Food for Thought

While I had to miss the best national computing conference (NECC) this year, I have been trying to keep track of what was going on. I ran across David Jakes' description of a keynote by Dewitt Jones, a photographer for "National Geographic". David's notes were enough to send me off to Jones's own site where I found, much to my joy, an article entitled "Seeing the Ordinary as Extraordinary". As I prepare for retirement from my fulltime work and ponder future adventures, articles such as these remind me of the treasure of time and limitless realm of possibilities. Thank you, David, and thank you Dewitt!

Podcasting Revisited

I will be working with some of my fellow faculty members next week as we consider the uses of podcasting in education. In preparation for that, I've been looking again at the world of audio recording. Some thoughts:

• WavePad is still my favorite free recording program. It's flexible, allows one to save in many formats, including MP3 or 4, and is reasonably intuitive.
• Springdoo takes all the work out of recording...except, of course, determining the content. Since Springdoo itself retains the recording, it cannot be downloaded. That's a real drawback in this age of portable MP3 players. Students, many of them, will expect to put sound files on their players and will NOT be pleased if they cannot do that.
• Remember to look at the March 19, 2006 post here in Musings for information about sites with free music downloads.
• I am posting a few links here to school-related podcasts. They are all live as of the date of this posting, but school materials are often deleted at the end of term. I hope that doesn't happen, but...

1. AP World History - a history teacher uses podcasting to assist his AP class
2. Round Robin Story - a group of 7th graders collaborate on this story
3. Camera Position - this is much fancier than most teachers can handle time-wise, but I love it.
4. Instrumental Music at Exton - a music teacher posts samples of classical (so far) music
5. The Udall Times Podcast - a middle school "news" report
6. ColeyCast - a 5th grade using podcasting across their curricula
7. French For Beginners - complete with .pdf handouts for each lesson; a semi-professional site, but full of ideas
8. Insta Spanish - a lot like the French site, without handouts; I'm not sure this is for beginners.
9. English as a Second Language - this site has a collection of ESL podcasts; while many of these are for adults, they have much to offer in the area of ideas if not content.
10. Learn a Song This is another ESL site, and a ton of fun! We might not be able to replicate such a site, but maybe we could USE it?
11. A few more student made podcasts are on my February 7 Musings entry. There is also a link there to the How-to handout.

I have posted a how-to and some links and demos on the West Irondequoit technology pages. We have a long way to go in developing the educational potential of technologies like podcasting, so getting started seems like a good thing to do!

Wikis, wikis, wikis

Wikis as an educational tool? It looks to me like a terrific tool which is limited only by our imaginations. So what are folks doing with them? Take a look:

• Mr. Kuropatwa uses this wiki with his Applied Math class. The idea is to create a "solutions manual" in which students all collaborate to develop a learning tool for all of them to use. Students are not only expected to provide at least one solution of their own, but also to make "constructive modifications" to solutions which others have created. This is a high school wiki for, I believe, one of the less challenging math classes. Mr. K. also has a wiki out there for his AP Calculus class and other classes. Think collaboration for kids!
• Holocaust Wiki Project is a fascinating example of collaborative work and simulation as a learning experience for students. It is well worth exploring, even if wikis are not in your future.
• Web 2.0 Analysis Project - Students in this class are evaluating web pages; they are interested in design. I'd love to see them evaluating content!
• Adavis: Improving Instruction Through the Use of Weblogs Take your time with this one. It's full of great ideas coming from a master teacher of teachers.
• Check out the list of wikis on Witest Wiki. Lots of student wikis for your consideration.

Coming of Age - and other stuff

The beauty of the Web, the huge change it brings to us and to our students, is found in its open and accessible nature. I wonder how many of us have even begun to appreciate the scope of change that this can bring, should bring, will bring to education.

Self-education for educators is essential, then, if we are to both take part in this changing world ourselves and enable our students to take advantage of it. Thomas Freedman, et al, have provided a wonderful addition to our self-education bookshelf...and it's free. Coming of Age: an introduction to the new world wide web is a 92 page compilation of some of the best thoughts of the best thinkers in field of instructional technology in education. Once you have downloaded the material, you can read online or print all or some of the essays. What a gift!

For fun, try out the Visual Thesaurus. This one isn't free, but it's definitely fun. The available trial lets you do severaly word searches, and by leaving the website and returning, you can start the trial all over again. The cost is pretty reasonable, too, if you want to "own" it or have access online. I can certainly think a ways to use this with youngsters which would broaden their appreciation of language, the interconnectedness of words, the variations in meaning, and more.

Pew Internet and American Life Project has an interesting memo on our awareness of Internet terms.

Sites to Use With Kids

The National Council for Educational Statistics provides NECS's Student Classroom with a variety of interesting opportunities for your students. This site includes an online graph-making site, a place for students to publish their own writing, math games and more.

Speaking of math, try this Count-On for the K-8 kids. In fact, click on the Games button and try it out yourself. I'm still trying to win Fliver!

Then there's Rainforest Maths (yes, maths...the UK way). Do remember that this is from the UK, so sections that involve measurement will be metric.

Carol Kress suggests Play to Learn. Her 2nd graders practice time and money skills on the site. Carol says it's pretty basic, but the kids love it!

And for the youngest of our students...or our wee ones at home, don't miss Poissonrouge. It may be too young for almost all of our youngsters, but it is so well done that it's worth a visit under any circumstances.