Clif's Notes

Kids Get Creative with AudioBoo

In episode 3 of Thinking Out Loud I pondered ways that AudioBoo might be integrated with teaching and learning. I shared a few ideas that sprang to mind and invited you to share your ideas and examples. I want to share a couple of AudioBoos that our two youngest children put together.

It is important to note that these 2 kids are young. They selected their topics, identified the major points that they wanted to share, recorded their interviews without rehearsing, and selected the title and images for their boos. They did this with minimal assistance from me. They learned to use the AudioBoo iphone app, planned their interview, and recorded and published both boos in well under 30 minutes. It was a fun and educational activity for all three of us!

Educational Uses
I encourage you to join me in exploring the potential classroom uses of this technology. Please share your thoughts and examples as text, audio or video comments. Together we learn more!

• AudioBoo: Simple Podcasting from iPhone
• Creating an AudioBoo: A Quick Demonstration
• Bookmarks for 01/17/2010
• Publishing to AudioBoo from a Web Browser

Elementary Teachers, I Need Your Advice

I’m providing professional development at an elementary school this week. I’ve been asked to survey some of the most commonly used Web 2.0 technologies in elementary classrooms. I’m very curious what others are using in their classrooms as I prepare this workshop. Please, please, please share the tools and services that you and your students recommend. I’ll compile and share the results along with related resources and examples on the workshop wiki.

Appreciatively,
Clif

• Web 2.0 Technologies for Elementary and Middle School Classrooms
• PD for the Holidays: Web 2.0 Tutorials for Teachers
• Collaborating with Online Word Processing
• Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

It’s Good to Be Back, Again!

I’m excited to be working with Kannapolis City Schools again. I spent 4 weeks here last summer and I’m back for the 2nd time this summer. I’m helping provide professional development for part of their grant funded technology integration initiative called IMPACT. I’ve been asked to facilitate the following workshops:

• Instructional Design and Higher-Order Thinking in the Digital Age
• Telecollaboration in the Classroom
• Web 2.0 in the Elementary Classroom
• Educational Podcasting
• Wikis for Kannapolis City Schools

Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics by clicking on the session titles above and adding your contribution to the Notes and Resources from My PLN section at the bottom of each wiki. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor.

Together we all learn more!

• It’s Good to Be Back
• Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development
• Greetings from North Carolina
• Summer Wiki Challenge

Technology Integration Ideas for Writing

• What Is Effective Technology Integration?
• Technology Integration Blogs
• Looking for “The Best” Technology Integration Resources
• Technology Integration Showcase

Suggested Reading for 04/07/2009

Is It Alright to Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Pupils to Study Twitter and Blogs in Primary Schools Shake-up

• Suggested Reading for 03/13/2008
• Suggested Reading for 02/25/2010
• Suggested Reading for 03/09/2010
• Suggested Reading for 12/06/2008

Free Inspiration Webcast

(NOTE: I received this announcement via email from Inspiration.)

Webcast: Using Visual Learning Techniques to Improve Academic Performance with Inspiration®
Date: Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Time: 12:00-12:45 p.m. Pacific Time, 3:00-3:45 p.m. Eastern Time
Register for this event today!

Inspiration® helps students develop ideas, analyze concepts and improve organizational skills. Join us on January 29th to explore templates and examples that will help your students improve academic performance in Science, Language Arts and Social Studies. Cathy Cuff, our Education Development Manager for Science, will host a complimentary 45-minute webcast demonstrating how you can use Inspiration 8 to:

• Expand on ideas to create well-supported thinking and conclusions
• Build knowledge by increasing comprehension of new concepts
• Increase organizational skills by connecting ideas into a logical hierarchy

Join us for this professional development webcast!

If you are unable to join us, don’t worry – the webcast will be archived and available to you shortly after the event concludes.

View our archived webcasts!

• Webcast: Writing to a Prompt with Kidspiration
• Free Concept/Semantic Mapping Software
• The Human Clock
• New STEM Resources and Games from PBS KIDS GO!

The Electric Company Returns to PBS

I was a big fan of the The Electric Company as a kid. It was full of cool music (Such as Silent E), skits (Remember Easy Rider?), cartoons (like Letter Man narrated by Joan Rivers) and Spider-Man. The Electric Company is the reason I became such a big fan of Spider-Man. He was so cool.

Take a look.

And who could forget these fun segments…

Yes, that is Morgan Freeman’s silhouette on the left in the above video.

I was excited to learn that The Electric Company is returning to PBS. We’ll no longer have to mine through YouTube to find the videos to help teach our children how to read (Our kids really enjoy watching the “old show that [I] watched when [I] was a kid.”). The new version debuts today on PBS. Check your local listings for times.

The revamped Electric Company…bears little resemblance to the old show. The new program aspires to be as culturally clued-in as its predecessor was. It’s imbued with a hip-hop sensibility, deploys cutting edge graphics and drops allusions to touchstones like 24 and Indiana Jones. But instead of a series of sketches that have little to do with one another, each new episode has a cohesive narrative built around the antics of the Electric Company, a team of four singing and rapping wordsmiths who use the power of reading to defeat the nefarious Prankster gang…There is also a new stable of celebrity guests: in the debut episode, Sean Kingston contributed a song about the two different sounds the letter C makes. Pete Wentz, Jimmy Fallon, Wyclef Jean, Ne-Yo and Common all pop up in the first season. (Source)

Discussion
What was your favorite part of the 1970s version of The Electric Company?

• ITM’s Show and Tell
• The Piano: Teaching Film Narrative
• Writing Letters to Santa: A Lesson Plan
• WEbook: Together We Write Better

Teaching Keyboarding to Elementary Children

I posed the following question to the members of my personal learning network (PLN).

I received lots of good advice and suggested resources. I wanted to share the information hoping that others would find it helpful, too.

Here are the responses from my Plurk buddies…

…and these are the replies from my Twitter friends.

Please Share
I invite you to please share your ideas, teaching strategies and resources, too. You can post a text, audio or video reply in the comments to this post or you can send me a message via Plurk and Twitter.

Together we all learn more.

• Favorite Web 2.0 Tool
• Connecting the Classroom and Outside World
• Connecting the Classroom and Outside World (Feedback Requested)
• Advice for Future Teachers Graduating This Month

WOW Your Students

Here’s a video that I think can be integrated with just about any curriculum. This is pretty amazing!

Educational Connections

As with most things on this blog I would like for us to talk about the educational uses of this video. I’ll share a few curricular connections that I’ve considered and then I ask that you add your ideas, too.

• Science – Ecosystems, ants, and food chain (circle of life), just to name a few
• Math – Calculations, estimations, units of measurement, and more
• Social Studies – Archeology, societies, social structures and systems, etc.
• Language Arts – Response journals, presentations, debates, and develop informational pamphlets
• Physical Education – Compare the strength of ants with that of humans (More math and science connections)
• Art – Works of art of paint, pottery, and papier-mache come to mind.

Please share your ideas, too.

• Demo of an AMAZING New Technology
• Teaching Economics with an Educational Game
• Space Shuttle Lands Safely
• Educational TV Programs

Webcast: Writing to a Prompt with Kidspiration

(NOTE: I received this announcement via email from Inspiration.)

Graphic organizers are an effective tool to support students as they learn how to write to a prompt. Join us on January 15th to see how your students can learn to write on demand using Kidspiration®. Lucy Belgum, our Education Development Manager for Language Arts, will host a complimentary 45-minute webcast demonstrating how to:

• Use visual techniques to plan writing that is mindful of audience, purpose and form
• Engage students in the process of writing paragraphs that contain supporting details
• Target, plan and write to the components found within the various modes of writing using graphic organizers

Date: Thursday, January 15, 2008
Time: 12:00-12:45 p.m. Pacific Time, 3:00-3:45 p.m. Eastern Time

Register Today!

If you are unable to join us, don’t worry – the webcast will be archived and available to you shortly after the event concludes.

View our archived webcasts!

• Free Inspiration Webcast
• Writing Letters to Santa: A Lesson Plan
• WEbook: Together We Write Better
• EBC and NECC Preparations Underway