Have your heard about the new (actually 1 year old, but in the world of social media, 1 year is still pretty new) and totally hot app called Periscope? Do you know what it is? Do you know what it can do? Well, personally, it is totally revolutionizing how teachers are sharing best practices. I actually feel like to Periscoping is the new blogging. Don't get me wrong, I will not stop blogging, but if you like reading my blog, then you will love listening to my Periscopes, and the "scopes" of other teacher bloggers.
What is Periscope?
Periscope is a live streaming video, so that means when I broadcast, it's live, in real time, it's unscripted, and very much like a conversation. Instead of reading juicy reading tips and strategies on my blog, you get to listen to me talk about reading tips and strategies to you, from my home. You get to hear it straight from me...straight from my mouth, goofy facials expressions, my sarcasm and all!
Since Periscope is a live broadcast, it's available for 24 hours on the Periscope app. After that, most scopers archive old scopes over at another website called Katch. Since October of 2015, I have made over 30 literacy Periscopes...it's like PD in your PJ's! How cool is that? To watch me live, download the Periscope app and create an account using your Twitter account (if you don't have a Twitter account, create one first...and I'm write another blog post about all the wonderful professional reasons teachers should be using Twitter, too) and search for me at @hellojenjones. That's my handle on Periscope, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Then, when I go live, your phone will send you an instant notification that I am broadcasting live, and if you able (like, not driving) you can watch. When you catch a Periscope live, you also have to option to write comments and be a part of the broadcast, which is pretty cool! Teachers on Periscope is actually a pretty sweet community of loving, supportive teachers just trying to learn from one another and spread positivity around the world. For real.
Here's a scope I did about the teaching the reading comprehension strategy of Making Connections. This is a great example of a Periscope. Please note that Periscopes are not meant to be perfect, polished and scripted presentations. They aren't. They are conversational, real, raw and unpolished, which is kind of the beauty of Periscope.
Below is a Periscope by Kami Butterfield, her handle on Periscope and Instagram handle is @teachingwithappitude. She is a 3rd grade teacher in Baxter Springs, Kansas, in a 1:1 iPad classroom. She is an iPad guru, y'all, and so are her students. She shares amazing tips, strategies for iPad management, apps for creation (not consumption) and incredible examples of student projects made with iPads. She did a Periscope last night, where she showed how she used my ELA Common Core Graphic Organizers with the app, PicCollage, and everything is paperless...nothing to run off, photocopy, no ink, etc. It's beautiful. This scope is also helpful for any paper products you buy on Teachers Pay Teachers, because the app works for any pdf product, not just mine.
In the spirit of this blog post, and Kami being so sweet to feature my product in her scope, I have set these products to 50% through the weekend, but on Monday, they will be back to full-price. This is an incredible offer, because these are some of my best sellers that sell at full price without a problem. Each set of ELA graphic organizers is over 300 pages each.
The above two K-2 products are sold as a bundle by clicking on picture above.
Products are sold separately, too. Links in the product description.
3-6 Bundle Sold by clicking on the picture above.
Great! So now, see how Kami uses these packs with iPads only!!
The last two Periscope accounts are not teachers, but they are interesting and entertaining. +Euro Maestro is an American traveling and periscoping his way across Paris. And +Chalene Johnson is a fitness author and instructor and a social media whiz. I enjoy listening to them both.
In addition, I wrote an article for the International Literacy Association last week all about how teachers, schools and districts are turning to the iTeachTVNetwork for high quality, free professional development. Here's the link to my article featured in the App a Day column.
Watch all my past periscopes at www.katch.me/hellojenjones & www.katch.me/iteachtvnetwork! Come join me or better yet, make a scope of your own!
To read what other teacher bloggers have to say about Periscope, click their blog buttons below.