Schoology Coming to MHS

A guest blog by Mercy High School I.T. Director Tom James

After a thorough review and evaluation of several different  alternatives Mercy has decided to switch learning management  systems (LMS) from Moodle to Schoology. Teachers, students and  parents will be able to access Schoology from their smartphones  and tablets (iOS and Android) or any web browser. Starting this  semester a group of pilot teachers will begin to use Schoology. By  the start of the 2014-2015 school year all courses will be moved to Schoology.

Here are some of the new features:

• Seamless integration with PowerSchool. If you take a quiz or submit an assignment your grades will automatically sync with PowerSchool.
• Easy integration with DropBox and Google Drive.
• The ability to record video and audio submissions right from your iPad or laptop.
• No storage limit on what you upload to Schoology.
• Full featured iOS and Android apps for use on the iPad or your smart phone.

More information will be provided to the Mercy community regarding Schoology throughout the rest of this semester and the start of the 2014-15 school year.

Quick Impressions of Mercy 2.0 and the iPad Deployment

Vector portrait credit to credit to Vectorportal.com

Here is a quick, narrow take on how Mercy 2.0 is going three days into the new school year:

The Good

* The iPads' mobility and battery life impress, but the connectivity throughout the school stands out as a biggest technical strength.

* We have experienced fewer mechanical and log-in issues than the past.

* Staff has been patient and collaborative about trouble-shooting.

* The Apple TVs allow the teachers untethered access to their projectors.

* Teachers from various departments have told me of terrific apps that they have found for their students.

* Two new teachers told me, today, that they love their iPads.

The Bad

*I can't believe that Apple provided us with cheap batteries in the wireless keyboards that came with our 26 iMacs.  They did not make it to the start of school!  

*I wish we had done more training on classroom workflow with the iPads, perhaps even if it meant we spent less time exploring apps.  Getting documents to Moodle is a bit tricky with the iPad.

*I am bewildered by how many of my seniors haven't even brought their HPs to my AP class even though the entire experience has been paperless thus far.  This goes to show that the we sometimes give the young a bit too much credit for being digital natives.

*I have had my own connection troubles with the Apple TV I am using.  But I attribute this to my own failure to test out the equipment more thoroughly.  I am really looking forward to taking advantage of the technology.  But like my colleagues I have found my own little stumbling block with Mercy 2.0.

The Ugly

* I am thinking some pretty dark thoughts about some of our digital publishers.  As we try eagerly to take advantage of their resources, some have put ridiculous technical and policy obstacles in the way of our families as they try to acquire instructional materials.  It is frustrating for IT, teachers, and especially our parents when we all try to get our students fully prepared for the beginning of school.  We've learned a couple of lessons about our own process of informing parents, but I truly can say that sone of our math and  science students have really been done wrong by the publishers.

Ten Things for Three Labs

As I recently wrote in Experimenting with a Google Apps Lab, Mercy's approach to professional development has recently shifted from presentations and workshops to one-to-one help in "labs". Our first lab ooh place during our Final Exam period and focused on Google Calendars and Google Sites. We had 8 volunteer trainers and about 35 attendees, which I considered a terrific success.

Last week, week we held our first lab during summer vacation. Again this was very well attended and we had seven volunteer trainers. This lab and the ensuing July and August labs will focus on specific skills that we wish all teachers to possess by the beginning of the next school year. In fact fellow Associate Principal, Colleen Rozman, and I wrote some instructional modules for our staff. Colleen was the chief architect and modeled the approach after the Learning 2.0 Program (conceived by Helene Bowers). Here is a condensed version of the skills that our program includes

• Setting up and Organizing a Moodle Page
• Creating and posting a Google Calendar
• Using the iPad to take a photo, edit it and post it
• Shooting, editing and sharing a movie
• Using Evernote
• Creating a document with CloudOn and sharing it through Dropbox
• Creating a video explanation with ShowMe or Explain Everything
• Communicating through Google Groups

These tasks created some fun activity at our very well attended lab. Staff plunged into the skills and received significant individual attention. As a trainer, I can attest that I learned a number of "tips", too. I continue to be impressed by how determined most of my colleagues are to prepare for our shift to Mercy 2.0. I am already looking forward to our next lab in July. . . . But now I have to get back to my own "Ten Things"!

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Screen Shot from Mercy "10 Things"

Mercy 2.0 Boot Camp

With two recent retirements and and a bumper crop of 9th graders expected in August, we have six new teaching positions posted. These newbies will certainly have an impact on our school environment. And naturally, we are very eager to impact them with Mercy 2.0.

Ironically, we cannot reasonably expect that otherwise excellent candidates will arrive with the tech skills needed to jump in to Mercy's program. For one things, schools of education are behind in such things. For another, we truly are on the leading edge in instructional technology, so even experienced teachers may be unprepared for the breadth and depth of our program. Consequently, rather than listing specific skills as prerequisites, on our job descriptions we stipulated a need to demonstrate both an aptitude and an enthusiastic curiosity toward the investigation of technological tools and their integration across [science, etc.] curriculum

In order to prepare them for Mercy 2.0 we have arrived at a unique solution. In July, we will host a Mercy 2.0 Boot Camp for new teachers. (Mercy staff veterans will also be welcome to audit). The sessions will be led by our crackerjack Religious Studies teacher and tech wizard, Alison Kline-Kator. Over the course of three days, Alison will introduce teachers to such Mercy necessities as Moodle, PowerTeacher, Google Apps, and of course iPad/iPad apps. Most importantly, she will orient them to the engaging teaching methods that these powerful tools enhance.

We have introduced a number of innovations with Mercy 2.0. I consider this to be one of the most critical. We have a lot riding on the staff's enthusiasm Mercy 2.0. After graduating from boot camp, our cadets will be ready to join in the action.

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Creative Commons Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

Mid-Term Report on Mercy 2.0

The New Mercy iPad Case

The adoption of the iPad as a 1:1 device is the featured piece of Mercy 2.0. While the staff has unboxed their devices, we are not selling the new iPads to our students until May 14.

Nevertheless, more quietly other major elements of Mercy 2.0 are underway or have already been completed

A New Multimedia Lab will be built this summer and has been almost completely been paid for by donations. "Witte's Wish" and a generous donor have purchased the 26 new iMacs. The Mom's Club is buying the furniture and the Dad's Club is paying for the new cabling.

A Required Fundamentals of Design for ninth graders will be using the new lab and will provide a baseline curriculum of essential visual and skills. This course and a revamped Speech curriculum will five students hands-on experiences slide software, video, audio, and web design.

Moodle and Power School have been moved to the Cloud allowing us to down size our IT Department through retirement. More importantly, these essential applications (Moodle for the Curriculum and Power School for our student data) will receive regular updates and state of the art back-ups. The new versions also integrate with each other and Moodle has Google App features.

Google Apps for Education are now hold an essential (and branded) place in our instructional development. These powerful, plentiful and free apps will be completely deployed this July after all of us have switched to Gmail.

Professional Development proceeds apace. After our two days with Lucy Gray we decided to immediately institute a series of after school workshops on specific "apps". Forty teachers and staff stayed after school for the first one on Tuesday. What is more, staff will be investigating iPad and Google apps through the summer and reporting back to the collective through Google Groups. The next big in-service is then scheduled for August 23.

MHS Board of Trustees Presentation

Tonight I will shift into hyper-drive and give the MHS Board of Trustees a fast motion look as how I have blasted off into Web 2.0 education. It should be fun. I've probably put too much multi-media into my slides.

Here are some of the resources that I have created or have tapped.

Board Slide Presentation: One Teacher's Tech Explosion

Student Interviews: Challenge Based Learning

Baker Animation: The Digital Anthology

Virtual Conferences: Thursday's P.T. Conferences:

Apple Computer: Challenge Based Learning

Next stop, Grand Rapids, for the 2010 MACUL Conference. Come back on Friday for those goodies.

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Screen shot from "One Teacher's Tech Explosion" Keynote Presentation

Best of 2009: On the Net without a net... The Bookless Course

This week I am re-posting my favorite blogs of 2009: This one frst appeared, Feb. 19 2009:

My school has made considerable progress this year with our laptop initiative. Unsurprisingly, we've had our hiccups over the past four years. Initially, there was a strong desire to find electronic book substitutes for traditional texts. This goal was mainly driven by a desire to justify the expense of the computers (see ....ebook Joy), but I now realize that it reflected our inability to see beyond texts.

Even when I decided to go completely bookless in my American Government course last year, I conceptualized the course as a kind of virtual book on Moodle. If you had checked Moodle last year, you would have seen the course organized by units comparable to those found in a standard text.

This year I reorganized the course and broke it into smaller components (....Tinker Toy Playland). The process has been liberating. The course seems more nimble and flexible, allowing me to easily match instruction to the presidential election calendar. So, now that I no longer feel as though I am conducting a pilot program, here are some observations from the trenches:

Delightful
The mp3 lectures have worked marvelously well and freed me to explore other forms of media for the class. What is more, at no time have we gotten stuck in any kind of rut. Without the book we have far more variety which becomes richer with each iteration. I have also been delighted to experiment complaint-free from students, parents, or colleagues.

Unanticipated
I had not expected that quite so much maintenance would be required. American Government invites this problem because specifics quickly seem dated. And of course, links die and typos are discovered. As noted in (Not!) Collaborating...., the seamless fit of Google Docs with Moodle has eased this problem considerably. Still, it is much less fun to review and maintain the curriculum than create it from scratch.

Disappointing

I have not observed that the new program has developed student independence or responsibility. I expected that providing an online assignment calendar and conditioning the students to use Moodle would cultivate independence, but a sizable minority consistently come to class unprepared and clueless. Though fewer fail the course altogether, many underachieve because I don't take them by the hand and walk them through their assignments. (sigh).

Recommendation
By all means, try a bookless course with Moodle. Two cautions: 1) Try it with a subject you know very well. 2) Make sure that online resources are available for all aspects of the course. Then go for it! The time you invest in transferring materials to Moodle will pay off for you and your students.

As usual, your reactions and suggestions are welcome.

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Above: "Without a Net!" Flickr photo with kind permission of arpsquire

How Much Tech Should I Teach?

Alison Kline-Kator is a talented young teacher in our school's Religious Studies Department. She also happens to be a former student of mine and a proud Northwestern University alumna. So besides collaborating on educational technology, we support each other during the Big Ten football season -- unless her Wildcats are playing my Wolverines.

At an inservice a couple of months ago, one of my colleagues (let’s call him Larry) was showing off a pretty awesome project his Government students had done on the subject of civil liberties. It used Google Sites. It had audio and video. And then, Larry mentioned that he didn’t really spend time teaching students to use the technology they’d need to use to complete the project.

That struck me, and got me thinking. When one is trying to integrate technology, do you have to teach the technology? If so, how much tech do you teach?

I use a lot of technology tools in my teaching. To me, they’re never the end goal, they’re a means to an end – the tools I use with my students to build learning about our subject matter. For many of my students, my class might be the first time they’re posting something on a wiki or using the interactive Dyknow software or Moodle extensively. Students need a basic understanding of how these tools work if they’re going to use them effectively to learn. Tossing students into a project with no direction can create opportunity for problem-solving, but it can also lead to frustrated students who shut down and refuse to seize that opportunity. I enjoy figuring out how to get a program to do what I need, or finding the right tool for an activity. Providing a little guidance can help instill that same enjoyment in my students.

So, I’d say yes, if you’re going to use technology, you do need to teach it, but not as much as you might think. Here’s how I practice that with my students:

· I get students on the same page. In the first week of my classes, I have students complete practice exercises in Moodle, and simple group activities in Dyknow. Experienced students help their classmates and novices get a basic understanding of tools we’ll be using throughout the semester. I don’t teach the ins and outs of every program or tool I use (I don’t even know all of them!), but I do present enough to get my students to a basic level of understanding and use. This doesn’t take days or hours out of other instructional time – 5 or 10 minutes here and there as we begin or move through a project.

· I teach students to use resources. I’d love for all of my students to be completely invested in creating their own personal learning networks when it comes to my subject or technology, but I recognize that some are more on their way than others. So, I draw on other students’ knowledge whenever possible. When students ask a question in class, I like to see if others can solve the problem before I step in. I provide video tutorials that I’ve found or created for students. I encourage use of our unscheduled time to solve tech issues and questions.

· I know how to do what I ask my students to do. As I wrote earlier, I don’t know every nuance or feature of every tool I use, but I do know how to create what I ask my students to create. When appropriate, I provide samples for students – my work if it’s the first time around, or work from previous semester’s students. If students run into an issue, we turn to our resources.

· I let my students see that I don’t know everything. I’ve come to view technology glitches in class as opportunities to model effective problem solving for my students. Looking at it any other way would push me to give up entirely. I let my students in on how I’m going to problem solve – who I’ll ask, or tweet, or where I’ll look for a solution.

· I discuss with my students why I think the tool/s we’re using are the best things to help them learn for that particular project or task.

Thanks to Larry for the opportunity to guest-post! If you’re interested in seeing some of the video tutorials I’ve created for students or my sophomore wiki projects (in progress), check out my wiki or follow my further adventures on Twitter @aklinekator …

"Olafur Eliasson: I only see things when they move" -- Flickr CC Photo by Dom Dada

MHS In Service Materials

Planning the MHS In-Service was a career highlight. I loved pulling together the different elements and working with all those who pitched in. Other highlights from the experience would include :

* Launching so many folks on Twitter and reading through our hashtags after the event

*The energy level during the group collaboration session. The majority groups were really buzzing.

*The good humor that greeted me at the beginning. Most folks had logged Sunday work hours at Open House the day before, but were troopers at 8:30 A.M on Monday.

*There were some great questions through the day and also some impressive problem solving.

I had no major regrets but I was sorry that I frustrated many by going so fast through the social media. Perhaps adding Diigo put us on overload. I assumed more familiarity with the wiki. I also was surprised by the few I encountered who are really dug into an "I can't" position on tech. (This is certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy). I also was surprised that some folks took the group collaboration as an assignment rather than an opportunity. This was my fault to a degree not explaining the process more clearly. I also apologize if I used jargon or made references casually techie things that were not common knowledge. That is annoying.

Overall, a very cool experience for me. (And kind of glad I do not have a big presentation scheduled until March). It reminded me how very much I like the problem solving involved with using social media to meet teaching or communication goals.


I am happy to make the various presentation elements available by link for thirty days. All the original work is licensed with Creative Commons, non-commercial attribution.

Social Media (PLN, part 1)

Building a Network (PLN, part 2)

Collaborating with Collections (PLN, part 3)

An Old Dog Learning. . . .New Tricks

A "Chapter" of Baker's Digital Anthology

ITunes U Sampler

Apple Learning Interchange

Digital Anthology Movie

The Networked Student

Music Playlists

Web Warriors

Diigo Tour Videos

Free Apple Resources (including Apps).

I hope you feel free to add your own comments about the In Service or the materials.

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In Service slide created by Cheryl Corte

No Hidden Agendas

80% of my teaching assignment this year will entail American Government. One of the principles that I often emphasize is how essential transparency is to a democracy. It's the reason for the free speech and a free press. It's the reason the Supreme Court has offered special protection to political speech. Elections mean nothing without an informed electorate.

I don't get on my soap box often in class, but one position I do advocate is remedying the problem of lobbying by "special interests" by bringing full transparency to the process. Besides documenting campaign donations, the amount of time our representatives meet with registered lobbyists should be a matter of public record as well. If Senator Snort has been is having his ear bent by this group or that, I'd like to know before I cast my vote.

Now, here comes the segue: I advocate transparency in the classroom, as well.

Students
Besides offering them complete syllabi and instructions, I try to explain to them why we spend time with our resources and activities. But I do not only talk to them about their goals. I come clean with mine as well. Today. I will tell them why we are engaging in Challenge Based Learning and what I hope they gain. from it. I will also let them know that I will be evaluate the process and share the results with other teachers. their education makes them the major stakeholders, but I'm deeply invested, too.

Parents
As I hope my online course descriptions show, I try to be up front with the parents as well. I tell them about myself and the course, but I share assignments and methods. As, I recenlty mentioned in my Parent Night post, I wish to give every impression that I am passionate about teaching, and that there is method to the madness of my innovations. Hopefully, this will encourage them to buy-in.

Colleagues
I've dropped the password protection on my Moodle courses and licensed any materials I've authored in the Creative Commons. This means colleagues can visit my resources and borrow freely with attribution.

Now that I have begun to give professional development presentations, I always try to share my motivations, both altruistic and selfish. For example, I have been telling audiences that I want to continue giving presentations. Of course the only way this is likely to happen is if I give good ones! In school, I've openly stated that I would like comp time to develop curriculum and help groups of teachers problem solve with technology. I don't see any harm to laying out such an agenda.

In both democracy and education I have little patience with hidden agendas.
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"Green Opaque Flaws" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Fubar843

Paging All Waivers!

This year I was prepared.

But last time around I introduced WikiSpaces and Google Docs to my students mid-term. My adventures were not without setbacks (see Larry's Adventures in Wikiland), but some of the groups and individuals produced remarkable podcasts, videos, web sites and wikis. So then I decided that I wanted to share, blog about, or just show off their work. Consequently, I was generating ad hoc notifications and permission slips throughout the year.

This summer I whipped up three notification / waivers for my three courses. Check out the one I prepared for American Government (Click for pdf).

The document was made with iWork '09. I used a brochure template and found the banner with a public domain search. The Pages application allowed me to easily match the colors of the banner throughout the document. I thought the coolest feature was my ability to drop the public domain photo of the capitol dome into the background of the document. (A one minute Atomic Learning tutorial taught me this trick). Even a clod like me could produce a slick looking document and publish it as a pdf.

My students' first assignment of the semester was to download this document, get it signed and return it to class.

100% of them have done so, and only one parent declined any of the permissions. Pretty cool.

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Photo is a screen capture of Lit into Film course waiver.

Year in Review from the Trenches -- Making Headway

Part 1 of 3

I am pleased to reflect upon on a number of techy milestones this school year:

*I have integrated several new applications, sites, and tools into my personal and professional life. (Some listed at my new Presentations Site).

*Being named an Apple Distinguished Educator was the thrill of my career.

*I have been professionally enriched like never before from my Twitter and ADE networks (See Why Twitter).

*Facebook and this blog have generated , stimulating tech conversation with personal friends like @bridgers, Rick, aml, Katy. And Facebook has allowed me to begin lining up classroom visits from accomplished alumnae like Nadia and Monica.

*I launched three very stimulating collaborative projects: The Civil Rights/Liberties Wiki, the Congressional Simulation, and my favorite -- Blogs on Vlogs.

*I enjoyed delivering a number of in-service presentations (fully listed on my new presentations resumé). There is no better way to learn than through teaching others.

*In Resolved.... I announced the New Year's resolution to avoid checking a single "paper" at home for the entire school year. Resolution kept.

*Also Resolved.... was my determination to keep blogging. Forty-six posts since the resolution, I am still going strong.

*Rick Strobl and I have begun collaborating on Web Warriors, and the results have been gratifying.

But not all has been triumph in the trenches. Come back Wednesday for "Shell Shock".

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"Success" Flickr Creative Commons photo by aloshbennett

Drive-thru Weekend Take Out

Monitoring Gmail Labs
If you are a Gmail user, you would be doing yourself an enormous favor to check out the features at Gmail Labs. Among many other add-on features, Google now allows you to
* access your inbox offline.
*create a Google Document from an email.
*mark messages as read without reading them.
*undo "send" (five second delay).
*add a button that lets you send a reply and archive the conversation in a single action.
*insert images into an email.
....and much more.

The labs have been churning out new features like crazy. To stay abreast, I recommend that your subscribe to the Gmail Blog. It's the perfect blog, because the team only reports when it has something to say (Just like the Drive-thru?).

Using PowerSchool Comments Creatively
I’ve always disliked the programmed “comments” options that electronic grade books provide. Currently I use custom comments in PowerSchool, but often unconventionally. For example, I will use the comment section to log notes on participation or other classroom behavior. I may use the comments to indicate that a student didn’t bring notes for an open note quiz, or neglected to take advantage of an extra credit opportunity. Of course, I make plenty of positive comments to students, but recording some basic facts about shortcomings for my own records is very helpful at conferences with parents or counselors. They are less likely to float theories of how the teacher may be the cause of the student's under performance if the teacher has noted specific occasions where the student has been unprepared or distracted. I have found this documentation extremely helpful for "cutting to the chase."

Handy Storage at Box.net
At our school, teachers use Moodle to post files that students need for class. But when the students use Wikis or the teacher needs to host larger files than your Moodle administrator will allow, it’s nice to have another third party storage option. I’m a big fan of Box.net. They provide one gigabyte of file storage free (upgrades to larger storage options are reasonable). After an easy upload, the tools for embedding, sharing or downloading the files are highly intuitive. If you are a regular reader of the Drive-thru, you’ve come across more than a few hyperlinks to Box.net files.

P.S. The Drive-thru continues to publish on M,W,F for the rest of the school year.

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"Take Out" with generous permission of americanvirus

Teaching Literature Unbound

Teachers' Lounge Series, part 2 of 4

Mike and I have been close English Department and personal friends for over thirty years. I also teach social studies, and recently was sharing one of my new tech adventures in American Government class. Mike remarked that tech suited social studies as a discipline better than English. I automatically agreed. After all, one of the reasons that I chose to redesign gov' as a bookless course was because information was so readily available on the Web. Not that I have kept my English classes tech-free. In January, I presented an in-service to the department on the wonders of using hyperlinks in study guides and suggested uses for Google Docs/Sites with English classes. Since then Fran has launched a very cool collaborative project for her Women in Lit class.

But a recent experience has caused me to reconsider my agreement with Mike. While I was sitting in an airport over spring break, I noticed that I had a new Twitter "follower." When I checked the profile I discovered Jim Burke's treasure trove of Web 2.0 resources, not the least being his English Companion Ning (Join!). Days later, I read a simple tweet by Jim: "Is this the future of book?" By clicking the link he provided, I came upon a vision that could provide succor to our department, chronically troubled by book availability, and now vexed by curriculum corseting. Jim's Weekly Reader-- A Digital Anthology points the way for English lit teachers to more freely choose literature and free themselves from a dying medium (see Book End). What if our freshmen or sophomore team teachers collaborated on digital anthologies? The collections would grow, stay fresh, and become wonderfully diverse. Too much "work?" Not for the voracious readers in my department!

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Diigo is a little more futuristic as a classroom application, but it signals the end of research as most of us learned it. It will knock your socks off. In addition to allowing collaboration on bookmarks in a wild variety of ways, Diigo allows its users to share highlighting and annotations. This has tremendous possibilities for student research.

As Phil Butler points out,

Diigo allows users to add, gather or extract from pages of information and then share or work with others to further refine knowledge. . . . At Diigo . . . the atmosphere is a “thinking” one rather than a reactive one. Diigo takes all the standard Web 2.0 user tools and focuses them on connecting people with knowledge and then community.

I have already started highlighting and annotating electronic documents with Diigo. I wonder how long it will be before our students will begin building and sharing their own research databases of documents and annotations for their "papers." A video overview is posted at Diigo's site, but I prefer the one created by Liz B Davis. Checking out the demonstration of Diigo which she created with Jing will provide the bonus of allowing you to see the instructional potential of screencasting.

I know that my resourceful colleague, Lynn, hopes to explore Jing soon. The idea that one of my colleagues might soon create a Jing tutorial for students on how to to use Diigo with digital Readers puts me in Web 2.0 nirvana.


Part 3 of this series will be posted Wednesday-- Transcending Words (and copyright!)

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"The Teacher's Desk" Flick Creative Commons Photo courtesy of bitzcelt

Groovin' with My Favorite iTunes Artist-- ME!

Several weeks ago, Andy Mann briefed students, teachers, and parents at our school on social media issues . After meeting with faculty, he and I had some time to talk Web 2.0 shop. He showed me a number of interesting web sites and I shared what I had been doing with Moodle. The subject of audio files came up, and he casually mentioned how great it was to podcast using GarageBand.

For the past two years I have really enjoyed using podcasts in my classes and extra-curriculars. But for each of these activities I have been reliant on creating mp3s by telephone. Recollecting what Andy had mentioned, I decided to embark on a new podcast project using GarageBand. What a blast!

My Lit into Film students recently submitted detailed notes on two films for the purpose of comparing and contrasting them in a later paper. Rather than jot my feedback in red pen, I decided to try podcasting and then emailing my audio reactions to the students. Click to listen to one of these podcasts. If you have iTunes the mp4 will go right into your library. I only mention this because as I noticed as I was creating my twenty-five podcasts that I was loading my iTunes with .... me!

Podcasting and emailing took some time at first, but I thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace and the opportunity to really explain my reactions rather than scrawling cryptic written phrases. Besides, after I got the hang of it, I could make and send a detailed mp4 in ten minutes. The students appreciated receiving much more feedback than they would have gotten, conventionally. And as a bonus I was introduced to GarageBand, which has been ignored on my personal computers for three years. No longer!

Two last comments: 1) Podcasting was particularly suited as an evaluative tool for this assignment because general remarks were appropriate. 2) I am going to introduce Audacity to my government classes soon, so that they can have an experience similar to mine for our coming project. I'll post on that experience in a month or so.

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jpgs: "Doofus at Leisure" taken by Chris Baker & GarageBand '09 screen capture.