So this is the Pixton team.
[00:14:02.010]I'm not sure why jump to that, but you get the sense.
[00:14:05.490]All right.
[00:14:06.323]So we're inviting you to actually join our photo
[00:14:09.780]if you want to be part
[00:14:11.130]of our world language with technology.
[00:14:14.430]And we will love to have you be part of our staff photo
[00:14:19.380]and we'll see you next time on
[00:14:21.390]Teaching World Language with Technology.
[00:14:23.700]Thank you.
[00:14:24.966](calm music continues)

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Tech EDGE - Teaching World Language with Technology: Pixton

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