Being producers of our own podcasts, I often forget that there are so many free podcasts already available to us in iTunes. There are video as well as audio podcasts. Some are great for students, and some are great for your own professional development. We’ve started to gather some here of various subjects. All can be subscribed to in iTunes.

One area that I want to explore more is iTunes U. This is a great introduction video to check out. If you have a desire to learn about a topic, this is the place to go! And no tuition is required even from some of the most prestigious universities on the planet. iTunes U would be a great match for high school. It also is a wonderful professional development opportunity for specific content teachers.

And you don’t need an iPod to access any of these resources. iTunes is a free download to a computer. Therefore, a classroom computer could become a listening station for a student. Add an inexpensive headphone splitter, and two students can listen together.

Splitters also work great with iPods, doubling iPod accessibility. And if you only have one iPod, you could invest in a RockStar. Ask students to bring in his/her own earbuds (cost effective for you and healthier for them!), and you have a center for a small group of students (up to five). (Management tip for elementary: we have students keep their earbuds in a labeled baggie in their desks.)

Of course, it’s extremely motivating when students create their own podcasts, and they can be loaded in a computer’s iTunes library and even synced to an iPod. You can’t beat the sense of pride and accomplishment that students feel when their work is being shared. Students love checking out each other’s work as well. However, this should not be a passive activity. Students should have a purpose to listen (and watch) whether it’s a classmate’s creation or a podcast from another resource. If the podcast is being accessed on a site, usually the site is equipped to accept comments for the author. However, if the podcast is in a computer’s iTunes or on an iPod, feedback or reflections need to happen in a different way. Many teachers create a simple worksheet for students to fill out as they listen. Often there are three “generic” questions. 1) Which podcast did you listen to? 2) What is one thing that you learned from this podcast?  3) What is one thing that the podcast creator did well? If you want to be green or collect this feedback for easy analysis in a spreadsheet, a Google Form could be utilized. (Check out a previous post about Google Forms.) Another idea if you have iPod Touches is to have students give feedback using Notes and email it to the teacher right from the Touch.

Looking for more tips on podcasts and iPods? Tony Vincent’s site (and podcast) Learning In Hand has been very helpful to me.

All in all, if you haven’t been window shopping in the iTunes store recently or ever, it’s worth a look. Go on a free podcast spree.

Do you have any tips, tricks or management ideas? Or favorite podcasts?

I don’t think I have ever met anyone who enjoys putting together a bibliography or works cited list. The formatting rules are no picnic for the writer or the teacher who will be grading it. Honestly- having 4th graders word process a bibliography from scratch is pure torture. You have to have a keen eye for detail to adjust the spacing and punctuation, and the average kid just doesn’t see it. However, it’s not a choice; it’s a necessity to cite sources. But do we need to know how to set it up on our own? Why not use a tool that makes it bearable for all parties to fulfill the obligation?

Don’t walk- RUN to use the following:

NoodleBib MLA Starter – it’s recommended  for Gr 1 – 5. You can sign up for free accounts, and no email is required. And yes, it is easy for students to use. The directions are very clear. You can download the bibliography or works cited list to Word. A lot of teachers taking grad courses use this site for their own papers after they have seen the miracles it performs for their own students!

NoodleBib Express – This is for a quick citation. No account set up, and you can choose the citation style: APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian format.

NoodleTools, the maker of this goodness, also offers Teacher Resources (21st Century Literacies, a curriculum collaboration toolkit, and the ethical researcher).

I know we say this a lot, but NoodleBib truly is one of those tools that I wish were around when I was in school… and had four papers due!

It’s that time of  year. We are assessing our district technology needs. Out with the ancient equipment and in with the new! Lists have been drafted, and now an overall one is being compiled. The question: what are our priorities as a district? Certain concepts and terminology keep surfacing in our quest: cloud computing, desktop virtualization and thin clients. Being an Apple strong environment, many of us are unsure of what all these mean, and if and how they will impact us. I’ve been doing a little bit of reading during my vacation. This is what I’ve learned, and by no means, am I an expert! This is my (possibly over) simplification of the terms. I’m just trying to make sense of it all by sharing these potential tools.

Cloud Computing- The term refers to services that are provided to the user by launching a web browser and visiting a specific site/service on the Internet. No special software is required on the computer, and the information is organized and stored on a server. Google’s Gmail, Calendar and Documents are good examples that many of us use.

Desktop Virtualization- This term refers to when a user logs into a computer connected to a remote central server. The log-in allows the user to see and use all of his/her programs, services and files. They are running off the server. The users do not have to be at one location, but are on the same network or able to access the server through the Internet. Also, the desktop of the computer changes from user to user based on what s/he has permission to access. It’s like having the comforts of home no matter what machine you use. A somewhat example that I have seen in our school district is FirstClass, our communication system. While it is a program loaded on machines, it does require the Internet to run. It also gives a user a customized, virtual desktop with access to his/her services, calendars and files that are stored on the FirstClass servers. A user can utilize any machine that has the FirstClass software and have total retrieval of his/her “stuff”. This is very convenient if you work from different locations in a building, district and from home.

Thin Client- the term refers to a device that does not do its own computing. It relies on a server. When a user employs a specific program, the program is not running on the thin client device, but rather a server. Thin clients are considerably less expensive than traditional computers because they do not have the hardware, software or even storage space that is required of a full computer. Low maintenance requirements of thin clients also make them desirable to tech support. A Netbook is an example.

As you can see, the cost effectiveness of being in the cloud is a big sell to school districts. It certainly would be cheaper to outfit everyone with a thin client versus a Mac. However, this bring me to: Is this the right path to go in an educational environment? Especially an elementary one?

I am a big advocate of online, Web 2.0 tools; however, we do use many pieces of software that are computer (not server) based and work seamlessly together, such as iLife (iTunes, GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie). It seems that by seeking out replacement tools that are server or web based to create similar type projects and outcomes may shift us to having to concentrate more on learning the technology versus the curriculum objective. That is a concern, especially at the elementary level with younger students. How much adult support will be required?

It seems that differentiation, like in the classroom, is key. One size fits all doesn’t make sense there or in meeting our computing needs. We need to ask ourselves: where does cloud computing make sense?

Libraries may be excellent places for thin clients to access online card catalogs and resources. Teachers are being required to complete more and more administrative tasks, such as district benchmark data entry and student grades as well as being connected through email communication systems. Therefore, teachers may be good candidates for thin clients or desktop virtualization. Students certainly can be in the cloud with blogging, but having access to computer labs or laptops that are full systems that are not entirely reliant on the Internet (it does go down on occasion) seems prudent.

The task committee that is working on our technology needs believes that we have to put the educational objective first when making decisions. Therefore, we have a lot of questions about the impact that a whole change over to thin clients and virtualization will have. And yes, we even have started our own Google Doc (in the cloud) to list our concerns to investigate and discuss with each other!

Where are other people’s schools and districts heading?

Resources:

ms.sanderson’s cloud Bookmarks on Delicious

Go ahead… press the play button!

(Text version: Does your blog or web page have the blahs? How about spicing it up with some talking avatars?)

Recently, I have seen quite a few of these critters on various people’s media or projects, and I have to say, I am mesmerized! A talking cartoon totally grabs my attention, so why not use it as a hook for your students? They may seem silly or just plain fun, but they could serve practical purposes as well. Some students need to hear the directions AND read them. A speaking avatar is there for all students without singling out those below grade level readers. The avatar also could be a hint giver or summarizer for the assignment that a student could access over and over again. Why not make academic accommodations using avatars from Voki? (This service lets you choose a language, accent and a voice as well. It works well with phonetic spelling. Does it have ELL possibilities?)

On the other hand, students also could make their own avatar to demonstrate learning. If a student is researching an animal, instead of writing up the traditional report, have the student draw the animal (in KidPix or even scan a hand drawing) or find an image of the animal. Then using Blabberize, upload the image, animate its mouth and voice record a first person (or rather animal) account of interesting facts, etc. Students may record up to 30 seconds for free. Sound files that are created and saved as WAV or MP3′s in another program, such as GarageBand may be uploaded, too.
Here’s a mini sample:

Another idea is to have students complete a book report or review using an avatar. Here are some examples of book review avatars on this glog (a.k.a. graphic blog… more about that tool at a later date!!! ) *Please note: These book reviews were not made with Voki or Blabberize. However, they serve as a source of inspiration of what one could do with an avatar. There are other cool avatar making options that have been shared with me that work with Logitech cameras; however, I have not found them to be Mac friendly. Please let me know if you have some good finds for the Mac and its built-in iSight camera!

Both Voki and Blabberize can be embedded on a blog by copying and pasting the “code” into a blog post (or anywhere you are allowed to put HTML). That’s what I did on this post.

The hurdle that I see is the usual: making accounts at these sites for young students without emails. You can create a Voki without signing up. You just won’t be able to store or access your work at a later date. Blabberize does require an email to use the service. Perhaps, a teacher could create a class account (or several using Gmails) and designate a computer as an avatar making station. (That’s what I’m envisioning in our computer lab.) Students could create their avatars and copy and paste the code into a text file (Word document) that could be saved to a server that they would be able to access at another time or from a different machine when they were ready to copy and paste into a blog post. The class account at the avatar site would store these creations in case a student needed to recopy the code.

Do you think integrating avatars could be worthwhile?

Need to survey people, or want your students to administer a survey? Want to make online quizzes for students? Or even better: have students make their own quizzes for each other to demonstrate what they know? Then look no further than Forms in Google Docs.

Do you send out an email whenever you need to gather info from people? This Google video illustrates the hard work of compiling data using the email method. Can you say management nightmare?

Creating a form that is online and gathers data for me to analyze (with graphics!) right in Google Docs is slick. It looks so professional, and then to be able to download the data into Excel makes it even better.

Try out this sample one that has been embedded below:

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What will you need to do to get started making your own? First, you need to create a Google account or log into an existing one. From there you need to get into Documents and create a new Form.

I found this how-to use a Google Form to create an online quiz video on Wesley Fryer’s blog originally. It’s very easy to follow. You can use this video to create a survey, too. Looking to go one more step and have the form act as a self-grading quiz? Then you’ll want to check this screencast out as well.

There is one possible hurdle to overcome: Google accounts for younger students. The good news is that you don’t need an account or email to fill out a form or take a quiz. The form or quiz can be embedded or linked on a teacher’s web page or blog for students to access. All of the results go to the teacher’s or creator’s spreadsheet in Google Docs. If you want younger students to create their own surveys or quizzes and collect the information, you will need to set up Google accounts for them. Instead of managing all of those accounts, create a handful for your class and have students work in groups. Changing the passwords allows you to keep using those accounts with new students.

Google Forms are practical, yet cool. They will gather data, but also encourage the critical thinking of design. The integration possibilities are starting to take shape in my head…I’m thinking a choose your own adventure… How will you use them?

Resources to check out:

AHS Google Form Ideas (submitted by a Form!)

Google’s Lead Learners examples

Google Docs Help for Forms

As I sit here pondering this week’s post, I have been checking out what’s going on in the Twitterverse of my PLN (Personal Learning Network). Some may call it procrastination, but I’d say it’s inspiration. This has been the scenario: Read a tweet. Click on link. Retweet and/or bookmark. Repeat. After several cycles, it occurred to me that I should showcase a tool that I am using continuously to keep all of these great website links that my PLN has to offer organized.

May I introduce you to Delicious, a free, social bookmarking service. Simply, it allows a user to save and tag websites. You may be wondering how that’s different from bookmarking a site in Firefox or Safari? When you bookmark a site in a web browser, it only is available to you on that one machine. Therefore, if you find a cool site on your home machine and bookmark it in Firefox, when you go to school and open up Firefox it’s not on your bookmarks menu. However, if you were to save the link to your Delicious account while you were at home, then when you went to school (or anywhere) all you would have to do is hop on the Internet, log into Delicious and you would have access to all of your links. Delicious allows you to save all of your favorite web pages in a central location. No more emailing links to yourself!

I personally find Delicious great for tagging and organizing all of the links that come my way. I often do not have a use for them at that very moment, but want to store them away for the perfect occasion. Tagging is organizing the bookmarks with keywords. That way I can sort through my bookmarks on Delicious very quickly when I’m looking for something on a particular topic. (Interested in learning more about tagging? Check out this video presentation from Chris Betcher at the K12 Online Conference 2008.)

Finally, there is the social aspect of Delicious. You actually can see how many other people have bookmarked a particular site. I guess this can make you feel like you’re “one of the gang” or a pioneer. Or perhaps, you’re thinking “Who cares how many people have bookmarked that rocks & minerals website?” Well, with one more click on that number, it is revealed to you which Delicious users have bookmarked the site. You then can click on one of those users and see all of his/her bookmarks. This may feel like an invasion of privacy; however, this is social networking. At Delicious, it’s encouraged to share what you’re finding on the Internet. And maybe, that person who bookmarked that rocks & minerals site has a real interest in geology and tons of sites that you could utilize as well.

Is Delicious faster than a Google search? Maybe. Like getting recommendations from a global web community with your same interests? Yes. Of course, you still have to decide if the site works for you, but you now have a tool that may make your life and job a little more organized… and easier.

Feel free to check out my bookmarks on Delicious.

Here’s a short video explanation and tutorial of Delicious and social bookmarking from a great resource: Common Craft.