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My First Periscope Broadcast…Newbie Insights for Teachers New to Periscope

The past year has been explosive for the live streaming movement. UStream, Meerkat, Periscope–and now even Facebook and YouTube–are examples of live streaming platforms that allow ordinary people to broadcast live to the world. Of course, a quick glance can reveal a lot of boring, uneventful, ridiculous, and even shady streams. I had heard about Periscope in the past few months, but never checked it out until recently.

Our 7th grade students recently visited a local sea turtle hospital as part of a two-week community service project. They held a “turtle toy (supply) drive,” did a beach clean-up, and made a video for an iBook that will eventually be published on iTunes. I was so excited about this project (collaborative effort of science teacher Stacy O’Connell and media specialist Danielle Wishka as part of her ADE Project) that, even though I had no experience–and not a lot of confidence being on camera–I decided to broadcast the field trip on Periscope.  I did a couple of practice scopes (I’m so glad I did!!!) and went for it.

                       

Here are a few things that I have learned in these first few broadcasts:

• Check your school’s policy regarding social media and photographing students. I obtained permission in advance and took steps to protect our students’ privacy.Do a test run! In mine, I actually forgot to add a title…
• Type out your title on another app (such as Notes), then copy & paste onto the title entry bar. (It’s easy to make a mistake if you type your title on the fly.)
• Use hashtags to attract the appropriate audience for your scope.
• Use emojis in your title to draw attention (but overkill can be annoying). I went with:🐢☀️🐢 7th Grade Community Service Project at South Florida #SeaTurtle Hospital #PeriscopeEDU #PeriscopeTeachers 🐢☀️🐢
• You may want to pre-tweet your broadcast.
• Don’t forget to tweet out your broadcast (see below).
• Limit the length of your broadcast. Mine was way too long-90 min; however, I knew in advance that people wouldn’t be viewing the entire broadcast.
• Settings–there are 4 icons control the privacy of your broadcast:
• Location (circled in blue in diagram, rt.): Think carefully about this one, especially if your scope involves students. When selected, your broadcast will appear as a red dot on the map and anyone on Periscope can see your location and comment as you broadcast.
• Private broadcast (green circle): allows you to limit your broadcast to specific people. This is good for testing things out!
• Limit chat (pink circle): If you select, only people you follow on Periscope will be allowed to chat (add comments and give you hearts).
• Twitter icon (yellow circle): This will automatically tweet out your broadcast.
• I chose not to broadcast my location for this scope for security purposes and because I didn’t want random people (aka trolls) to view or comment on my scope. Not broadcasting your location means your audience will be limited to those who follow you on Periscope and Twitter (and anyone with whom they share).

It was an incredible experience to broadcast our students in action making a difference for these sea turtles! The biggest thing I gained from the process is to discover how much I have to learn! The experience left me excited to explore more ways to showcase the work of our students and teachers, as well as to continue make global connections.

The Critical Five Minutes of Class

“You’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This often quoted truth is so common, in fact, that its origin is unclear. Some attribute it to Oscar Wilde, others to William Safire. Regardless, it’s certainly not a hotly debated issue. In general, people understand the importance of first impressions. In his article “How Many Seconds to a First Impression?” which was posted in The Association for Psychological Science, Eric Wargo writes about how–whether fair or not, we are all judged by a number of things: our appearance, how we dress, our age, etc. The part that stinks is that most of these judgements are upon things over which we have no control! As educators, we have the responsibility to focus on those things we CAN control. The first day of school is perhaps the most notable occasion we have to strike a positive first impression with our students, but fortunately, we have a new opportunity every day we see our students to impress them–or not. The first five minutes of class each day will set the tone for the next fifty. Teachers need a few minutes to gather thoughts and resources between classes, take attendance and just simply RESET.

I recently walked into our library, where our Media Specialist Danielle Wishka (@daniwishtweets) had this image on display at the mediascape. She had a fun song playing and I couldn’t help but noticed that all the students were typing away on their laptops as they rocked out to the song. At the end of the song–less than 5 minutes into class, the students were fully prepared for class. No prompting, nagging, or redirecting was necessary.

There are MANY ideas out there for these “bell ringer” activities. Here are a couple of links to some excellent blog posts with many ideas:

• Edutopia Post
• Simply Novel Teachers Blog
• Social Media Ideas for the Classroom by Erin Klein (for primary classroom, but ideas could easily be adapted)

Find a few activities you like and try something new! Have other ideas? Please add them to the comments below!