Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Mac vs PC
No problem getting it to a PC. Both Garage Band and iMove can export in readable files (mpeg4 and mp3). The problem is in creating a podcast with a PC.....I'm not sure what the PC has to offer. Anyone else know?
Sunday, January 27, 2008
iTunes
iTunes is awesome for podcasts. I download 3 regularly. Adam Carolla for personal listening only and then CBC's Vinyl Cafe and Quirks & Quarks. I listen to each on my 45 minute drive to/from school and although I obviously only use Carolla for personal enjoyment, the others I have used in class. Students love the Vinyl Cafe stories. If I taught science, I'd use Quirks & Quarks all the time. As it is now, I use the later two mostly for writing prompts.
Last year I had a gifted student and I had her listen to a few school created podcasts. I can't remember the name of the school, but it was somewhere in Seattle I believe. Each podcast created was basically a lesson in a subject area, although one was a news report of the happenings around the school. Anyway, she created an amazing geography project with sound effects and narration.......all the other students were envious... unfortunately, we didn't have enough Mac's for all the students to try this, but this year may be different. We used GarageBand, but you could easily create something using iMovie as well....for an audio only podcast, just use the soundtracks and export ("share") that. Not sure what could be used on a PC.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this part of the course and awesome ideas for podcasts!!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Back things up!
I know this has to do with assignment one, but I thought I'd let you know one of the pitfalls I just experienced with blogs and my classes.
links to software rubrics
I'm finding links to software rubrics mostly broken or terribly outdated ..."system requirements: monitor b&w or colour?"....
Anyway, here's a pretty good one with a couple different looks.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Criteria for Software Evaluation
Criteria for software evaluation:
1. Interface: is it engaging? Easy to use. Logical. Intuitive.
2. Course Value: Does it meet curriculum requirements?
3. Degree of difficulty: Not too easy or too difficult as to discourage use.
4. Technically Sound: Does it work?! Does it crash often. All links go somewhere. Pop-up menus pop-up, etc. Does it work on multiple platforms.
5. Continuous use: Can things be saved or does the user have to start new each time.
6. Modern: Is it relatively new, or is it using information from 10 years ago?
7. Extra Equipment: Does it require extra equipment such as speakers, scanners, etc.
That's my quick start.
Big Brother
Our elementary school backs onto a high school and while out on yard duty a couple of high school boys got into a fight. I was AMAZED how quickly almost everyone got out a camera phone and started to record it! Obviously they thought this was cool.
However, I just thought though, I wonder with practically everyone having a camera phone now, whether that will start to discourage bad behavior somewhat (with proper use)? I'm thinking that everyone with a camera is like the new wave of police cameras installed in crime areas in large urban centers, there to reduce crime or at least capture images of the criminals..... just a thought. A camera phone as possibly a bully prevention devise eventually? Hmmmm I'll have to give that more thought.
Hands on experience by parents too.
Julia....what a great idea to have the students create the rules - I'm going to use that for sure! I thought your "ah-ha" moment was the same as mine for a moment, especially when you said, "I got to thinking how students (and perhaps people in general?) tend to learn better when they themselves are involved hands-on. The whole concept of 'if you can teach it, you have learned it'. ". But my thinking when I was reading that (and the previous post and article), was that I really do think that parents would be so much more informed if they would actually participate in what their children are doing. Get a Facebook account. Make a MySpace page. Learn what is happening and how things work by participating. I think then that parents would be viewed with a tiny bit more respect from their kids if they can talk the talk, using the language of the various online sites. They would also become obviously more educated and be able to make informed decisions about their children's activities on the web and, perhaps, just perhaps, become a little less stressed about the whole thing. I think sometimes people overdo the dangerous because they are misinformed and thus sometimes threaten throwing out the baby with the bath-water so-to-speak.
String ...finally!
First....I finally have my blog working again! I can't copy & paste, but I can drag and drop...weird, but anyway, I'm back!
I love the "string" response David (think I'll drop that on them too). I want to add two things to the online journaling which I think is a HUGE advantage - timing & convenience. It occurred to me today while responding to them last night after midnight, this morning during my prep, and then earlier this evening, that I really like the convenience of having access to them ANYTIME (as long as I have a computer around), and am not forced to carry armloads of booklets (I have 120 students) home and back. Secondly, I like the immediacy of it. I responded today to a student about 1 minute after she wrote (she was in another class, probably supposed to be doing something else) and then got a chance to speak to her about the issue later that day when I saw her. Anyway, as a teacher I really do enjoy the online experience....just need to tweak it a little bit.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
very frustrating!!!
This is NOT working. Very, very frustrating!!!! I'm trying to copy over to my blog, but it keeps putting the text below the text box. I've tried numerous time and I'm now giving up for the night at about midnight. I now feel some of my students pain! And I refuse to delete my previous blog attempts which are now blank. They will remain my reminder of technology (or humanities) faults! Arrrrgghhh.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
students as content providers
http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2005/06/22/students-as-content-providers/
Found this interesting article in "blog of proximal development" entitled, "Students as Content Providers".
In it the writer was worried about how to evaluate (via exam) months worth of student blogging about social justice and human rights. She had found that students had "found, wrote about, and discussed much more than I could have possibly given them as a teacher".
Students would never have willingly accepted the volume of reading and writing that they had done via their blog if it had been presented to them as a textbook OR as something found by the teacher. But since it was the students' own find and own writings, they willing did probably more than was required. So, she was pleased with the effort and the knowledge no doubt gained, but the big problem was how to evaluate what they had done without invalidating their work by only asking questions about the novel.
I found this a fascinating conundrum because here you have a clash between a relatively new way of learning, come up against an ancient way of evaluating - the exam. In the end what she decided to do was simply ask them what they had learned from each other, basing their exam on the content that they had generated. In the responses, students talked about ideas that they discovered that were new to them, that they had learned from classmates and that were generated by individual interests covering a wider range than the teacher could have ever hoped for. In summary I really enjoyed the blog/article as it showed that students who have a say in the direction of the learning community usually create and accomplish more than what's expected of them. I also thought that while we're being creative in how we teach, we must also spend time in thinking of unique ways to evaluate material so as not to discourage and to give it a proper place in the learning environment.
Found this interesting article in "blog of proximal development" entitled, "Students as Content Providers".
In it the writer was worried about how to evaluate (via exam) months worth of student blogging about social justice and human rights. She had found that students had "found, wrote about, and discussed much more than I could have possibly given them as a teacher".
Students would never have willingly accepted the volume of reading and writing that they had done via their blog if it had been presented to them as a textbook OR as something found by the teacher. But since it was the students' own find and own writings, they willing did probably more than was required. So, she was pleased with the effort and the knowledge no doubt gained, but the big problem was how to evaluate what they had done without invalidating their work by only asking questions about the novel.
I found this a fascinating conundrum because here you have a clash between a relatively new way of learning, come up against an ancient way of evaluating - the exam. In the end what she decided to do was simply ask them what they had learned from each other, basing their exam on the content that they had generated. In the responses, students talked about ideas that they discovered that were new to them, that they had learned from classmates and that were generated by individual interests covering a wider range than the teacher could have ever hoped for. In summary I really enjoyed the blog/article as it showed that students who have a say in the direction of the learning community usually create and accomplish more than what's expected of them. I also thought that while we're being creative in how we teach, we must also spend time in thinking of unique ways to evaluate material so as not to discourage and to give it a proper place in the learning environment.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
black & blue
Hmmm.... Having just posted, I learned my first lesson, and it's a cosmetic one. Blue font on a black background makes for very poor legibility. I either change my template or font colour. Oh, and an American spelling spell checker....wonder if I can change that? Anyway, off I go exploring.
My first entry....(obviously)
While I've been around technology many, many years now, I've never really kept or thought of keeping a blog. And to be truthful, I'm not sure I ever would have if not for the requirement of the AQ course I'm currently in. I mean, to me a blog is for people who have something to say... something more important than a daily recount of their average life. I guess I'm looking at from the standpoint of the reader (viewer) - why would someone want to read about my thoughts?? That said, I'm looking forward to the experience and habit of doing this, and exploring the opportunities that surely must exist here.
Okay, here we go... lets start blogging!!
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