Sunday, July 13, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday at NECC 2008
Global Collaboration: The morning general session featured an on-stage dialogue between Lestor Holt, NBC news anchor, and Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley (classroom teachers from Ontario Canada).Jim and Mali shared their inspirational story as well as their insights and experiences on how they had integrated curriculum content, technology, and teaching strategies into relevant global projects that motivated their students and inspired parents, administrators and fellow teachers. The International Education and Resource Network (iEARN) played an important role in supporting the teachers and their projects.
Vendors Highlights from the floor:
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2008 Edition - works with leopard, includes iTunes integration; offline syncing; classroom manager; and brilliant graphics. (It made me want to practice my typing!)
HyperStudio: Creator and software designer, Roger Wagner, presented his new edition of HyperStudio5. This program is back and has been updated with Web 2.0 capabilities including podcasting and webcams. Students can use the familiar “cards” and “stacks” to process and record their learning in a non-linear fashion. The graphics were spectacular and the program includes easy to use media rich tools.
Mycroflex system - The makers of the Proscope (a handheld microscope used in some of our science classes) now offers a budget conscious solution for capturing and viewing scientific objects. The camera and zoom video lens can stand alone or easily adapts to most stereo or compound microscopes. It also includes a flexible mount that provides stable positioning. The images displayed on the demonstration monitor were quite remarkable.
Hal Davidson: Always entertaining, Hal offered a session called “Teaching Spectacularly with the Cell Phone”. He made the point that there are many more cell phones than computers and that almost every student already has one! His presentation focused on features that he felt were most useful in a classroom situation. Many phones today not only capture pictures but also video. Through web-based programs such as Qik, we are now able to broadcast live video from a cell phone. The live feeds can easily be posted on webpages, blogs, or wikis. Cisco’s new IP security webcams, now make it possible to watch a live feed (on a cell phone) from anywhere in the world! By registering for “free” multiple channels - one for each webcam - Davidson showed how to easily switch between the various webcam feeds. Other tools that he demonstrated for cell phones included JOTT, TWITTER, PollEverywhere, and GCast. These tools are ones that you will want to learn more about.
Vendors Highlights from the floor:
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2008 Edition - works with leopard, includes iTunes integration; offline syncing; classroom manager; and brilliant graphics. (It made me want to practice my typing!)
HyperStudio: Creator and software designer, Roger Wagner, presented his new edition of HyperStudio5. This program is back and has been updated with Web 2.0 capabilities including podcasting and webcams. Students can use the familiar “cards” and “stacks” to process and record their learning in a non-linear fashion. The graphics were spectacular and the program includes easy to use media rich tools.
Mycroflex system - The makers of the Proscope (a handheld microscope used in some of our science classes) now offers a budget conscious solution for capturing and viewing scientific objects. The camera and zoom video lens can stand alone or easily adapts to most stereo or compound microscopes. It also includes a flexible mount that provides stable positioning. The images displayed on the demonstration monitor were quite remarkable.
Hal Davidson: Always entertaining, Hal offered a session called “Teaching Spectacularly with the Cell Phone”. He made the point that there are many more cell phones than computers and that almost every student already has one! His presentation focused on features that he felt were most useful in a classroom situation. Many phones today not only capture pictures but also video. Through web-based programs such as Qik, we are now able to broadcast live video from a cell phone. The live feeds can easily be posted on webpages, blogs, or wikis. Cisco’s new IP security webcams, now make it possible to watch a live feed (on a cell phone) from anywhere in the world! By registering for “free” multiple channels - one for each webcam - Davidson showed how to easily switch between the various webcam feeds. Other tools that he demonstrated for cell phones included JOTT, TWITTER, PollEverywhere, and GCast. These tools are ones that you will want to learn more about.
Monday, June 30, 2008
NECC 2008 "Lit2Go"
I hit the jackpot today regarding information about free audiobooks. Lit2Go is a project created by the University of Southern Florida. Their website is loaded with audiofiles of books that are in the public domain and therefore free of copyright issues. They have hired professional readers to ensure that the files are of high quality. Teachers can download the MP3 files directly to their computers or to their iTunes library - and they are iPod ready! In addition, teachers can download the associated text as a pdf file that can be printed out and highlighted and annotated. As an option, students can choose to read the text directly from the web. The website also provides support materials and worksheets for each book as well as other resources including free clipart, and maps. The presenter encouraged the audience to think about making the audiofiles more interactive. He showed us how we could use Audacity or GarageBand to alter and expand the audio file. Adding sounds and pictures to the audio track requires students to think more deeply about the text and also seems to help with memory and recall.
An interesting idea offered by the presenters ...ask the students to strip away most of the audio file leaving only those vocabulary words that are new to the student. The student can then use GarageBand to add an image illustrating the meaning of the word. By adding to the vocabulary audio file over the course of the year, the students will create an
eportfolio of their vocabulary development. Students could also listen to the resulting enhanced podcast to reinforce their personal learning.
An interesting idea offered by the presenters ...ask the students to strip away most of the audio file leaving only those vocabulary words that are new to the student. The student can then use GarageBand to add an image illustrating the meaning of the word. By adding to the vocabulary audio file over the course of the year, the students will create an
eportfolio of their vocabulary development. Students could also listen to the resulting enhanced podcast to reinforce their personal learning.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Edublogger "Unconference"
Today I attended the edublogger "unconference" at the Henry B. Gonzales Conference Center in San Antonio Texas. The participants began the morning by voting on their choices for possible topics and the results determined the formal sessions for the day. The unconference is designed to be flexible and highly collaborative. One of my favorite sessions was Web 2.0 Smackdown. Audience participants were invited to share their favorite cool Web 2.0 tool. That is where I learned about Poll Everywhere. This is an awesome free tool that allows up to 30 participants to vote on a question via textmessage or through the web. One can invite people to vote through an email and embed the live poll on the a website to watch the results as they come in. For my first test of this poll, I asked the question:
I want to learn more about:
2) poll everywhere (cast 4148)
3) delicious (cast 4159).
To vote on the poll through the web go to http://www.polleverywhere.co/multiple_choice_polls/LTIxMTgwMzQzNjQ/web. To vote through your phone text message 41411 and send your vote in the form of "cast 1234" using the appropriate code for diigo, poll everywhere or delicious.
Please vote and return to this site to see the results show up on the graph below.
I want to learn more about:
1) diigo (cast 4157)
2) poll everywhere (cast 4148)
3) delicious (cast 4159).
To vote on the poll through the web go to http://www.polleverywhere.co/multiple_choice_polls/LTIxMTgwMzQzNjQ/web. To vote through your phone text message 41411 and send your vote in the form of "cast 1234" using the appropriate code for diigo, poll everywhere or delicious.
Please vote and return to this site to see the results show up on the graph below.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Third TRY-
This is the third of three attempts to dictate the text below. I called Jott and in response to the question "Who do you want to Jott?" I responded "blogger". This time I added the commands "quotation" "comma" and "period" - listen to audio file as well!
I just called Jott and listened to my post on "musings to share" and it worked pretty well. I thought it would only read one post but continued reading all the post showing on my homepage. I am using my iPhone now to update this post to my page as long as your update is less that 30 seconds, it should work well. Besides you can always edit the post if necessary. listen
Powered by Jott
Still not perfect as you can see. However, Jott will add quotation marks wherever one says "quotation" as well as "comma" and "period". Good to know.
I just called Jott and listened to my post on "musings to share" and it worked pretty well. I thought it would only read one post but continued reading all the post showing on my homepage. I am using my iPhone now to update this post to my page as long as your update is less that 30 seconds, it should work well. Besides you can always edit the post if necessary. listen
Powered by Jott
Still not perfect as you can see. However, Jott will add quotation marks wherever one says "quotation" as well as "comma" and "period". Good to know.
I just called jott and...
I just called jott and listened to my post on musings to share and it worked pretty well. I thought it would only read one post but it continued reading the post showing on my home page. I am using my iPhone now to post this update to my page. As long as your update is less than 30 seconds it should work well besides you can always edit the post if necessary. listen
Powered by Jott
Good to know that spelling the word "musings m-u-s-i-n-g-s" worked! Even though I paused between the "well" and "besides" - the last sentence all ran together.
Powered by Jott
Good to know that spelling the word "musings m-u-s-i-n-g-s" worked! Even though I paused between the "well" and "besides" - the last sentence all ran together.
I just called Jott and...
I just called Jott and listened to my post of Musings to share and it worked pretty well. I thought it would read only one post but continued reading though"those" showing on my home page. I am using my iPhone now to post this update to my page. As long as your update is less than 30 seconds it should work well besides you can always edit the post if necessary. listen
Powered by Jott
P.S. I made a few corrections shown in red above. Not bad - like I said - you can always edit. I am going to try one more time and see if spelling "Musings" makes a difference.
Powered by Jott
P.S. I made a few corrections shown in red above. Not bad - like I said - you can always edit. I am going to try one more time and see if spelling "Musings" makes a difference.
Testing Feed to Jott
I have added this blog as a feed to Jott. If it works correctly, then when I call Jott and say the name "Musings 2 Share" - Jott will read me the Title of the the most recent blog posting as well as the posting itself. Pretty cool.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Evernote Workshop
Tuesday morning I will give a presentation on Evernote, Jott, and Skitch at the Kamehameha Technology Conference.The pdf file for my presentation will be posted at: http://wiki.punahou.edu/users/jbeaver
To find more information about the
Ed Tech Conference please visit:
http://blogs.ksbe.edu/edtechconference/
Monday, June 2, 2008
Evernote
Evernote is awesome. I am really having fun figuing out how Jott and Skitch work together with Evernote to handle most of my note taking needs.
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