Ruminations on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

When I saw the shirt last Saturday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I had to have it. And I had to wear it to school at the first opportunity. As reported in I Love My Digital Music:

On the first day of school this year . . . Each of us had to divulge a "secret" about ourselves. I told about my music collection and remarked that... I like my music LOUD. I've now taken this a step further. A good chunk of my music collection accompanies to school in my Macbook Pro. I arrive pretty early this year, and I play my music...loud.

Since posting this, I have gotten into the habit of playing my music pretty loud at every class passing, choosing a song that fits my mood or a theme for the day (e.g., "Taxman" on April 15).

So what does this have to do with educational technology?

Well, this is clearly a case where digital music offers a means of self-expression, while signaling to the kids that my classroom is different and our approach to learning may happen to a different beat.

Secondly, during my three day road trip with my son that ended in Cleveland was a total blast. And part of the fun was posting pictures on Facebook and Flickr, along with a daily reports to friends and family. It was a kick to get so much feedback during the trip and to be welcomed back, today, with remarks from co-workers commenting on my adventure. I love this kind of social media activity.

Finally, the Museum itself, is a wonderfully rich multi-media experience. Tomorrow, I will be talking to my sophs about using media tools to build their wikis and the museum trip has served as great inspiration. The exhibits at the Hall of Fame are so accessible. I saw little kids and old folks in wheel chairs enjoying the music, the films, the sculptures, etc. I watched a terrific 17 minute film that paid tribute to the blues, jazz, and country musicians of rural American who grew the roots of rock n' roll. Other exhibits offered opportunities to learn much more, but I enjoyed thinking of how many thousands of folks would get this lesson in such a vivid way at the museum. Of course the music business lends itself to multi-media exhibition. But think for a moment about how the industry has adapted with technology changes from vinyls, to tape, to CD, to music video, to mp3, etc.

I'm sure that many musicians-- like some teachers-- bemoaned each change as the day the music died. But the beat goes on, doesn't it? And imagine me trying to play a 78 rpm record (loudly!) on my Victrola between every class!

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Photos by Erin K. (3/1/10).

Students as Swiss Cheese

Recently, Karen Cator was named director of education technology at the United States Department of Education. However, this past summer she was still serving as Apple's director of education leadership and advocacy. In that capacity, she rolled up her sleeves and guided our groups through the challenge based learning process at the ADE Institute in Orlando.

I can't remember the context of her remark, but I vividly recall her remarking that today's students have a “swiss cheese” knowledge base when it comes to technology-- they know a lot and they know nothing.

Of course, a common perception of adults (especially those who are intimidated by tech) is that the students are incredibly proficient. Consequently in this blog (e.g., The Digital Natives Aren't that Restless) and during my presentations, I tend to emphasize what they don't know. But that's not really fair, because when I introduce tech tools in class, I presume they will pretty much take off on their own. This is not because they are all savvy-- some can't even set up a Google Account without help-- but I can at least assume a "swiss cheese" competency of the class as a whole. I recently had groups of students synch a video with an mp3, create amazingly cool designs on clunky old Google Sites, and produce cool slide and video presentations with very little guidance.

I never assume that any one student has such aptitude, but if we are doing group work I have faith they will pick up the techy stuff on the fly. The kids are also more comfortable than adults dabbling with tools and don't get hung up on feeling like they have to master it in order to "get it." Most importantly, if even just only one student gets what I showed them about slides, audio, video, etc., then the knowledge usually goes viral within the group.

Yes, there are holes in the cheese, but it's solid enough that my kids learn to use tech in my classes without me spending much time teaching it. That's pretty cool.

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"Swiss Cheese" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by thenoodleator

The Old Guy Goes Multimedia

For want of the correct adaptor, I was prevented from showing my Keynote presentation on "Apple Solutions for the 21st Century" at Madonna U. last week. Instead, I improvised, going directly to the Web for a "show & tell" of some online concoctions I've whipped up for my high school courses. I took a more or less chronological approach. It made me realize how I had evolved over the past 18 months. My progression is outlined here:

It all started with podcasts by phone. I made mp3 lectures with Gabcast for my Government class, and I began to require my students to report by podcast as well.

About 14 months ago, I began to integrate hyperlinks into my film study guides, illustrating concepts with photos and YouTube examples.

Exactly a year ago, I began using the Flip Mino I received for my birthday. I turned the camera on myself and started to record video directions for absent students. More significantly, I loaned the camera out to my AP Government students, so that they could vlog opinion pieces. Then their classmates blogged about these vlogs. The blogging feature of iWeb was perfect for this little enterprise.

In November, '08, I began to edit video movies with iMovie. I was very intimidated by this great software, but once again Atomic Learning helped me out.

In February, 2009, I taught my sophomores how to use wikis so that they could host their own multimedia resources. Many groups conducted interesting interviews and created short video pieces. Using iWeb I began creating exhibition pages for my students' multimedia work. I then shared the link with the editor of the school bulletin, The Mercy Memo.

I began podcasting with GarageBand. What an upgrade over Gabcast! ( Thanks for the tip, Andy Mann). And thank you, Rick Strobl for suggesting at Schuste's retirement party that I animate jpegs with PhotoToMovie. This was the best $50 I ever spent on software. Combining GarageBand mp3s with jpegs and turning them into movies has been a fun summer pastime.

Discovering that I could search for Library of Congress public domain photos on Flickr, further enhanced my ability to animate jpegs for instructional purposes.

I finally learned how to use Keynote. I had no idea that what I took to be slide show software could present so many multimedia options. This is my July and August preoccupation-- making moves using GarageBand (for soundtrack) and Keynote.

While I can't prove that my students are learning more after being fed with this stew of media, I know that I have, and I believe that I am modeling communication skills that they will need in their careers.

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"Multimedia Message" (The cover of the May/June Communication Arts Magazine). Flickr Creative Commons photo by mwilke.

My New Recipe for Making Slideshow Movies

I found a sweet recipe for whipping up delectable slide show movies for my Film and American Government courses. This is simple and quick. Recently, I cooked up an American Political Party treat for the coming school year. Here's the recipe I used:

1) I recorded an mp3 with GarageBand. (Sometimes I just edit a "leftover") .

2) I searched for jpegs free of copyright restrictions. Some came via Advanced Image Search of Yahoo! in order to dig for Creative Commons photos. But the Library of Congress was a virtual treasure trove. The key to my search in their digital collection was to add the phrase no known restrictions on publication to any search. After a few hours, I had over a hundred public domain photos for my movie.

3) I created my title pages and other text files with Pages. It has wonderful templates for adding "spice" to my presentation, and it is easy to export the finished product as a jpeg.

4) I mixed my concoction together in PhototoMovie (recently praised in Summer Play with jpegs ). The mixing of mp3 and jpegs was simple: I simply dragged them into this easy-to-use application. The title pages and a few other slides were given specific placement, but for this movie I was not particularly concerned about matching the photos with the narration, so I set the presentation "Fit Photos to Title".

5) I exported this mix as a QuickTime movie.

6) I uploaded it to YouTube.

Viola! Sample my recipe and let me know what you think:

American Political Parties

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"Ingredients" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Frenkieb

Web 2.0 Simuation Post-Mortem

Part 2 of 3

In part one (Taking a Deep Plunge into Google Sites) I outlined my new, tech-improved Congressional Simulation:

All of the game documents were distributed through Google Sites. In addition, each of the students created her own Google Site and was responsible for building the site with a character profile, daily journals, a summary podcast, and a "score sheet". The podcasts were created using the free audio recorder, Audacity. What is more, separate simulations were launched in three sections of American Government, involving 87 students, total.... (Click for the the full project assignment).

Here is an evaluation of the highs and lows:

* Technical Issues Trying to bring 87 students on board is, well, trying. Eventually everyone got going, but I was amazed at how many students did not check their own uploads. I would go online to check the work and encounter a problem, creating a series of email back and forths that tested my patience. My next post will propose one remedy to this problem.

* Accountability I have to figure out how to hold students accountable without repeatedly returning to the sites at various steps along the way. This was exhausting. But fifteen year olds still need progressive due dates to create a complicated final product. In our school procrastination is embedded in the culture, and to allow students to complete all the work in one gush would turn the whole enterprise into a fiasco. The time stamping provided by Sites' "File Cabinet" page may be a solution. Knowing their work will have a time signature may sufficient incentive for the majority to meet the due dates.

* Uniformity I was anxious to encourage creativity so it never occurred to me to have the students create uniformly named web pages for their files. This cost me considerable time searching for the work, particularly since Google Sites has a weak default navigation system.

* Podcasts The podcasts for the simulation were outstanding. It took forever to listen to all of them, but I could not have been more pleased. Students had trouble exporting files from Audacity and then uploading them. I think more time in class will be needed to work on this. My plan B was to have the students use flash drives, which became a clerical nightmare.

* Video The Presidents in the three classes were required to post video State of the Union messages. These were wonderfully creative. I might make video extra credit for the other players, next ttime.

* Creativity Many of the students "got into it" and developed creative sites as I had hoped. If you would like to sample one of the best all-around sites, click the Harvey Sartori screen capture in the upper right hand corner and you will be transported into our '09 simulation.

* Fun Though I was worn out by the process several students confided in the podcasts that they had learned a great deal while having fun. This was gratifying. I will conclude Part Two by offering this excerpt from Alison's podcast.

P.S. Part 3 proposes a "Blog Squad" to troubleshoot the little day to day problems that arise during a complicated Web 2.0 project like this one.

Transcending Words (and copyright!)

Teachers' Lounge Series, part 3 of 4

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language. - Herbie Hancock

I'm sure our great art teacher, Susan, wonders how she got dragged into this blog. But if she had not asked a question about copyright and music she would not have launched my adventure into the realm of Creative Commons music. This has been one of those fun Web 2.0 experiences where I learned to use cool tools while searching for content (see Geometrically Progressing. . . .).

Well, I basically ducked Susan's question which concerned student use of "all rights reserved" copyright music. By staying within the Creative Commons we all are quite welcome to take, use, mix, mash music files; usually with the mere stipulation that we credit the artist. Over the past few weeks I have acquired a collection of interesting CC music. This is very easy to do with iTunes. On the info tab of a music file, I always enter "Creative Commons" as my Grouping. This way with a couple of clicks, I can create a "Smart Playlist, locating the style that I might want to legally use for a project.

Presently, I am adding to my music library through Magnatune. This site presents music by commercial artists. For example, I recently downloaded a piece by Barry Phillips, whose cello music appears in Ken Burns projects. This piece is called, Polska fran Glava, and one can easily imagine how a student might use it for a slide show or movie. Magnatune customizes licenses for commercial use, but maintains a generous policy towards downloading music for non-commercial and student use. I subscribe to a daily download that's emailed each day. If I like it, I add it to my library. These tracks end with a narrative clip describing the piece, but this is easy to clip with Audacity or GarageBand. Magnatune is search-friendly and provides detailed information about the artists.

PodsafeAudio has music by independent musicians which is royalty free. I found a nice guitar piece by Lawrence Creswell that I have used as a thematic intro for some of my podcasts. Called Water Bug Dance, it has an NPR kind of sound. I found it more difficult to search for and find quality music on this site, but it's all free and copyright safe.

If students are looking for copyright-free sound effects, Free-Loops.com is a fun site. Again, all of the sound loops are licensed under Creative Commons. After downloading the WAV files, they can be dragged into Audacity or GarageBand and then added to a student's creations. Here's an example called, Chime Clock Sound. There is a terrific selection of loops for a person seeking to create his or her own music mix. While I am more than satisfied by the huge set that comes with GarageBand, I still like poking around Free-Loops. I strung together recurrent loops of Red Bass and started dancing around the kitchen until my wife made me stop.

If you or your students are into sampling, remixing and mash-ups, ccMixter "is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want." Sample packs and a capellas are available for free download and the quality is consistently good. Podcasters and movie makers can browse among some interesting remixes. I suggest starting with with Editors' Picks, where I found, Short Fuses Burn Long Bridges, by William Berry, who creates a very original sound. Many of the selections take a capella vocals and surround them with trance or club music.

I'm looking forward to dabbling with this stuff and sharing my new interest with some of my students. Unlike me, they might actually be able to come up with something artistic!

On Friday, Part 4 of this series-- Building Virtual Audiences for Students
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"Narumi [HPP] by me" Flickr photo with kind permission of p o m

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.

Swimming with a School of Red Herrings

My December post, Wrap that Red Herring in Paper, concerned a brouhaha at school over whether digital communication should eliminate paper altogether. Framed in such a ridiculous way, the debate allowed technology Naysayers to indignantly defend their use of paper. We never even discussed the reasonable matter of whether digital communication might not be better suited for many of our communications (rather than all). In this context I used "red herring" to describe a diversion that distracted from the main argument. Since that time I have encountered some other ed tech red herrings.

"I don't have time to integrate technology". Interesting. Isn't this the same lame excuse we hear from our students? Implicitly speaks to priorities, doesn't it? As applied to technology I find the excuse rather ironic, since in many cases time would be greatly saved in the long run (see Using Mp3s in Education). And if the ever-so-busy teacher means classroom time, it might be useful to have someone else look over the syllabi and suggest where time savings might be realized. It's been my experience that teaching a particular lesson class after class sometimes gives us the idea that it is essential. A few nips and tucks might give us more time.

"We Mustn't Lose Face to Face Social Interaction". Simply because technology allows for collaboration to occur anytime and anywhere does not mean face-to-face has no value. When I assign collaborative projects, I always allow for in-person meetings. These sessions are provided for hammering out logistics rather than tooling around on the computers. Social media does not eliminate the usefulness physical meetings, unless by "face to face" the teacher means "I want you to take notes while I talk and see your face." I hope these teachers who fret about losing valuable "face to face" opportunities to technology also reconsider the social benefits of work sheets, reading time, lectures, etc. What exactly is the social benefit of those in-person activities? By the same token, administrators who are calling for more collaboration should reconsider how the school schedule might be adjusted to fit more flexible meeting demands.

"We have to use technology because these kids have grown up with it". The ed tech evangelists love to point to Facebook, cell phones, YouTube, and video games to argue that popular technology has made our students receptive to or even dependent upon technology for learning. Sorry, but down here in the trenches an assignment is still an assignment for my students. And they are still inclined to look for short cuts and complete the bare minimum even if all the bells and whistles of technology are used. They need to be prodded and encouraged whether the demands include technology or not. Those in the ivory tower would probably blame this on "bad design." Nonsense. Our students need to learn to solve problems and think and sometimes their lack of curiosity and motivation undermine the method regardless of how much it resembles their favorite past times. Challenging students and teaching them to problem solve is more important than giving them toys. An engaged, inspiring teacher will always be more critical to their education than a delivery system.

Are there any tech red herrings that bug you? Perhaps some of my own? Please join in.
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"red herring" Flickr photo with permission by JudyGr

Educational Technology 101 - The Joy of Podcasts

Tonight most of my tenth graders will be completing podcasts that are a requirement for a simulation that I run with my government students. They are evaluating the most effective strategies that were used while role-playing. I look forward to listening to them-- it's a nice break from reading, and generally they are prepared more carefully than the kind of written work they crank out on a daily basis.
In an earlier blog - Using Mp3s in Education - I posted instructions for making audio files using Gcast and Gabcast.

I'd like to reflect on some of the educational advantages that I have found with MP3's

*Kids are comfortable with them since they are so used to music files.

*They are as easy to post and send as any other file.

*Oral reports can relieve the time demands of in-class composition.

*Performance often brings out the best in students.

*The teacher can deliver information through audio files instead of repeating it through the class day. (Our students have laptops, so it is not unusual for me to watch them listen to me on their headphones!).

*Recordings provide a great back up for students absence or a bail out when unexpected school cancellations wreak havoc with lesson plans.

*The provide great variations for blogging.

*They can be used to quickly record, post, or send "minutes" from meetings.

I'm looking for new uses for this easy technology. Any suggestions or reactions?

Using Mp3s in Education

Staff In service Presentation