Last week I spent a couple of days trying my hardest to absorb so much new information from the ISTE conference via #NOTATISTE15 on Google+. Let me tell you, it's very overwhelming as you sit on your couch watching your Twitter feed update every second. I follow a lot of great educators and thanks to Tweet Deck, I can follow specific hashtags. I mainly follow #ISTE15 and #NOTATISTE15, so I didn't miss anything from the ISTE conference in Philadelphia.
One of the coolest things I've picked up from this years ISTE conference is an app called Periscope. I had no idea what this app was before Sunday, but now I've seen it in action, researched a little bit about it, and thought of several awesome ways to use this in my classroom/school campus this next school year.
My first exposure to the Periscope app was through a tweet from one of the NOTATISTE group members. I asked myself, "What in the world is this?" I had never heard of this app before. I had absolutely no clue what it did, where you could access it at, or anything else about it. I decided to go do some digging. The first thing I did was google search the name of the app. When I did I was brought to the app website. www.periscope.tv
The line they use on their site is, "Explore the world through someone else's eyes." That's exactly what you get to do. Once I got to experience that I was blown away. The great thing about this app is that it is strictly for the smartphones out there. You broadcast from your phone, but others can watch the broadcast on their computers.
You can download this app from the iTunes App Store and from Google Play. I immediately picked up my phone, went to Google Play, and downloaded the app. Another great feature of this app is that it connects right to your Twitter account. This app is from the creators of Twitter, so you can sync right up to your Twitter account. Once you turn your live broadcast on, you have the option to share a link to your Twitter account for your followers to see and watch along with you. You can also have notifications set up on your phone to be notified when one of your followers is broadcasting live.
I tried several different Periscopes during the ISTE conference last week and it was like I was sitting right there in the conference with everyone. It was fantastic. At times it was hard to get a good video, depending on signals from the broadcaster. Those are little things that people may run into during their broadcast. It was a great experience. I also had the opportunity to see some awesome fireworks in Michigan and the 7th inning stretch of my hometown KC Royals game, from my seat in my home in Louisiana on the 4th of July. The experiences are endless!
This could be a great tool for educators to use in their classrooms. There is so much that happens in our classrooms that we wish others could see, especially parents. Maybe you're putting on a great experiment with your class and would like another class to join in and watch. Share a school program with parents that can't make it due to other obligations. Share some highlights of a sporting event with the community. The ideas for the use of this on a school campus are endless.
As my school's media specialist I can't wait to use this in the classroom. There's also an auto save broadcast option in the app that saves your video to your gallery for you to publish later on YouTube or other video publishing site. This gives you something to go back to review, share with the students later on after that experiment, create a video to share highlights with parents, show that sports team their awesome play, and so much more.
I really hope this is something that can be used and be a positive influence for educators.
