Podcast People

Podcast People is a nifty wee site to use for podcasting that I was shown during the k12online conference.
Students can record straight onto a page and publish it automatically or upload their work to a page.

I have recorded a few segments as part of the k12online conference on this site, but I used it the other day with my students when we made a welcome podcast for our student teacher who arrived from overseas this week.

I gave the students some guiding questions and then they recorded their answers almost straight away. We actually recorded this into Garageband and then uploaded it onto the website. The one not so good thing we found is that it plays all our slides before playing the audio and not in time as it should.

We also uploaded it to podomatic to see if the images would work and it did. Still not sure why it doesn’t work in Podcast People but it was a great tool for my kids to use.  I could see the benefit especially for junior classes who want to get started with less tech.  We sent her the link and received an email the next day from her saying she had seen it and thought it was pretty cool! A great introduction for her to our class.

Aotearoa Reppin!

Head off to this site and vote for the kiwi’s who are showing the world a thing or two in the Interwrite MakeOver Video Contest.

 Pt England School

Illiminster Intermediate

Social Networking Survey

In my search for mashups I stumbled across this website Mashup Events which is described as

“…mashup* Event is a formal gathering of like minded professionals who meet to discuss and debate what matters in the digital world. ”

You can read more about them here.

What interested me is the next meeting that is to be held on the 26th November on the topic of Social Networking. As part of this there is a survey you can take here. So out of interest I took the survey and then had a chance to view the results. Which you can access here.

I found this really interesting as I too roam around within these social networks and each day more and more of my friends (including the tech-slow as they see themselves) join these sites.   The results are interesting and easy reading, so go check them out and take part in the survey too.

Blogs, Blogs & More Blogs

It started with none…
Then became one….
Now there are so many amazing blogs in my google reader.

Thanks to everyone who continues to share their ideas, thoughts, information, good finds and more. Being a newbie to the blogging world, it is really nice having the communication with teachers who have the same passion to get through the rough and good days with!

Ewans Questions… Music

On Ewan McIntosh’s blog he asks this:

• Music and technology:
  I saw some amazing traditional Maori music being performed in Auckland, but what is the role of technology in teaching music in New Zealand schools?

– Ewan McIntosh

SO…

I know that within my school I have seen an increase in the role of technology to teach Music. For me, Music is one of my weakest teaching areas so I increasingly use technology to support me in this area – to back up things i’m teaching and give examples. Access to technologies such as the web and Garageband are great to provide elements of music that we previously couldn’t bring into the classroom and to help share students music work to a larger audience.

I don’t have a marvellous or large answer to this question of Ewan’s, but rather I wanted to share a few examples of how I have seen technology to support the learning of music.

Garageband:
In class we have used garageband in a variety of ways..
* To compare the sounds of instruments
* To compare different types of genres
* To create music pieces within the class
* To create soundtracks for our work
* Schoolwide: Our music specialist created our school podcast jingle with a group of GATE music students.

Youtube:
* A colleague of mine is doing an amazing unit of work based on a piece on Youtube called Harry Potter Pals and The Mysterious Ticking Noise. The students are learning all about timing and beats/offbeats through this and moving on to create their own musical piece based on their learnings of this. This has been a great motivator for them.

* In class we are learning the difference between live and recorded music and different genres. So we jumped on Youtube and watched live orchestras to talk about the different sections, instruments and sounds. Next session we are comparing Metallica’s video to a rendition they did with a live orchestra to look at the changes in music and tempo etc. Not something I can easily bring into the classroom without technology!

5 Frame Storytelling

Well, almost 4 weeks in and we are almost finished.

We are slowly uploading them to flickr and posting the stories on the 5 Frame discussion board. My kids are doing all the work… including finding, copying and pasting the html codes to put their photos into their posts! Not bad for 7, 8 and 9 yr olds!

The kids have loved the process… It has been a big learning curve for myself and my kids but we have all gained more from the unit than I thought I we would. My LO’s for the students have been met and I have gained some of the best oral and written work from them and the best thing is that they know this is some of the best work they have presented.

There have been moments of intrigue and disappointment (i.e. things don’t go or look as planned) but they are learning some of the tricks of the trade and that blutack and nylon wire are great friends to the digital storyteller!

I think for a first ever attempt at this kind of thing, it has been successful and I am very very proud of my students.

Check out our 5 Frame Digital Stories!
(Anything with Rm13 after it belongs to us – our user name is thinkthirteen)

Rememble

Woah… this is a cool site!

Rememble is a site where you can make memory timelines using video, audio and images.

Basically you post a memble (or memory) using text, video, audio or images… add in your information and then add your memble and wahhlahh… you have a memble timeline. The result is as below!

You can view your membles in 3 layers…

– first one is a long timeline view

– a close up showing names/dates.

– zoom in again for each individual memble that you can navigate on from one to the next.

This could be a really awesome way of timelining your year as a class, as it is really simple to add in events. You can add in labels and add comments – so students could add their memories or comments about an event.
How cool would it be keeping this all year/term and on the final day spending half an hour (or more!) looking back at all the things you did.

At the moment I am just tinkering and have added in images from my flickr account which was very easy to do. (When you add other media and it comes up as different colours to identify it as audio/video or image.) You can also send/add in your twitts from twitter or send things in via email and mobile phone.

Pretty nifty…

We Are The Change Needed…

“Education and Learning are all about the relationship and the collaboration in learning that allows our students to become the ‘life-long learners’ they need to be. The change that is required should begin with us. If you are reading this, or have heard Clarence’s presentation then you are well on the way to making this change. We all have responsibily in our schools to ‘infect’ our staff with the desire for this radical change.”
- Educating The Dragon

This is from Simon’s blog Educating The Dragon.
I just wanted to post it as I really liked it. Along with another quote I heard during ULearn but can’t find who said it.

“It’s not about being ‘too hard’ anymore, It’s what our students need to survive in the future…”

It’s really easy to get frustrated with people. But it doesn’t work. It doesn’t help anybody (apart from your doctor and his billing system). I am only new in the teaching game (5 years)… I have watched over the last 3 years in particular as ICT/e-Learning has become more my focus, at people who wouldn’t go near computers at work who are now integrating them into their classrooms. This isn’t from being pushed – it’s from being ‘infected’ as Simon puts it. I do think that the more teachers see other teachers integrating and using e-Learning effectively the more interested they get – I know it’s not as simple as this, but it makes a difference.

Last week I had the chance to present at staff meeting for 5 minutes as part of the group who went to ULearn. In my 5 minutes I shared what I had brought back and been using in a week with a focus on websites such as flickr and 5 frame storytelling. I spoke about what my goals were for my class, how I fitted in the technology to help my kids reach that goal and some examples… By the end of my 5 minutes teachers were asking for links to the site and more information. This is how I see what Simon is talking about – infecting others with interest and knowledge.

Next steps are to share with my school the results of my students 5 frame stories and provide support… and hopefully others will move onwards from there too.

My Public and Private Spaces

As part of Ewans keynote for Ulearn07 he spoke of our identities and the spaces we have.

* secret – mobile phone
* group – bebo
* publishing – fickr, journals, blogs
* performance – second life, warcraft
* participation – mathches, demonstrations, markets, events – conference, online events

I now fit into all of these spaces… I have a mobile phone to text, bebo, facebook, myspace, flickr, this blog, k12online conference, a ning community and now with my recent venture into Second Life – that also.  Along with other spaces i’m trialling or have trialled in the past.

This morning as I looked through my aggregator I read this blog entry from John which interested me.

He talks about an article in The Herald (Scottish I think) that talks about teachers joining up to bebo, myspace etc and accepting students as their friends to create a social network to stop cyberbullying.  i.e. You’ve got to be in it, to know about it.    John then also links onto Mr W’s blog entry which summed up what I was thinking.  I definitely understand keeping kids safe on the net, but when does it become an intrusion of privacy.  Yes, how private can it really be when it’s publicly on the web I hear you say…  This is an interesting read, from The Guardian, which shows the difference in opinion of some parents.  What really interests me is the differences in opinions and experiences that come through.

At our websafety meeting I ran last week, we discussed that we also need to offer to parents to allow them to become more net saavy i.e. getting netsafe in, running units of work with kids/parents.   What knowledge do our parents have to a) not be afraid of the possibilities b) support their students and c) help them keep safe?

On Bebo I have had several requests from students to accept them as friends.  My account on Bebo is a place where I don’t wear my teachers face (as Ewan says) but rather my private face.  I don’t want to accept students as my friends in these places because this is my private world – my late night drinking, my use of words that i’m sure they know even better than I do – but this is my space.
I have had discussions with another teacher about opening up a “Teacher” bebo account for students to add me to – which is something I might experiment with next…

A Saturday Night in my Second Life

So.. somehow my quick experience into Second Life turned into an late evening affair.

Having never been in Second Life and looking to procrastinate from report writing, I decided to embark on a journey to SL! Oh man, not ever did I think such things could happen! While in my first life I lay on my bed staring at a computer… my SL avatar was flying, running, swimming, being felt up (be careful who you dance with!) and dancing the night away.
For a while I was running around with another NZ blogger Glex9 Harrop which was really cool, nice to have someone you know rather than having to make new conversations all the time. I must say, I was impressed with our caramel dancing… We made quite the dance team!

It was amazing who you met… From dancing with a tuxedoed US University lecturer in my best ball gown to talking to a scantily clad 20 yr old girl who’s mum wouldn’t let her tell her location to a 44yr old man with the largest bit of bling around his neck i’ve seen for a while. It is interesting to imagine what these people are wearing in their first life! But throughout the whole experience I was amazed at how helpful and friendly everyone was. In all my attempts to talk to someone, I was only refused once… though i’m not sure if the person was actually there or not.

I managed to have a few conversations with other educators who passed on some good landmarks (Just like bookmarks of places) to visit. There are shops, schools, libraries and more all within this world. The possibilities of what you can do are amazing.

On a final note, in this occasion (images above) I managed to land into a world with a large amount of Spanish speaking people… which I found rather amusing as the place was named ‘Aotearoa’! I wonder what tomorrow will bring in SL?..