Entries Tagged 'podcasts' ↓

Dare to Use Audacity Session 2 Notes
http://sites.google.com/site/daretouseaudacity/
Resources and Links all on their google site Yay!
Audacity is opensource - free - links are on their google page for downloading
Make sure you download the lame encoder so you can export as mp3s

Classroom uses (they showed several examples)
Book talks
Substitute Instructions
Speech Pathology
Create Interviews (you can do it yourself and use audacity to change one voice so it sounds like two people - historical character. book character etc)
(files can be brought into movie maker and powerpoint
record reading a textbook for student
record students reading aloud so they can hear themselves
audio book reports
book promo for library

Headphones with mics attached helped to record without picking up background noise

Sound resource freeplaymusic

demonstrated creating three tracks - two had the music and stepped down and then back up and the “speaking” track was placed so that it fell between the steps so you had music introducing, then speech, then music for the ending
Can edit out words (uh, and like)

Can add words

Audacity saves the file as a .au (this is where all the behind the scene stuff happens - do not touch this file and you can edit it later)

When complete you have to export as an mp3 or wav file

resulting mp3 can be used as background audio, podcast, embedded in a blog, imported into powerpoint or moviemaker

I didn’t get to attend this presentation - it was one of those time-slots when I needed a few clones to attend several sessions at the same time. Through the magic of technology I can still hear and “see” the presentation! After “attending” online I am very excited about the real event!

If you will go to Mrs. Alsup’s web presence there is a link on the sidebar to 2008 TCEA Presentation which will let you download the entire PowerPoint. You can view the PowerPoint and listen to the presentation at the same time -there is also a Podcast online - just click this link and put on your headphones - the Podcast lasts about 40 minutes. Writing Safari Podcast

There were only five presentations up at Conference Connections from TCEA so kudos to some of our own for being up there!

Presenter Shaunna Buck

The best parts of this session for me were the student presentation examples. It was truly exciting to see the quality.

7th grade writing program meant to grow beyond writing well enough to pass
Develop writing portfolio
Folders for
Rough drafts
Final drafts
Favorites
Reflective place – higher order thinking

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.” John Jakes

Collections and reflections
Organizational pattern akin to true writer’s notebook
Student’s papers that received a “4” were blown up poster size, a picture sometimes added, laminated and put up on the hall wall
Student’s goal became creating a “wall worthy” paper
Slowed the traffic pattern in the hall but it was kind of hard to get on to a student who was slow moving when the reason was that they were reading.
Reaction “ so and so’s up there?? How did they get a paper up there??”
Students no longer convinced that their first draft is their best work”
Motivation through competition

Students recorded reading their papers using audacity then uploaded as podcast

Incorporated Photostory 3 video to create digital stories enhanced the program
“Photostory like PowerPoint on speed”
Easy to learn and use
Students were motivated to rewrite

“Revision no longer a dirty word”
“Public recognition key”

Public presentation skills – students who were not comfortable getting up in front of class presenting had success in a room alone recording.

Save ppt slides as jpeg and import into Photostory, add music and audio – insert
Reading students used their class novel
Project – two word sentences – subject,verb – subject verb
Great for inclusion kids

Student went to district – made people cry
Photostory presentation about mom being killed in a car wreck – not true just a story but made me cry anyway
“if you make people cry you almost always get a 4!”

Think about their writing visually

Project – study origin of their name – not just definition but what it means to them, who they are.
Beyond thinking literally

Planning
Digital camera to make their own pictures , google images, scans
discussion about copyright
template for storyboard (looks like filmstrip)
require storyboard and script

Note what images go where
Import pictures into photostory
They used the headphones with mic attached
Pairs – one to talk, the other to click buttons, then they switch places
Photostory has a lot of built in music clips
Resource : freeplaymusic.com

Suggested book “Mechanically Inclined” Jeff Anderson

This was a good session that gave some basic common sense tips on using PowerPoint.

Why would we want to use it (well)?

• This generation has little tolerance for delays or mistakes in delivery of information

• It’s an easy way to get information across in a short time period

Caution:

• Too much information - on each slide
• Color choices (may depend on lighting in presentation location)
• Can be “eye catching or eye watering”
• Presentation often not test driven to catch problems

If well used can be extremely engaging

Tips:

• Proof read
• Don’t include all information
• Practice test run
• Don’t over-use the software in the classroom

Key - Keep the focus on the presenter

Start with the basics

• Know your information
• What are the key points or concepts
• Make an outline (enter basic information on blank slides)
• Order is important
• Add relevant materials (diagrams, images, audio, video)

Consider approaches for presenting

• How is the slide being used?
• Ask a question on the slide (stop for discussion)
• Break up with a related activity (stop presentation, do short activity, go back to presentation)

Adjust style elements (easy place to waste time)

• Visual interest is key but remember to keep focus on the presenter
• You can use WordArt to make notes on each slide to remind you of details, changes, and additions - what needs to be done to each slide
• Do test run
• Prepare your oral presentation (this is the part that many people omit!)
• To prepare you can take your original outline and print it out or print slide handouts.
• 3 slides to a page and you can have lines on the right side for notes

Presentations without a presenter

• Podcast presentation
• Save each slide as a jpeg
• Insert into MovieMaker
• Create audio voiceover using Audacity put together audio and movie - Podcast

*They did a Distance Learning Day at Good Shepherd. They submitted lesson plans, students stayed home and did assignments via internet. This type of podcast presentation was part of her lesson.

I started out searching for how writing is taught so that in the future I might be a better commenter. I found some wonderful resources and I’m going to share them here before they disappear into bookmark oblivion.

The first is from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory and is called 6+ 1 Trait Writing.

The 6+1 Trait Writing framework is a powerful way to learn and use a common language to refer to characteristics of writing as well as create a common vision of what ‘good’ writing looks like. Teachers and students can use the 6+1 Trait model to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness as they continue to focus on improved writing.

There are lesson plans, assessment, prompts and more. There is more on this at The Writing Fix and at eMints which has a huge list of links that even include classroom posters you can print out.

The next treasure is The Scribe Initiative which is a wiki of the San Antonio School system dedicated to digital storytelling. There is an incredible wealth of resources here including links to open source software for editing audio, tutorials for using MovieMaker and PhotoStory, sources for images and sounds and much more. If you want to take your student’s writing digital this is a great place to start.

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say? ”
E. M. Forster

Today was just a day but wow - exhausting, frustrating, exciting, enlightening. I was busy all day because grades were due to be exported and it was taken a little more seriously than the three weeks progress reports so there were a few problems to be ironed out underlining the value of that first export. Troubleshooting that should have been done happened today when we were under the gun.

The day that seemed to not end did and I came home and ate supper while I signed in to Elluminate for the K12 Online Conference Fireside Chat with David Warlick. This was my first experience with Elluminate which is a fee based meeting software package that donates the space to the K12 Online Conference. There are multiple windows. On the far left is a window that contains first a picture of an old-fashioned microphone, To speak you click on the picture and then click again when you are done. There is a hand icon that you can click to virtually raise your hand. There are emoticons and as people enter the session the list of names grows and automatically adjusts to remain in alphabetical order. There is a running tally of how many people are in the session. When things got going there were 105 people from all over. Mostly from the U.S. but some from other parts of the globe as well including Sudan, Seoul, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and Scotland Click the thumbnail to see a screenshot.

There was a white board and video and as the session went on, questions were asked on the white board as a rapid, unending discussion by the attendees. I went crazy trying to concentrate on what David was saying as well as keeping up with the “stream of consciousness” instant messaging. I managed to speak a bit when we were divided into separate rooms at the beginning and I was able to text once or twice but by the time I could type a question the conversation would have changed. There was serious energy. These folks are jumping in the deep end of the pool and splashing for all they are worth. They are calling out to the rest of us to tell us to come on in - the water is fine. Some of us are dipping a toe in and shivering, some are paddling around with nose plugs and life preservers. Some of us are sitting it out and some are underwater with flippers and scuba gear.

There was a 14 year old student in the session and the possibility of adding a student strand next year was mentioned.

My favorite quote was ” become the guide on the side not the sage on the stage”. I saved the chat transcript so I could go back and read it and when I have that processed I will talk a little more about it.  One exciting thing was recognizing names of people that I have communicated with through blogging.

I watched the keynote by David Warlick this morning and I’ll blog about it later. I want to let it marinate a bit but it was awesome. It is well worth the time - if you right-click and save link as you will have a copy of it to view whenever you have time. - which is the beauty of an online conference!

It will be here any minute!! well pre-conference starts October 8

3 Reasons Meme

three reasons to participate based on my experience from last year!

1. It is staff development the way I like it - at home, in my jammies, with a cup of decaf latte.

2. No Crowds! No driving! No hotels! No airports! (yes I know - technically that’s four - so sue me)

3. You can go back and review the sessions at anytime (unlike virtual conferences where you have to get everything you can right then because when its over, it’s over)

Ya’ll come!

As I write this post I am listening to a podcast found at LearningOutLoud.com. There are sections on biographies, great speeches in history, Literary summaries, founding documents in audio form, free audio book of the month, art history, all categorized and subscribeable.

There is a section on test taking. You can wander through a very large online catalog of subjects to integrated podcasts into your classroom.

Here is an article with an interesting way to talk about internet safety with students. Instead of giving them a list of “don’ts” here you can find a list of questions to open up a discussion with them. One of my favorite questions was:

If people were to Google you, what conclusions would they make?

Students can take online quizzes that look more like games but are tagged according to quiz subject matter at PurposeGames. Creating an account is optional but if you do you can see your score history. You can also create quizzes if there are none that fit your needs.

Another link for today is VoiceThread. You can upload pictures, record audio and create a multimedia show and tell online presentation. There are plenty of examples and instructions to make the process pretty painless. Even if you are not planning on creating one of your own it is very interesting to play some of the examples!

I finish with another podcast link - I’m listening to Thomas Friedman lecturing at the Sydney Institute after dinner on The Flat World. This podcast is nearly an hour long so I would plan on listening to it on a car trip or load it on your mp3 player and exercise your brain while you are at the walking track exercising your body!

I had to add one more link. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one - the site is called Mango and you can sign up for free to learn languages. I spent a short time today learn a little Japanese. It was fun and painless! The site includes Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, Englich for Spanish speakers and more! Arigatou (Thank you!)

The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County has set up a blog called Learning 2.0. This blog contains a list of links containing 23 learning 2.0 things. The list is spread over a nine week period and contains links and tutorials to help you learn about blogging, Flickr, rss feeds and feedreaders, online image generators, library blogs, tagging and del.icio.us, technorati, wikis, online productivity sites, YouTube, and some sites for finding podcasts. The blog targets librarians but anyone who would like to get a “big picture” kind of tour, would find this a great starting place. If you follow the list of 23 things the way it is presented you will start your own blog and as you go through the rest of the list you will post on what you are learning.

If you go to their site make sure you check out the 7 and 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners presentation - it’s a wonderful presentation and the mission statement of the website is “Expanding Minds, Empowering Individuals, and Enriching the Community. You don’t have to take nine weeks to go through the list, but it is a great way to break down the pieces and give yourself a little time to reflect and play with what you learn. I love the way it is broken down and plan to learn from their example when I take some of these tools to my own campus. Thanks to them for doing such a great job! Thanks to Off the Shelf blog for pointing me to this great resource!

If you are confused about all this talk about web 2.0 or just want to let out your “inner geek” click over to this website and join in the fun.

What if your students wrote about what it’s like to be their shoes for a day? What if you as the teacher wrote from that point of view and then had your students comment as if they were their shoes?

__________

What would a scatter graph of earthquake activity worldwide look like? What if your students took the raw data from the internet, used it to create a spreadsheet, and created the graph from it? (Idea unashamedly stolen from David Warlick’s presentation at TCEA ) What if your geography class was doing this web project and the math or BCIS classes decided to particpate?

__________
What if you blogged about how advertisers use different techniques to get us to buy their products and then assigned groups of students to find examples of commercials that use those techniques and have them report on their findings in the comment section of you blog.

A good video commercial example can be found here.

What if you checked your blog and found that students were reading and submitting comments at 8:30 at night or 7:10 in the morning - outside of school hours?

__________
What if your class was having blog discussions about an assigned book and the author submits a comment and becomes part of the discussion? That’s what happened to a class that was reading and blogging on “The Secret Life Of Bees”.

__________

What if you could record your class lecture, edit it, and upload the audio file to your blog where students could access it if they missed your class or just wanted to review? What if you could then have that lesson to use next year? What if a parent wanted to know what their child was doing in class and could access the podcast from home? What if a community member who happened to be in a job related to your lesson read the blog and contacted you about become involved with your project?

__________

These are just a few of the possibilities - there are many more. You may already have some ideas of your own. You can share them. You can create the content on the web that your students can access. You can help them to learn appropriate ways to create web content. You can have ongoing conversations with your students that extend beyond the regular school hours and beyond the school walls. I hope you will add your voice, I hope you will give your students a voice.