St. Clair County RESA has been producing educational videos and news segments for many years. They've recently published a RESA TV Youtube channel that has many great resources for schools and the classroom.
One video worth checking out features teachers and students at Belle River Elementary showcasing their Digital Learning Day activities and celebrations.
As I was watching some of the videos from the RESA TV channel I came across this April 2011 Dateline Schools interview of myself discussing our Tools for Teaching Digital Natives technology integration pilot program that we ran during the 2010-11 school year. I was surprised to hear how much of what we did in this pilot that is still relevant today. You can hear my reflections about this program from the 5-17 minutes mark and also hear how this program impacted one of our participants, Jill Parrot from Port Huron Area School District. Jill is an amazing educator who has gone on to do some amazing work in her classroom. Thanks for watching.
While I am no diigo guru, I have come to rely on the bookmarking and highlighting features it offers. I use the diigo browser extension for chrome to make saving websites and web highlights a snap. I recently learned how to enable similar features using the iPad's Safari browser and have create a brief tutorial showing how to set this up. The tutorial assumes that you have downloaded the diigo app for iPad and that you have created a diigo account.
For more information about diigo and its uses in education take a look at this resource.
Showing greater detail or handwriting text on iPad screencast apps such as educreations, showme, and screenchomp can be difficult. This tutorial shows you how to use the iPad's accessibility features to zoom in and out of your screencast canvas and provide greater levels of detail in your tutorials.
Just before the end of the school year I was able to check out an iPad from our RESA Assistive Technology lending library and test a few different apps with students. One of the apps I felt had great potential in the classroom was Qwiki. Qwiki compiles reference information from sites like wikipedia, images, videos, and maps to create an immersive information experience. But the most unique feature is the text-to-speech narration that accompanies every Qwiki. Captioning at the bottom of the screen is read by the text-to-speech engine giving the user the option to listen or read along. In essence, Qwiki turns your searches into movies.
In the short video clip above, students used Qwiki to research elements from the periodic table for a science project. I was impressed by the engagement level I saw, but also noted that the students using the Qwiki app were jotting down notes for their projects and reviewed their Qwiki search multiple times before moving on to the related searches presented at the end of the presentation. Because we were testing in an open environment without headphones other students paused to watch as well and even started discussing some of the qualities of the element being shown. This was vastly different from the disinterested search process that I had witnessed before I introduced the app.
It is worth noting that Qwiki is not just an iPad app. Their website http://www.qwiki.com offers an identical experience minus the intuitive touch screen interface. I'd love to see Qwiki develop some editing features that would allow students to curate their own resources and create dynamic presentations that could be shared.
Have you used Qwiki in your classroom? Please share your thoughts on how you think this website and app might support struggling learners or help increase engagement.
Click here if you are unable to see the audio player. http://ipad.io/RCH
Audio recordings and podcasts serve a variety purposes in
the classroom. They can support instruction by allowing teachers to deliver
precise verbal instructions and capture lessons for archival purposes or future
listening. They give students the
opportunity to listen to instruction independently, without distraction (when
wearing headphones), and at their own pace using play and pause features for as
many times as is needed. Conversely,
students can use audio to demonstrate their understanding of learned concepts, create
instructional materials and tutorials for peers, broadcast classroom and school
news, conduct interviews, and practice fluency reading strategies. Determining
which audio and podcasting tools to use in the classroom depends upon your
instructional purpose and on your audio recording needs.
First let’s look at using audio to support instructional
delivery. One use of audio is to record
the directions for an assignment or test which students will listen to. For this purpose you might use Microsoft Word’s “insert
audio” feature to build the audio directly into the document. You might also choose to embed audio in an online Moodle
quiz or assignment using Audacity. On
the other hand you may be recording a series of lecture note, study casts, or
lesson tutorials which are not directly tied to a single document or assessment
but which you would like students to listen to for review and reinforcement. For these you may wish to use a podcasting
site such as Podomatic or ipadio. Podcast
recordings can be accessed by going directly to your podcast website, via RSS
subscriptions and iTunes, or by embedding recordings on a class website or
blog.
Student generated audio and podcasts can be facilitated
using some of the techniques mentioned above but may also require additional
considerations such as managing student podcast accounts, submitting audio
recordings for review, and the degree of technical expertise needed to produce
the recording. Using phones to create
student recordings can be an effective method capturing student audio and requires
very little technical training. Google Voice and ipadio
both allow audio to be recorded using a phone.
Students can also use simple online recorders such as Voki and Vocaroo.
Other options include using the recording options on a mobile device such as
iPod touch to make a recording and then e-mailing the recording to the teacher,
student e-mail, or class blog.
Once you have determined your instructional purpose for
using audio or podcasting you must also determine what audio elements are
essential to making the recording such as the duration, ability to edit, as
well as adding multimedia such as background music, images, text, or even geolocation. Most often you will want to create recordings
which are brief and simple. This is
especially true when assessing student audio because of the time required to
listen to student submissions. An
example might be when you ask students to record lesson reflections or exit
interviews. In these circumstances, it is best to use phone or online recorders
which limit the time of the recording, do not require editing, and make
publishing your audio easy. The insert voice option in Microsoft Word is
another example of simple audio recording. Students can use this feature to
record smaller written samples to self check for errors and build fluency. If however, you know that you will be making a
lengthy recording where editing mistakes, combining recordings, or adding
sounds effects or music tracks is necessary then audio editors such as Audacity,
Garage Band (Mac only), and Aviary’s
online audio editor Myna may be good solutions. These tools are particularly useful for
polished recordings intended to be published to wider audience or for
culminating student projects.
Before learning about and using a particular audio recording
and publishing tool you may wish to use the following matrix to evaluate which
tool(s) best fit your instructional purpose and audio recording needs. I also recommend becoming comfortable with
several audio applications. Relying on one application may limit your
instructional outcomes or cause frustration if that application isn’t working,
is discontinued or is no longer free.
In most cases you will need to either install software on
your computer or create an account to begin using a podcast recording
service.
Next you will need to use a microphone to make your
recording. Many computers have built in microphones, but external headphones
which you plug in via USB or 3.5mm jacks produce much higher quality
audio. If neither of these options is
available consider using a phone recording service such Google Voice or iPadio.
In most cases you will want to make an Mp3 audio recording.
This is true for anyone who plans to share the recording over the internet or
for use on Mp3 players. Many
applications such as Audioboo, iPadio, Podomatic, and Vocaroo do this
automatically. Audacity requires a small
program called a Lame file to be installed.
Microsoft Word’s insert audio can be used with the default .wav file
setting or be changed to Mp3.
Finally, you will need some means of allowing others to
listen to the audio file. Microsoft Word’s
insert audio, the voice recorder option on the iPod touch, and files made using
Audacity can be saved locally onto the computer or iPod touch they were created
on and listened to directly on those devices.
In most cases, however, the audio file will need to be hosted or
embedded on a website, blog, or podcasting site which can be accessed from the
internet. This has the distinct
advantage of allowing students to listen to the recording from a variety of
devices and locations. These services
also make the creation of audio more flexible as they do not require the user
to be on a particular computer or device to make the recording.
Overview of audio and
podcasting applications
With these steps in mind the overviews presented below are
intended to get a beginning user recording and sharing their audio. Advanced uses of each particular program or
application can be explored through the support documents and video tutorials
associated with each application.
This was a test of running Camtasia and Audioboo at the same time for the purpose of making a training tutorial. Although Camtasia was able to capture the screen and audio process fine, the Audioboo recording was distorted. It is possible that this was due to the fact my laptop does not have enough processing power to handle multiple recording applications simultaneously. Feel free to offer suggestions in the comment section below. To hear the audioboo sample which was created in the screencast click on the following link.
This is a recording of my interview with Dateline Schools host Terry Harrington discussing 21st Century Learning and technology in education. We also discuss RESA's Tools for Teaching Digital Natives teacher cohort.
You can also listen to my Dateline Schools interview from last year by clicking here
Dateline: Schools Radio
Dateline: Schools Radio, a daily radio segment aired on WPHM-1380 AM, focuses on a different school program or issue every week.
This program airs three times daily on WPHM 1380 AM with host Terry Harrington.
You can listen to Dateline: Schools at 5:50 a.m., 12:55 p.m., and 6:55 p.m., Monday through Friday.
If you are unable to view the audio player, click here.
