Biteable

HOW TO USE BITEABLE

By Melissa Alvarez

Biteable is a web-based tool that allows you to create beautiful explainer videos that you can easily add to your classroom to share with your students and make your lessons more interesting and engaging.

Make stunning videos in a snap with the Biteable video maker. Sparkle with studio-quality animation, footage, and effects.

1. First, you need to sign up using Facebook or Gmail.

2. Click on Create a New Video.

3. You can choose to start one from scratch or start with one pre-designed, a specific template.

4. Change the title of your work.

5. You can change the image by uploading one from your computer. You can write the message you want in the box where it says Your Text. You can even change the font of the text.

6. Click on Next Scene to continue with the following slide.

7. Repeat the previous steps with the following slides:

8. Once you finish editing each scene and your work has finished, click on Save & Preview in each scene/slide.

9. Then, click on Preview.

10. Click on Publish This Video.

11. You can share your video on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. The video cannot be downloaded in the free version. It has to go public.

Students have been working with the topic of "sports" for some weeks. They have dealt with vocabulary and they have recycled present simple. Students have been asked to watch a short clip. First, the clip shows a group of kids having different problems (stress, anxiety, health issues, depression, bullying etc.) Therapists advise these kids to take up some sports. They do what they have been told and their problems start to be solved or dealt with in better way. Then therapists mention all the benefits of playing a sport. So the teacher will write on the board just the word "SPORT" and will put a question: "Is playing sports just for fun or does it have many more benefits?" Students will write their ideas on the board.

Students will have to create a video using Biteable. Their objective is trying to convince a group of students from the other class who do not practise any sports to take up one. They will have to show those students that it is not too late to practise a sport, that it has many benefits and everyone should play sports. They will have to take advantage of all the tools Biteable offer. The more visual the video is, the better it will be to persuade the kids to start playing sports. Students will work in groups of three or four. Bofore doing the video, they will follow the necessary steps to create a video using Biteable. (Teacher's tutorial)

Students will present their videos while the rest of the groups take down notes. Then, the whole class will vote for the most convincing video. This video will be shown to the students of the other class. The teacher will formally evaluate students taking into account their contributions (the ones in the presentations) and on the content.

Theoretical support

• Triple E Framework by Liz Kolb

This framework provides specific guidance for teachers in integrating meaningful technology mindfully in their classroom activities. This theoretical framework encourages teachers to go beyond an instrumental use of technology and consider how it can extend and enhance learning goals.

The framework is based on three components: Engagement, Enhancement and Extension.

1. Engagement: The teacher needs to motivate or engage students to start the learning process through the use of technology and prove them that technology can be use not only to have fun but also to learn. Technology can promote a change in the students from passive to active social learners.

2. Enhancement: This component focuses on the added value of using technology tools which goes beyond engagement in content. It refers to how technology can aid, assist and scaffold learning in a way that could not be achieved by traditional methods.

3. Extension: The idea is that the teacher becomes able to connect what happens in the classroom with the real world and through the use of technology the teacher can make these connections. Technology allows the students relate the classroom activities to their everyday lives. The use of technology can promote the idea of working in an online project in a collaborative way even with distant partners.

Students should be immersed in authentic contexts in order to make learning meaningful and to achieve a certain goal. According to the SAMR model proposed by Puentedura (2006), the use of this web page would transform the integration of technology in the classroom since it would be part of the “Modification” stage. This stage states that technology allows for significant task redesign given the fact that users are integrating video, audio and text to carry out a task.

Regarding PLANIED, different dimensions can be met when using this web page to create material online. To begin with, the dimension of creativity in which learners create and construct knowledge using ICT; then, communication and sharing since they would be sharing their work with a wider audience; moreover, participation in a responsible way and the use of critical thinking skill when organizing their presentation and the content it will have; finally, and hopefully this should be achieved, the autonomy in the use of ICT and how students transfer the skills learned in different contexts to real-life settings.