Meet K-12 ed-tech superstar Jasper Fox Sr.
Jasper teaches 8th grade science and Regents Earth Science at Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School in Westchester County, NY. He’s the first teacher in his district to use streaming video and other technologies in the classroom.
Jasper began teaching ten years ago, and has been using tech tools in his classroom for the past three. We first connected with him in the fall, via Twitter, shortly after his district adopted Ensemble. We were able to sit down and talk shop with him in December. We love his pioneering spirit, and we’re impressed with what he’s been able to accomplish with technology in his classroom.
Enjoy the interview, and check out Jasper’s blog, where he shares his teaching philosophies, and experiences incorporating technology in his classroom.
The Lakeland district is supported by the NY Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) Lower Hudson Regional Information Center (LHRIC), an Ensemble Video Platform customer since 2009.
Q&A
So how did you get started? Where do you get your ideas?
I’ve always wanted to make video tutorials. Three years ago, I just started taking short videos on my way to work, and posting them to a blog I had. We were studying the weather, and was able to show the kids “When you see these high clouds, that means it’s going to rain in two days” Then two days later, I was able to show them it was raining.
Over that summer, I just started checking Twitter, and found the Flipped Learning Network Ning site. I joined that, and there were one or two videos on there that I watched on screencasting. So I just started screencasting everything. And from there, I just started using whatever worked for me. I pick ideas from everywhere.
When I go to interesting places – like I went to Niagara Falls over Memorial day with my wife and our son – I make a video, so [students] can come along. It helps me model my interest in science. I can show them that on the weekend, I’m interested in this.
Tell me more about the “flipped classroom” model.
I’m actually sort of going away from calling what I do flipped learning. I’ve learned and grown so much, over the last three years, that I don’t even recognize my classroom. My approach has evolved into something more sophisticated, I would say, than what’s commonly referred to as flipped learning, which is watching lectures at home and doing homework in class. I’ve gone much more toward a mastery model.
I give students what I call a weekly menu, and it’s basically activities for the whole week. Then, students can move at their own pace through them, during class. I also let students take and retake their assessments as many times as they need to, to be successful.
They can watch the videos – they’re there as resources – but they don’t have to watch them at home, and I don’t really assign anything as “homework.” I love making the videos, and I love the fact that they can watch them, but I never really force them to watch the videos.
Click to view Jasper Fox Sr.’s Ensemble Video Playlist, on his teacher website
Before I came to Ensemble Video, I was using a YouTube channel. Last year I had about 2,000 views, so it was a substantial amount of traffic from my students. But there was never any good way to make sure they were watching it, and I don’t really like having to check up on them. So, I just tried really hard to make my videos interesting, and make them meaningful. And then just having them watch them in class. There’s no reason for them not to. I don’t need to put any incentives into it.
What devices are your students using to view your materials?
There’s a total range. I don’t have any statistical data for you, but I can tell you they’re using every kind of device. I encourage the students to use handheld devices. A few of the platforms we use have mobile apps. They’re definitely encouraged to use these technologies in class.
What software do you use for your screencasting?
I use a couple different things. I use Screencast-O-Matic for tutorials, PowerPoints, anything I need to record on my PC. I just started using Doceri this year. That’s where my latest videos are from, and I’m really proud of how they came out. For one of the more recent videos on my Ensemble Video Playlist (below), I used my iPad to take photos of student examples. Then, through my laptop, I presented on the smartboard while walking around the classroom, talking and writing on my iPad and recording it. And then I used iMovie to edit it all together. I also use my iPhone a lot, just for shorter video clips. And I use the YouTube editor sometimes, because I don’t have any fancy editing software or anything like that.
How did you get started using Ensemble for video content management?
Over the summer, my school district bought into Ensemble across the district. I do like the cool factor of YouTube, but there’s a lot of maintenance on it. Like, if you allow comments, you have to monitor it. There can be some headaches with it. Ensemble is very clean. I have it set up so you can’t share the videos; there are no comments, and I like that a lot.
What are some of your favorite features in Ensemble?
I like how I can embed an Ensemble Video Playlist into a page on my teacher website, which allows me to consolidate all my resources. I love how uncluttered it is.
If I had my videos on YouTube, I couldn’t be sure that while a kid is watching my video, they don’t get sidetracked, like “Oh, look at this video of a truck driving through a swimming pool.” And I couldn’t blame them, you know? [Ensemble is] no nonsense. I don’t need the comments or the views to feel good about the videos. I just need the videos to be in a good, productive place.
I also like that you can turn on and off when you can see the videos. I may use that next year. I may just program them to be visible when we need them. So that’s a cool feature, too. I also like the search feature. We use the tags, and they’re pretty easy to search for.
Ensemble also gives me an easy way to do student videos. That’s what really sold me on Ensemble, was the dropbox feature. It used to be a total pain to get student videos into a viewable format, for them. So this should be a lot easier.
The other thing I’d say is that it’s been 100% uptime, so far. We’ve only had, I think it was three minutes when we couldn’t see the videos, and the problem was immediately resolved. And everyone can see the content, on any device. So I’m very happy with it. And it looks cool. It’s an easy interface to use.
How do you find time to do all this extra work?
I know that especially with the increased [teacher] accountability, these days, it’s super scary to people to totally change how they’re teaching. But for me, this was a no-brainer. It really came from all the days of sitting, giving tests. I would sit there at my desk [during test time] on Fridays, and I would be really bored.
I thought about it – I have a 40-week school year, so that’s 40 days I’m missing of instructing, or helping, or whatever. I saw it as wasted time, and I thought there’s got to be a better way. When you also factor in in a typical high school classroom [format], Monday is lecture, Friday is quiz, right? That’s 80 days in a school year. That’s really profound, to me.
With this model, I’m never the teacher that didn’t teach something, or is rushing right until the last day of the year to teach everything. Last year, I actually had six weeks of review before our Regents exam, because I gained all that time. Every week I’m gaining a day or two of instruction time. It’s not that I’m going through it faster, I can just go deeper into everything. And I know scores don’t account for everything, but my students score phenomenally on their end-of-the-year tests.
Have you noticed a change in test results since you started using tech tools in your classroom?
It’s a slight uptick. I’m not going to say it’s a dramatic difference, but it’s a slight uptick – a few points, average. But I do find, and it’s not measurable, that the students are really engaged. I just had one of my first observations, and the students were engaged from bell to bell. That’s really the difference that I see. Like I say, it’s way deeper than just the videos. It’s the mastery model, where students aren’t all doing the same things at the same time. Because that’s where I see a lot of the traditional problems, in a classroom, like the behavior problems or learning problems, is when you ask every kid to do the same things at the same time, it’s just unrealistic, you know?
I did an anonymous survey right before the Regents exam, so they didn’t know how they were going to do, and I got some really realistic results. I think it was only one or two kids who said they only watched one video. And if that works for them, then that’s fine, they don’t have to watch the videos. But most of them said they watch what was assigned, and a surprising percentage said they watched more than was required.
Click the above thumbnail to view an infographic Fox created to show student reactions to his wired classroom.
What are some of your goals, as you look ahead?
The thing I love the most is helping students get more proficient at using technology. As adults, I think we give students way too much credit and assume that as “digital natives,” they know way more than they actually do. They might know how to type a quick status update on Facebook, but when it really gets down to creating content on the internet, they have a lot to learn, and I’m really proud of being able to teach them how to be content creators. That’s really my underlying philosophy, because creating content uses so many higher-order thinking skills.
Read more about this series, and check back soon for more In the Trenches coverage of superstar educators and students. Join the conversation via Twitter, Facebook, and our Video in Education LinkedIn group. Email Annabel to nominate your favorite students, educators, and projects for a future In the Trenches showcase. And if you see Jasper, give him a pat on the back.
