Last week, we demonstrated using some digital audio recorders (Olympus WS-100) that we now have, as well as the Apple ITalk, which the library has two of. The Italks record straight to an iPod, while the digital recorders record and then can be uploaded via a USB port.
Both are very user friendly for recording student podcasts, audio of students practicing foreign language assignments, recording guest speakers, etc.
We then shared the use of Audacity which is free software for recording audio straight to the computer (or cleaning up already recorded audio). Audacity and it’s companion piece (Lame –which allows you to convert a file to an mp3 file after recording) can be downloaded for free.
More tips on using audacity here at our Vietnam project site.
It’s the old technology(tape recorders) that is now digital, but think of ways you could use student recordings if you can bring them into projects digitally?
Sound tracks to Powerpoint? Student narrated slide shows? Students recording interviews they do and sharing them on your website?
Your ideas?
In February, we shared how to use Pageflakes, which is a tool to get your blogs or website news to come to you.
Create a site on Page flakes. It will display the name you enter in, so select carefully.
PageFlakes uses the RSS feeds to send the page to you. For example, if you want to display all your students’ blog sites, or all of our campus blog sites, you can click the ”Add feed” button. Paste the URL of the blog’s home page into the box provided. Click add feed, and then it adds it to the front page of your Page Flakes site.
Then when you go to PageFlakes, you’ll see a display of all the different feeds at once. It automatically updates them once you go into the site.
You can also add news feeds, podcasts, plus links you use. To add a link, click “Add Flake” and click on the flake for a favorite/website. Then paste the link in.
This is an excellent tool for students to use to gather research or to use for yourself to keep up with news articles or blogs. Come by for a lesson in how to use it!
We’re playing “catch-up” on posting our lessons from our Wednesday Project Tech Workshops. This session was a runway show from January 10 that we shared, of projects using web 2.0 tools at other campuses.
Example projects from “in” and “out” of the district
December 4th, 2006 by whsprojecttech in Uncategorized · No Comments
Our Project Tech workshop this last week focused on wikis and blogs.
Edublogs.org is a site we are all beginning to use to create a blog for professional use or for student use. Even corporations are starting to use blogs–Amazon books has one, for example. Think about a blog like a diary of topics where you create the topic for discussion that others can respond to.
Or you can have a blog that is just informational for your subject area, and you don’t have to allow comments.
For an educational blog, you will probably want to moderate the comments, which means comments are emailed to you and then you approve them. Edublogs does have this set up as the default.
You may also want to change the design of the blog. This is done under the Presentation button in the administrative section of the site. It’s easy to change the look and feel of your blog to something appealing for your subject by just clicking on the design you’d like.
To write a post, use the “Write” section, and to manage your previous posts or others’ comments, use the “Manage” section.
You may also want to set up your own blogroll for students of other sites you recommend they use or read. Use the “blogroll” button, then click “add” to add links to websites of your choice. These will display in your sidebar.
We also talked about using Wikis in the workshop. A wiki is a site that all users on the site can edit. You can create sidebar pages, and have different groups of students collect and add the information there. This works best on pbwiki since only one user at a time can edit each page.
There are many different wiki sites like wikispaces and pbwiki (peanut butter wiki). I have tips for using pbwiki.com on a wiki that I created if you would like help! The wiki is brightworkshop.pbwiki.com. (click on the sidebar to see the tips)
You can use a wiki in a year long effort to collect information for your course, use it for a committee to share and edit documents(you can password your wiki so only certain users can get into it), or use it for a review site for a final, etc. Corporations like Ebay are using wikis to have users create their manual for them.
Both these tools have so many uses for education! Share ideas you have here, or if you are using them, we’d like to hear what you are doing!
Carolyn
November 27th, 2006 by whsprojecttech in Free Tools · 1 Comment
This week, Carolyn will be presenting on how to setup a wiki at the Project Technology workshop Wedneday morning or afternoon. For those of you who don’t know what the difference between a wiki and a blog is, I thought I would explain.
A blog by definition is a web-log: a site where articles are entered like a journal and displayed for a global audience to post comments about the article. The content stays the same; its just the comments that are added by the audience that add to the page. A user usually makes a blog to host their own commentary on a particular topic. For example, this blog is only about the Project Technology workshops. I have a completely different blog that is about various technology issues and discussions. Both are commentaries on different topics but I allow anyone to post comments about each of the topics.
A Wiki on the other hand is a site where anyone can edit the content of any article posted. So, instead of me posting an article for someone else to comment on - anyone could change the content of the article or add more information to it. Some wikis require commentors to create an account to make the changes. However, there are many that do not and the articles are freely edited.
The best example of a wiki is Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia of information that is changing every second.
While many feel that this type of tool could be used inappropriately by students; there are many educators out there embracing the use of wikis in the classroom. Below is a list of uses of wikis used in K-12 classrooms as well as many universities:
- Wikis are used to provide space for free writing
- Class topics are debated - including assigned readings
- Classes can share resources for collaborative research
- In group projects, students can keep a journal of the work perfromed by the group
- Collaborative documents such as essays written by an entire class
- Teachers discuss curricular and instructional innovations
- Encourage students to revise Wikipedia pages or to take on a new Wikipedia assignment
- Inspire students to write a Wikibook
If you attend the Project Technology workshop this week, let us know what your comments about it. Let us know if you can/can’t use Wiki’s in your classes.
I wanted to add a tool I have been looking into after our Project Technology stuff. National Geographic Magazine now has free downloadable audio and video files. So students and teachers can visit the African safari or catch the week’s top science and nature news stories.
The free content can be found at Itunes, Yahoo, or http://www.national-geographic.com/podcasts.
Shows include NG News, Afropop Worldwide, and Traveler Magazine’s “50 Walks of a Lifetime”.
Nope, this isn’t a typo. There is a place called Froogle (pronounced “frugal”) where you can search for shopping items online as well as create your own personalized shopping list for your family and friends. Using your Personalized Google Account again, you can manage your shopping online.
When you first access Froogle - http://froogle.google.com - it will show you the most recent items that they have found for other users. You can type an item you are looking for and it opens with categories for you to view at the top of the page. You can set your price range, select the type of manufacturer, and even read comments posted by others about the product (or post your own). Once you find the items you like, you can price compare with other manufacturers and then generate your own shopping list. The site also provides you with places in your area where you can purchase the items you are searching.
Can you use this?
I think the hit of today was the lesson on Google Picasa. Picasa is a software application you would need to install on your computer. It does a variety of things and its all free! One thing it does is organize your photos. When you first access it after installing, it pulls all the pictures from your computer into the Picasa program. It doesn’t move them out of the folders where they are, but it allows you to access them all in the one Picasa screen. You can then label your pics, reorganize, and even “rank” them according to 1-5 stars.
Picasa also has a built-in photo editor where you can remove fuzziness, red eye, and even crop pictures. When you have a folder of pics ready for a project you can make a screensaver, create a photo slide show, print your photos at home, send photos to Google Photo to be professionally printed, upload your pics to your Blogger site or to your Personal Google Home page, or you can create a CD of a picture slide show to share with family and friends.
All of this is for free. All of it is extremely easy to use!
Handout from today’s session: Google Earth, Froogle, Picasa Handout
Today I went over how to use Google Earth for travel as well as a classroom tool. Google Earth is a small application you have to download from earth.google.com. It does require you to have Internet access for most of the features so load it on a computer with network access.
This morning we went to the Nile River, we viewed Westlake from the satelite view, and we went to Area 51. I provided a handout that showed some ways teachers use Google Earth. These inlude measuring distances between places; viewing and zooming to particular places and/or their 3-D buildings on the terrain; Google Tours - which is a picture report created by the Google Global Community of the area. Another interesting thing is the fact that Google allows users to post their own comments about particular areas on the map and to comment on other areas using their free accounts. You could visit Paris, France and post comments to others who visit it online about tips for travel or other things.
With this in mind, some educators in the UK are creating online Google Tours where they are able to store data about their research on their own Google Earth type page you can visit and use in your classes.
I would use Google’s search engine to look for “Google Earth Lessons” to find out how other people are using it. Has anyone out there used it in their class or see a way to use it? Post your ideas here.
Google Earth Document - Click here to download the handout
Another post from Carolyn’s blog - this one was about using new search engines that are more visual in result posting.
In our Project Technology workshop yesterday, we talked about the trend in search sites that are using “visual” methods for searching. Ian Jukes talked about how students read screens differently and I think we’ll start seeing that trend in search engine websites. Ok, so maybe this is geeky but after all, I am a ……
librarian….
A few to check out–
Ask.com has a cool visual feature. Try a search on Ask. If you scroll down through the links, you see a little pair of binoculars. If you slide your mouse over it, it shows an image of the page, which is helpful when you are trying to figure out which links to use. They have a lot of nice features now, like recipe conversions (Try it by typing “how many ounces in a quart?”) and nice mapping features. It can even map a walking route rather than driving route.
Exalead.com is a new search site that allows you to set up a visual list of sites you use frequently on the first screen. It’s like your “favorites” but it displays pictures of each screen. Also once you do a search, it shows a miniature image of each website in your search. Another nice feature is a toolbar where you can click to narrow down your search for video or audio on that topic.
Clusty.com displays a list of subtopics when you do a search, which is really helpful for students trying to narrow down a topic. They also have two new special search sites–Clusty Shakespeare and Clusty Ben(Ben Franklin) that have a wealth of information. They have also added the Clusty Cloud, which displays your search visually.
and for extra credit….. Check out this library in Queens which searches with a “mind map” type of screen. Very cool and what’s probably coming down the pike….
Happy searching (and finding!)
