Wow. It's been a long time since I posted to Musings. With my retirement in mid-August, I went on a blogging holiday. Now that things have settled down a bit, I have a ton of catching up to do in both blog-reading and blog-writing.

I was happy to see some excellent middle school activities from NASA. All three of the current modules (Tracking a Solar Storm, Star Count, and Winter's Story, are highly engaging and offer multiple opportunities for cross-curricular activities in addition to solid science. Thanks, NASA!

For the K-6 mathematicians in your life, try Math Playground. While much of the material is lower level, there are some nifty logic games here, sure to exercise young brains (and old ones!)

If you haven't discovered Gliffy yet, you are in for a treat. Sign in (it's free) and you are using fully satisfactory mind-mapping, flow-chart program. Take 10 minutes to find your way around, then use it with your classes either in a teacher-led exercise, or with small groups or individuals at their own computers.

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.

Collaboration Rules

In an article at eWeek, Ward Cunningham (developer of the wiki) said, "he has been interested in taking long-term looks at 'how wisdom is collected in organizations, … especially the wikiwiki Web style of talking about experiences, and the way that large groups of people can communicate'." Cunningham sees the development of open source (freely available to all) software as just beginning and sure to grow, " and it's not just because of cost, but because of end-user innovation." I'm guessing that Cunningham is right about the end-user innovation moving software forward to the benefit of all. It definitely benefits innovative teachers and curious kids!

Meantime, there are some excellent little programs for younger students at Sen Teacher Resources. This is a British site, so the instructional pieces around money won't work for American students. But lots of the materials are right on the mark! And for fun, be sure to look at these optical illusions. This is a PowerPoint show, so click "open" when asked.

Copyright-free Music for Educational Use

Several of you have asked about legality in using music in students' or teachers' educational projects. Fair Use Policy gives students and teachers lots of leeway, but the law is tricky and sometimes hard to understand. Here are two easy solutions:

C/Net's Music Download.Com only offers free music whose artists have given permission for its use. "Users may use the material on the site only for non-commercial personal or educational purposes." There's lots there, grouped by genre, with a handy button that says "download". Couldn't be easier.

Magnatune is a great site for teachers. As long as you are using the music for your educational project, you can download an MP3 version of the song and be free to use it.

• Go to the Magnatune site and click on the type of music you need.
• Listen to as many pieces as you wish. Listening is always free at Magnatune
• When you find something you want, click on License, then on Non-commercial (you may have some security screen pop-ups during this process. Just say "Yes" to get past them.
• Read the Non-commercial license explanation. Near the bottom of the page, click on "download the MP3"
• Continue to say "yes" to any security pop-ups
• When you see the list of available MP3 recordings by the artist you have chosen, you will need to find the title you want. To hear the recording again, you can click on the little floppy disk icon. To download song, right click on the icon and choose "save target as". On the resulting screen, select your download location.

This is a terrific site for music lovers. Take some time to explore new artists, then think about BUYING a song or two. You not only listen to the music before you buy, you actually choose HOW MUCH to PAY! I have purchased several pieces and have been more than happy with my choices!

National Archives Video

From "http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11152" comes this information:

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Google co-founder and president of technology Sergey Brin have announced the launch of a pilot program to make holdings of the National Archives available for free online. This agreement will enable researchers and the general public to access a diverse collection of historic movies, documentaries, and other films from the National Archives via Google Video (http://video.google.com/nara.html) as well as the National Archives Web site (http://www.archives.gov/).

These videos are a fascination for everyone and a treasure trove for historians, young and old.

Problem Solvers

Need to transfer large files from one computer to another? Is it too big to send or as an attachment? YouSendIt is a free service that will let you upload a file, up to one gig, then send the link to the file to whomever you choose. The instructions from YouSendIt:

• Pick who you want to send a file to. It can be anyone with an email address. You can specify multiple email addresses by separating them with commas.
• Select file to send. You can send music, photos, documents, or anything else. Your file will be stored by YouSendIt without ever filling up your recipient's mailbox.
• Click on the Send It button. YouSendIt will automatically email your recipient a link to your file stored on our server. The file will remain on the server for 7 days.

Uses? You can transfer large files or folders to your colleagues; you can move material you created at home to your computer at school; students can upload a slide show to share with other students or to show in class.

Another nice gizzmo for your classroom: a free Timer which you can install on your computer, then use on your TV when students are doing timed work. Just download, click on the installer, and you're ready to go. The download button is about half way down the page. This was a Karen Finter find, so if you find it useful, thank Karen!

Kids At Work

Here's a dandy service for you! BubbleShare is a free service. It will keep your slide show private....that is, it will be accessible only if you have the correct html address which BubbleShare sends directly to you. So you control who can see the show. Creating the show is a snap, and you can add narration if you are so inspired. The show is hosted at BubbleShare. Try it out! If you are a blogger, by the way, BubbleShare creates the XML that lets you post this with a simple cut-n-paste operation. What could be easier than that?

This album is powered by
BubbleShare

Sites for Readers

Thanks to the "Tech Savvy Educator", we have a nice list of sites for young readers. While Ben has more sites on his blog, I've selected a few that I particularly like.

• MysteryNet's Kids Mysteries The stories here are short and engaging. Kids have a real chance to solve the mysteries, but they are not dead give-aways. After reading a few, youngsters might enjoy crafting their own stories.
• Banph Middle school fare ala fantasy/animal fiction. (Really, it's about an ant, but who ever heard of insect finction?) The drawings are wonderful.
• Children's Storybooks Online Grouped by age appropriateness, this goup of offerings is sure to spark interest on the parts of some youngsters. The amount of text on screen is limited, so even reluctant readers won't be intimidated.

While we're at it, another nifty tool for educators as well as for plain, ordinary people: YouSendIt is a quick and easy way to transfer large files (up to 1 GB). You don't have to "join" or otherwise make a commitment to this site. Just go there, fill in the recipient's email address, browse for your file, and click OK. Very nice. The recipient gets an email with a link, follows the link, and can download the file from the YouSendIt site. Material is not held on the YouSendIt site for long. But this service really does meet a need.

More Free Tools on the Web

Here are a few more goodies that teachers may find useful.

Writely is a web wordprocessor that lets you create and store documents out on the web, download them as a Word document or in another format, lets you collaborate with others on the same document and more.

RapidCite This is a simple, quick way to create a bibliography entry. If we expect our students to use citations, we'd best do it ourselves!

Springdoo Quick-n-easy "podcasting"...just record your message and the site will create a link which it automatically puts on your clipboard. All you have to do is paste the link into....an email? your website? Karen Finter suggests having students read their poems or short stories and letting Mom and Dad hear them perform. How about a foreign language teacher using such a site...or having students create the audio and send it to the teacher?? Want to hear a sample? In one case, a second grade teacher invited parents to send their email addresses in to the classroom. For all who did that, the link to their children's stories was emailed back. The response from parents was very positive indeed.

Other options? The teacher might have chosen to post that link to a blog where students could respond directly in the comment section. The youngsters might record to their own (group blog) section. How might that generate meaningful discourse? How might a teacher then use the comments to generate in-class discussion? Lots of possibilities here, I think.

"Creativity is a Habit"

From the February 22nd issue of EdWeek.Org:

Creativity Is a Habit
by Robert J. Sternberg

It may sound paradoxical that creativity—a novel response—is a habit, a routine response. But creative people are creative largely not by any particular inborn trait, but because of an attitude toward their work and even toward life: They habitually respond to problems in fresh and novel ways, rather than allowing themselves to respond in conventional and sometimes automatic ways.

Like any habit, creativity can either be encouraged or discouraged. The main things that promote the habit are (a) opportunities to engage in it, (b) encouragement when people avail themselves of these opportunities, and (c) rewards when people respond to such encouragement and think and behave creatively. You need all three. Take away the opportunities, encouragement, or rewards, and you will take away the creativity. In this respect, creativity is no different from any other habit, good or bad.

Dr. Sternberg doesn't talk about technology in his discussion of creativity (the whole article is well worth your time), but I do know that the freedom and control students experience when they are working with technology very often results in quite wonderfully creative products. Phil Scully's 3rd graders' haiku is a good example.

Of course, we educators have to cultivate the habit of creativity ourselves, before we can effectively nurture it in our students. We have many of the same pressures toward non-creative behaviors as our students experience...and we've had a much longer time to build counter-creative habits that need to be broken. I'm determined to maximize my Seven Habits of Highly Creative People", outlined in a short article by Mika Ono Benedyk. The last habit in the list is "Playful and Fun". Think I'll start with that one!

Interesting Finds on the Web

If you haven't read "The World is Flat", or if you have and are interested in persuing the subject a little more, take a few minutes to listen to a podcast of Thomas Friedman's C-SPAN interview at EV World.

Another site worth your time: Museums and the Web's fascinating list of sites nominated for Best of Web awards this year. This list is long, but based on the many I've checked, they are truly superior. I've added this page to my de.lici.ous account so that I can return to it and work my way through over time.

Tools for the Laptop Group

The laptop group is meeting this week. Seems like a good idea to post some of the resources we'll be looking at. That way, it's easily available to anyone who might not make the session.

West Irondequoit Laptoppers’ Lessons Online Keep checking here to see what's new!

Lesson Plan Template (be sure to edit with Microsoft Word) The template will give some consistancy to our postings.

Teaching and Learning with the Office Resource Kit Lots of free templates/tools here, available for a single download.

PhotoStory Lots of fun, easy for you or your students to use, a great way to present narrated pictures.

WavePad or

Survey Monkey – Create your own survey, or offer students the opportunity to create one.

ReadPlease - Could this tool be a lifesaver for students who find complex text a barrier to learning?

Bloglines - Simplify your life and keep yourself current. Add your favorite blogs (or other sites that have RSS feed) to your own blogline and check there to see what's new.

Del.icio.us Your own "favorites" available anytime, anywhere, from any computer. Keep your list private or share it with the world.

Podcasting

Alas, I have to start a brand new blog since the site I had been using is no longer available. At least, it's not free anymore. And free is very nice!

What fun it was to share wikis and blogs with some of our faculty members a few weeks ago. Since the old blog had that information and is no longer active, let me just remind you that the links are all available on our little test wiki. Feel free to play with that wiki yourself, or better still, create your own. Pbwiki is a great place to get started. We have an active group of teachers already using the site to share teaching strategies!

Some of our teachers will be learning a bit about podcasting later this week. I'm wanting to post a few words of welcome here.. It helps, I think, to be able to hear what other educators are doing with podcasting in support of their students. So...take a look at these sites:

http://www.podcast.net/show/41190 On this site, you will find several examples of podcasting by students, with a range of ages involved.

http://dreamextreme.us/ Click on the "classroom podcast" link to hear what these 6th grade Oregon students are doing.

http://bobsprankle.com/blog/C1697218367/index.html These are Bob Sprankle's students, 3rd and 4th grade, I think. They are regular podcasters and though their podcasts can take a bit of time to open, they are worth the effort.

Podcasts do require software, so you might consider the free audio recording/editing program called WavePad. All you need is the free, basic program. While you will be offered 4 enhancements at the end of the installation, these are only trials and eventually, if you wished to keep them, you would need to pay for them. To get started, do not select those programs. You can always go back to get them later if you like.

Basic instructions for creating a podcast using WavePad are available online.
Time is limited but ideas are not. I'd love to believe that our teachers will be represented in this list in the not too distant future. Welcome to the world of podcasting.