Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits

Here are a few of the podcasts that I listen/watch on a fairly regular basis (all subscribed to via iTunes.) Some of them feed my need for knowledge, some feed the needs of my soul, and some feed my need for a few laughs every now and again.

ATW (American Theatre Wing) - Working in the Theatre (video podcast)

Great discussions with top theatre professionals working on Broadway. Provides up and comers with a better understanding of theatre. I originally subscribed to these to share with a student and to help me learn more about theatre myself (since I am a drama sponsor). My favorites (or course) are the ones on performance where they interview the actors.

ATW - Downstage Center (audio podcast)

Podcasts taken from an XM Satellite Radio interview show. Guests are theatre veterans. I only recently started subscribing to this one. As with any interview show, some are better than others - just as some actors/guests are better speakers than others.

GeekBrief.tv (video podcst)

Hosted by Cali Lewis who shares new/upcoming technology as well as technology news. I like GeekBrief’s short video podcasts as they highlight some interesting gadgets. I love the bloopers they tack onto the end of the podcasts, too!

Mr. Deity (video podcast)

iTunes description: “Mr. Deity offers a humorous (and slightly irreverent) look at the day-to-day operation of the universe and the “Big Man” in charge.” When asked about my religion I usually state: “I’m a non-practicing, liberal Catholic.” So if you watch this, you’ll understand why I find this podcast series HILARIOUS! You have been warned, so don’t post negative comments about this or state I’m going to H-E-double-hockey sticks if you’re offended by Mr. Deity.

NewSpring Church (audio podcast)

Church services given by Paster Perry Nobel out of Anderson, SC. I stumbled upon this podcast when I was looking for ones by Greg Laurie (see below) and I initially subscribed just because it’s produced out of South Carolina. I keep subscribing because I love the fact that Paster Perry tells it like it is (no sugar coating) and he talks like he could be my next-door neighbor. You can also watch the video podcasts of the sermons online.

A New Beginning with Greg Laurie (audio podcast)

“Pastor Greg Laurie’s thirty-minute daily radio program featuring relevant, biblical teaching.” I used to listen to these broadcasts on my way to evening classes at USC (That’s THE USC- University of South Carolina and not that upstart on the west coast who stole our initials.) Unfortunately, I can no longer get the station out in the boonies where I live now, so you can imagine how pleased I was that they’re available via podcasts!

Tech Chick Tips (audio podcast)

“Tips and tricks for teaching 21st century students using 21st century skills from two Texas educators obsessed with anything digital!” Another recent addition to my podcast downloads. These two ladies share lots of useful tech tools and I love their interactions/camaraderie during their show. (Thank you Cathy Nelson for introducing me to this one.)

TEDTalks (video podcast)

“Inspired talks by the worlds greatest thinkers and doers.” WONDERFUL, inspirational, educational, motivational, … lets see, how many more adjectives can I use to encourage you to subscribe? Seriously, this is one resource you won’t regret downloading (or you can watch them directly from the website.) A few of my favorite speakers are: Sir Ken Robinson (2006); Larry Lessig (2007); Jill Taylor (2008); and any from David Pogue (he’s so funny!)

WebbAlert (video podcast)

“WebbAlert is Morgan Webb’s website and daily videocast, covering the day’s developments in tech news, video gaming, gadgetry, and digital culture.” The reason I like this one is that she not only focuses on technology gadgetry, but the latest technology business news.

Women of Web 2.0 (audio podcast)

“WOW2 is for all who are using the tools of the internet whether it be in a classroom setting, leading seminars, authoring books, maintaining blogs or wikis, or just enjoying the tools of the internet in an educational and exciting way.” I’ve never can seem to remember to join in the live show, but like what I’ve heard and learned so far. (Another, shout out to Cathy Nelson for introducing me to this one.)

If any of these sound like ones you’d like to try, please keep in mind the title of this post is “my favorite podcasts.” If you don’t like something here, don’t blame me. I’m just sharing what I like! : - )

Conversely, if you have some that you think I should check out, please share them in the comments. I look forward to finding new material to listen and/or watch.

Another media specialist recently emailed me to ask about our state library association’s book award podcasts. She stated she knows nothing about “pod casts” and asked “do you download them to an MP3 player?” This got me thinking - as I’d jumped all over podcasts a number of years ago and have been happily downloading them religiously, especially for educational uses. However, it was only this year that I seriously wanted to produce “something.” The SC Young Adult Book Award (YABA) program gave me the chance by allowing me and the Wagener-Salley HS drama students the opportunity to produce the podcasts for this years Young Adult Book Award Nominees. [More on that in a minute.]

Jumping back to the question: If the lady who asked me about podcasts is reading this, please don’t feel bad about not knowing who, what, why, where, when, how to’s of podcasting. You are definitely not alone. Even I am not a definitive source of knowledge on the subject and could not fully explain it in all it’s wonderful glory in one blog post. However, for a quick and dirty explanation, here is a video by Common Craft that explains “Podcasting in Plain English.”

While the Common Craft show focuses on personal learning or entertainment podcasts, there are numerous out there that are useful in the K-12 setting both in and out of the classroom. And there are some not so educational podcasts being produced, too. As with anything you want to incorporate into your classrooms you need to view/listen to the podcasts first. Yes, podcasts can be viewed if they are a video podcast. If you’re new to podcasts, I recommend downloading iTunes and exploring their podcast pages. Also take a look at the iTunes U pages as those are specifically educational podcasts. Not every podcast out in Internet Land is listed there, but it at least give you some idea of what you can find.

Back to the 2008-2009 Book Award Nominee podcasts. You can find the links to all of the podcasts for each category (picture, children, junior, and young adult) on the SCASL website. Click on the “Book Awards” menu option and then choose the type of Book Award you want to view. They have an RSS reader icon on their podcast pages so you could subscribe to them in your RSS reader (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.) HOWEVER, the files are all there as downloadable MP3s that you can save to your computer. They should open up in either Quicktime or Windows Media Player depending upon your computer (Mac/Windows). You can also transfer the downloaded files to your MP3 player.

Another option for the Young Adult Book Award Nominee titles is to subscribe to the podcasts via my school’s podcast page: “The Journey Begins…“ I’m in the process of putting all of the YABA Award episodes there with descriptions, cover art, and in such a way as to allow subscribing directly via iTunes. What’s taking me so long is getting the descriptions typed and giving the media specialist who wrote each booktalk the credit they so richly deserve. I hope to continue to add newer titles once all of the YABA books have been posted. However, since that means I have to write the booktalks, don’t expect them too regularly!

I’ve also been asked how did I produce the podcasts. Well, I “cheated.” I have a Mac! With Garageband! I simply opened Garageband, chose to create a podcast (or create new podcast episode) and had the students read the booktalks provided by the committee members. My Mac comes with a built in microphone, however, some of the podcasts were produced with the new Blu Snowball USB microphone

I purchased. Garageband also has jingles that you can use in podcasts. I recorded and saved an introduction that I included on all of the podcasts (next time I’ll change it to a conclusion as I’m sure the subscribers are tired of hearing my voice saying the same thing over and over and over!) I simply pieced together the different parts of each episode (music, intro, booktalk, music) and shared it as an MP3 file. For the school podcast page, I shared it to my iWeb page. The Mac did almost all of the work for me.

One thing I’m disappointed with SCASL’s podcast page for YABA is that they didn’t use the graphic I created for the podcasts. It tells a story and then the music I chose makes more sense when you hear it.

In my next post I’ll share some of the podcasts that I subscribe to and enjoy.

This past week I attended technology workshops at the ETV Studios in Columbia. While I was familiar with all of the session topics I attended, my purpose in going was to gather more examples of Web 2.0 tools in practice and learn new ways of using these tools.

Session 1: Blogging and Podcasting - Presenter: Brad Fountain from Discovery Education

• I learned that StreamlineSC (UnitedStreaming) has sound files, which I didn’t know before.
• I learned that I may be interested in becoming a STAR Discovery Educator (some of the many perks include great training and a blog that won’t be blocked by my school district).
• Use a blog as Classroom/Teacher web page for communicating with parents and include pages for: announcements/calendar, assignments, resources, discussion questions.
• That if I add someone to my Frequent Contacts they shouldn’t be bounced by school email (so @cathyjo if you’re reading this, try emailing me again from gmail!)

Session 2: Google Earth Basics - Presenter: Tom Taylor (www.geopackrat.com)

• Wow. Information overload. While I have downloaded Google Earth to my Macbook and opened it up, I had never actually used it before. There is so much to explore and the possibilities for using this in the classroom are NUMEROUS. Not just the Google Lit Trips I learned about at SCASL.

Session 3: Blogging - Presenter: LaQuita Hutchinson

• The best thing to come out of this session is getting my email on her mailing list! She sends out lots of great resources for K-12 education, many of which I will be passing along on future Odds & Ends posts.
• She also taught us how to create a blog using Blogger. While the service seems much simpler to use than Edublogs or WordPress, Blogger is blocked by most school districts.

Session 4: VoiceThread - Presenter: Nic Finelli

• Again, I was already familiar with VoiceThread and had created an educator account, but I have not actually used the service yet.

• The best thing about attending this session were the examples he shared. One idea was to use VoiceThread to document field trips. Have students take along voice recorder and/or cameras to document their trip. Then create a VoiceThread to share what they learned and allow others to comment.

• While browsing for examples on VoiceThread, I also came across this one on Information Literacy Perspectives by Della Curtis that I thought was good.

Session 5: Small Wonder Cameras - Presenter: Bill Sheskey

• While I knew the Small Wonder Cameras were similar to the Flip Video Camera I recently purchased, I knew there were a few differences. The Small Wonder has a flip out display and you can add an SD card.

• The great thing about this session as it wasn’t about the camera, but the lessons/activities examples. One technique was to distribute a photograph to groups and the groups had 3 minutes to decide Who, What, Where and When. After the three minutes, he recorded the groups answers on the Small Wonder camera and showed how easy it was to download the clips to the computer.
• Mr. Sheskey also showed other online tools as well. Picnik a neat photo editing site was one of these tools.

Session 6: Geotagging - Presenter: Tom Taylor (www.geopackrat.com)

• Never heard of this before, but basically it is to place a geographical location tag to stuff: photographs, videos, blogs, etc. and in this case, then mark them on Google Earth. There is no way I can explain it in a blog post. Sorry.
• Neat thing I didn’t know was that if you set the time stamp on your camera to to the same time that is on your GPS device, you can merge the GPS dates tracking file with your photographs and tag your photos with the geographical location right on the photo file itself. Only drawback is that the geotag is of where you were standing, not necessarily where the subject of your photograph is located.
• Tom has some wonderful photographs up on Flickr that he’s taken. I highly recommend checking them out.

As you can see, I attended some really great sessions. I highly recommend the ETV Tech Workshops. There will be another round in July (29th - 31st) and registration opens May 6th. Register early as the sessions usually fill up fast.

First up, I would like to share a wonderful example of Voicethread AND a short explanation on why we should all learn and use a little bit of Web 2.0 in our schools. It was created by Library Media Specialist Fran Bullington. I’m attempting to embed it in this post, but if it doesn’t appear you can access it here.

I thought some of you might find inspiration from the following post “Making Connections With History” by loonyhiker of the Successful Teaching Blog, about creating a classroom timeline to help students identify with concepts, discoveries, important people in context with other notable events from the same time/era.

More Anne Frank news from BBC News: “Anne Frank Greeting Card Found”

A few news items from CNN.com:

• “Conflict follows device that drives away teen loiterers” Remember a while back I posted a link regarding the Mosquito ringtone that only young adults are able to hear? Well there is a teen repellent device, oddly enough, called the Mosquito that emits the tone and deters teens from loitering outside of places people don’t want them. As a teen advocate, this disturbs me greatly. I understand there are SOME teens out there who are “bad” but this punishes all teens. The sad thing is that the article mentions a SC school district that uses the device!
• “Harry Potter case brings the law into the Internet age” Another sad story. A former librarian is being sued by J.K. Rowling over a Harry Potter encyclopedia he’s trying to get published. Not sure who’s side I’m on, especially since as long as it was online and free, Ms. Rowling seemed to like the website, but now that the guy wants to make money off of his work compiling Potter facts she’s saying no can do. So far I think both sides are wrong: librarian for not seeking permission first and Rowling for letting the website exist is she wanted to be the only one to produce the “definitive guide to Harry Potter.”
• “How to raise financially savvy kids” I liked this idea: “Her 3-year-old son has a piggy bank. But it’s no ordinary piggy bank. The modern kids’ saving tool has four chambers for coins — one for saving, one for spending, one for donating and one for investing.” Get them started on money management early! Wish I’d done this as a child and then I’d be more financially responsible today!

That’s all for today. I hope to have a post up soon about the ETV Technology Workshops I attended this week.

I believe this was in partly in honor of School Library Month and partly National Poetry Month, but didn’t have a chance to ask since the teacher came and left so quickly. The Teacher Cadet teacher gave me a certificate of appreciation signed by all of the students and a poem they wrote for me/the library. Of course, I immediately posted it to the library web page, but had to share it here, too:

Our Library

The Library is the place to go
When there is something you want to know.
It always has a lot of books
And is full of places you should look.

There are a lot of things you can achieve
But in Ms. Loy’s library wear long sleeves.
There’s only one in our small town
So we hope it does not burn down.

While you’re there don’t overlook the videos
They’re on the shelves and are stacked in rows.
Don’t chew gum
Even though it tastes yum.

Come and try the computers
They work better than most tutors.
Watch out for what you may find
Because some things will put you in a bind.

Remember no loud talking
Or Ms. Loy will send you walking.
So come and check out a book for anything
And we may do karaoke and sing.

© 2008 Wagener-Salley High School

Written by Mrs. Mason’s Teacher Cadet class

Isn’t it great. They got some things right (”wear long sleeves” as I keep it VERY cold in the library) and some things not so right (”don’t overlook the videos” as there aren’t any for students to check out, only teachers), and I’m not so sure about the computers being better than tutors, but they made me feel so happy. I even think the headache I’ve had for the last three days went away after their wonderful gift! (Or maybe it was the double dose of caffine and Naproxin?) Naw, it was those sweet teenagers! I’m also glad they mentioned the karaoke we had for Teen Read Week. The whole class came over and everyone had to sing at least once!