The following quote from Seymour Papert about PBL especially stood out to me. This sort of flies in the face of what we are currently seeing in many of the test-focused schools.
“The first thing you have to do is give up the idea of curriculum. Curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day. Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it. So, that means you are going to put kids in a position where they’re going to use the knowledge that they get.
ShowMe makes it possible to easily record interactive lessons on your iPad and share them online. It’s simple and intuitive and is the type of technology that can revolutionize the way we teach, provide support, and individualize instruction. Here is a quick video demonstration.
Examples
The following video tutorials are examples of how ShowMe might be used in and out of the classroom. (Note to ShowMe’s staff: It would be helpful to teachers if the tutorials were embeddable.)
Potential Impact
I agree with TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld that was is especially exciting about Show Me is that we are getting a “glimpse of how the iPad can completely change the way people learn. Any teacher can simply record their lessons and their students would need nothing more than an iPad to learn. Add some real-time chat and maybe some video, and it is not too difficult to see how this kind of technology can turn the iPad into a classroom.” (Source)
I’ve been developing this professional development workshop for the past few months and I am excited about presenting it for the first time today at the AAIM Conference.
Workshop Description
Equip parents to help with homework and enable students to engage with course content inside and outside the classroom with online tutorials. Learn how to easily create audio and video tutorials using free web-based resources.
Workshop Resources Wiki Page with workshop lesson plan, tutorials, notes, and materials
Posterous Groups is the simplest way to communicate with your students, colleagues, family and friends. Posterous Groups may be the next evolution in email communication.
Messages and attachments submitted to the group will be emailed to everyone in the group. Send any type of file to your group and Posterous will convert it to the most web-friendly format available. Photos will be sent to your group members inline, and if you send multiple photos, Posterous will automatically create a photo gallery for you. Submit a YouTube URL to the group and Posterous will grab the embed code and automatically embed it in your site. Email replies can include photos, videos or any other rich media and will be automatically shared with the rest of the group via email and stored on the group website.
A Few Benefits
Most everyone has access to email and understands how to send and received messages and attachments.
No account required. Anyone can participate in your group simply by emailing your group address while receiving email updates without ever having to visit your site.
Your group can be public or private.
Posterous Groups have been optimized for viewing on mobile devices. Your students and their parents can access your Posterous materials from their cell phones and iPads.
Multiple people can have full control of your group. That means you can share administrative rights to the website/group with others if you choose to do so.
Worth Noting
Best I can tell (and I certainly hope I’m wrong) it isn’t possible to have a Posterous website and a Posterous Group integrated together in the same domain. This is disappointing because it means that we can’t connect blog posts and web pages with the group features in one site. This can be worked around by setting up a Posterous site and a Posterous Group and linking them together, but it means having to administrate two different instances. This isn’t difficult for teachers comfortable with technology, but will likely be a bit overwhelming to those entertaining the idea of developing their first class web presence. In this case, I’d suggest they simply stick with setting up a website (in most instances).
Get Started
Get started by creating a group for your classes, clubs, groups, teams, or students’ parents. You can also start groups for your family, friends, church, and more.
Our kids and I have a lot of fun with AudioBoo. AudioBoo is a service that makes podcasting and audio blogging a snap and can positively impact your classroom (See previous posts1, 2, 3 and 4). Although the service has previously pretty much been limited to iPhone users it is now available to everyone. Here’s a screencast demonstrating how to use their recently released BrowserBoo feature which makes it possible to record to AudioBoo through any web browser.
Here’s the sample Boo that I created during the screencast above.
You can browse through my AudioBoo profile page to look through many other examples of boos that the kids and I have published.
I strongly encourage all teachers to take a look at AudioBoo. Whether or not you choose to use it as a teacher I believe there are students in your classroom that would enjoy using it and benefit from engaging this learning modality.
Sign-up for your AudioBoo account, friend me and other educators, and begin enjoying the valuable contributions this can bring you and your students.
These very short videos will help you more effectively use Google’s search engine. Click play to watch the entire playlist or use the arrows to navigate to particular clips that interest you.
We wrapped-up final exams last week and had graduation on Saturday. Now that things have slowed down a bit I’ve been able to spend more time on my own professional development (Translation: I’ve been more actively engaged with my personal learning network (PLN) the past few days.). While my primary goals during the holiday break are to spend lots of time with family and friends and accomplish many of the things on our house to do list I do also have a few professionally-related goals. Thinking that some of you might also intend to spend part of your vacation time honing your skills I am sharing the following valuable teacher resources.
Starter Sheets by Andrew Churches
This is a series of job aids to help teachers and students begin using Web 2.0 tools and to give teachers ideas about how they could be integrated with teaching and learning.
Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 by IDT 7078
These modules were jointly developed by the graduate students in my special topics seminar during Summer 2008. The Table of Contents helps you navigate through the topics (Theories, Models and Strategies, Internet Safety, Overview of the term and characteristics of Web 2.0) and tutorials for the many genres of Web 2.0 tools contained in this ebook/wiki (Audio, Blogs, Wikis, Images, Presentation Tools, Video, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, Social Bookmarking, Social Networks, and more). Each module presents an overview of and tutorials for the most commonly used tools by teachers, provides classroom examples and provides resources to help you and your students begin using the tools.
I’m spending today and tomorrow with teachers in McNairy County Schools. I’m looking forward to them discovering Andrew Churches’ revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and related resources. We’ll also explore ways to effectively integrate a wide variety of digital technologies and Web 2.0 tools with teaching and learning. Watch for us as we venture out into the network. We’ll be using the following tag for everything related to this professional development workshop: mcnairypd (and #mcnairypd on Twitter).
Since writing the post on the sleek online radio Pandora, Clif and I have decided to start a review series of online music applications. Next on the chopping block is the internet jukebox Songza. Again, I will provide my opinion on how the site operates and a quick tutorial of how to get your account up and running.
Songza is a free, flash based, internet jukebox. You decide exactly what songs you want to listen to and then stream the songs from other sites where they are embedded using a minimalist flash player. No costs, no ads, just the music you want to hear. At first you might be a bit discouraged that this is the only pseudo-FAQ that Songza has to offer. However, you will soon realize that it is so simple that it doesn’t really need one. Like many of the items featured on this site, Songza only does one thing, but does it extraordinarily well.
After creating an account (just your basic set-up with e-mail, password, etc) you will see the incredibly simple front page. Using the one outstanding feature, the large centrally located search bar, enter an artist or song and click search. Songza’s cute little loading square will flip around for just a moment and then an extensive list of songs will appear down the left hand side. One thing that I really like about Songza is this right here. You are not given one choice for the song you are trying to find; you are given a whole bunch. Aside from the album version, some may be live versions, acoustics sets, or remixes. In fact, I have already discovered a multitude of covers of songs I have searched for that I may otherwise never have been aware existed. So while you have to actively search out individual songs (that’s why it is a jukebox and not a radio) you still may find new songs.
The interface is one of the easiest imaginable to navigate. After searching for a song and selecting one from the list, clicking on the title will pop up a little compass inspired menu with four options: Play, Share, Rate, and Add to Playlist. Subsequently selecting one of these does exactly what you think they would do. The Share option allows you to link to the song, embed it on a site, send to Twitter, or email to a friend. Rating is used for rating the quality of the recording more so than if whether or not you like the song, like with Pandora. The better the quality rating, the higher that specific song appears in search lists. Rating effectively reduces the amount of time you spend trudging through versions that are of poor quality.
The Playlist is where you will find my only complaint with Songza. Right now, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I can find no way of creating additional playlists. So while you can save every song you find, they are all lumped together under a single playlist. The small saving grace of this is that you can quickly and easily change the order or your playlist. So you can group your music as you would want to hear it in succession. Aside from sharing individual songs with friends, you can also navigate to someone’s Songza profile page and access their full playlist from there. You can check out my profile and playlist here.
One of the really nifty things about Songza is while a song is playing you have the ability to Watch the Video when it is available, Buy the Song via Google Products or Amazon, or check out the Discography. It should be said that the video sometimes seems like a randomly picked Youtube video, which isn’t always the artist’s actual music video. Viewer beware.
I’ve only just begun playing with Songza and haven’t delved too deeply into sharing and embedding songs. What I see so far I really like (aside from the Playlist issue which I am hoping I am incorrect about). So if recommendation music sites like Rhapsody and Pandora don’t line up with your tastes well enough or you’re just looking to hear “that song” right now, give Songza a try.
Be sure to leave a link to your Songza profile if you comment so we can all share the music. One Love.
Throughout the years many of the preservice and in-service teachers in my classes, workshops, and presentations have requested that I start an email newsletter. They indicate that in addition to this blog they would like to receive occasional emails sharing rich resources related to technology integration. I’m excited to announce that I have answered these requests.
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