Back in the Saddle with CBL

My AP Government students and I have been banging our heads against our Make a Difference CBL project.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is the most abstract challenge that I have dished out.  What is more, I put the students on a pretty tight timeline. I knew all this, but what I forgot is how foreign the methodology can be for the kinds of students who have the academic confidence to elect an AP course.  They have experienced success with conventional assignments, and were pretty flummoxed by CBL's open-endedness and lack of teacher-direction.


At first I was pretty disappointed by how slowly they were rolling into action.  During the initial stage of conjuring up questions about the challenge, they explored the topic in a narrow or cursory way.  I snapped back on their shared Google Docs and gave out some low grades (temporary), which got everyone's attention.  However, I have to say that looking back on it, I took much for granted.  I insufficiently communicated the rigor necessary to truly tackling the challenge.


Last week, I "surprised" them with three prompts and asked them to make a spoken reflection (They had a half hour of class).  The prompts:

1) Single out a team member and explain a notable contribution that she has made thus far to the project.
2) When asked, what would your team members say that you have contributed?
3) What fresh knowledge have you gained from this experience to date?

I was blown away by what I heard: great ideas, terrific research, and impressive teamwork. I am reassured that the girls are on the "right track" (whatever that may be!), and I am excited about the solutions that may be in store.

I thought you might like to hear a sample. Christina has given me permission to share Christina's reflection.

Music that's Licensed for Student Projects

In my last post I described research I did for an art student who was looking for a web site to host her online portfolio. (She has since chosen wix.com).

The student was also concerned about finding the right electronica music for her edgy site. Therefore, I enjoyed putting 33 tracks of Creative Commons music on a flash drive, knowing that I could offer them to her without copyright infringement.

Each of my tracks came from my own go-to source, Magnatune. By subscribing to their "Free Song of the day" email list I had gradually acquired the electronica music. All of these songs are licensed as free-use with attribution for non-commercial video blogs, podcasts, and anything a student makes for academic purposes while attending school. For the past several months I have used their music for instructional slide presentations, videos, and podcasts. (You many be listening to it on this site right now as you read). Magnatune selects its artists with care, and the quality of the recordings and doonloads is excellent.

I hadn't visited the Magnatue site for a while. But my research spurred me to revisit. I discovered that Magnatune has adopted a subscription service. After an exchange of emails, I learned to my delight, that with one $15/month subscription, the students at our school may access the site for student classroom projects. Their are only obligated by the CC license to include attribution.

As you must know or suspect, many students (and sometimes their teachers!) are inclined to use music without permissions. It's much easier to discourage this illegal practice when one can offer a quality, legal substitute. My art teacher friend snapped one up a subscription at once and our associate principal was glad to pay for it.

I recommend that you check them Magnatune. They have a very fair business model for their artists, not to mention interesting listening options. Given their generous disposition toward our students, I hope they thrive.

P.S. Starting next week, the Drive-thru will publish on Mondays and Thursdays until September.
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Screen shot of Magnatune home page.

Seeding a Discussion with a Podcast

I have blogged about podcasts many times. After all, podcasts were essential in my decision to go bookless in my American Government class. But, I have also used podcasts for English which have utility for almost any course where teachers are pressed for time.

I always feel a time crunch in my Literature into Film class. After all, so much class time is spent watching the films. So the longer I teach the class, the less time I seem to spend discussing the literature. But some works, like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, truly warrant some class analysis.

So for today's class, I have "seeded" our discussion of the novel by creating brief podcasts sketching out themes or symbols in the work. These presentations end with open ended questions for the students to consider. I assign the podcasts over night, and then jump right into the questions. "Cutting to the chase" allows me to avoid the tough choice between of dropping a film or skipping interesting discussions of the novels. Here's a sample:

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Podcast

Perhaps you are finding yourself in a time crunch as the semester winds down. I hope this helps.

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"Free Spices" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by jasekemp

A Favorite Podcasting Activity

I recently launched a favorite tech activity in my AP Government Class. Students independently watch a political documentary film. This year's group wanted to draw draft choices and then took turns selecting a film from my list of 30.

After watching the film, students will create a ten minute podcast. Students were given instructions for issues to address in the podcast, and given tips on how to use GarageBand and Audacity. On a designated due date students must submit their mp3s and I then post them to an iWeb blog page.

Then, the fun begins: Each student is assigned to listen to two other podcasts and "review" them on the blog page. Again, they are given specific instructions on what points to consider in their "two page" review.

Since the podcasts and reviews are published to a blog site (password protected) all students in the class have access to all the productions. Knowing this generally brings out the best in both the podcasts and the written work.

While posting the ten minute podcasts is a chore for me (any suggestions on how I might relieve myself of this chore in a password protected space?), I always look forward to reviewing the results-- It sure beasts reading a stack of term papers!
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Screen shot from AP Gov class vlog site

Luddite Letters of Recommendation

A couple of years ago, I finally got fed up with writing college recommendations and having no idea what happened to them after they were dispatched. Occasionally I might hear that they couldn't find the copy I mailed in or something nifty like that. Otherwise, it's been a sheerly one-way process.

I decided to fire off a letter to my alma mater about my complaints and was shocked to receive a phone call from a senior admissions officer at the University of Michigan who chatted with me about teacher of recommendations for a good half hour or so. After the conversation I tailored my constrained my praise about the student to specific areas that stood out in my class. I now present the recommendation as a series of bullet points, focusing on qualities like resourcefulness, intellectual curiosity, communication skills, and creativity. I describe specific achievements in my class rather than construct some kind of general resume, biography or mash note. So the conversation was helpful to me in terms of recasting the template for this annual chore.

This year, I did all my recommendations online. But all that this meant was filling out the same old forms at a web site and then uploading the pdfs of the kind letter I formally did on paper. Way to go, colleges, you have moved up to using a 1993 technology and you still want teachers throughout the country to peck out a bunch of text for you-- a process that probably tells you more about the teacher than the applicant!

As I focus more and more on using Web 2.0 technologies in my class, these old-school letters of recommendation seem less and less relevant. For example, one of the applicants this year had made a terrific video for a blog on vlogs exercise. If you viewed one minute of this video you would know as much about this student as I might write on a page. Shouldn't the admissions office see the student's work. Our role would be to authenticate it, not mediate the student's work. When my current sophomores apply in a couple of years, I'll be describing the web sites that they created in my class, laden with video, pod casts and slides. Shouldn't the college be checking these out for themselves?

For that matter, if I made a three minute podcast, I could give the university a personal sketch of the student and waste far less of my time doing it.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the universities to request authentic evidence of what the kids have creatively designed and deeply learned. But I am starting to send them the links to these treasures whether they want 'em or not. Someone has to start pushing back against the colleges who should be leading the way, not lagging so far behind.

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For a nice little piece on the original Luddites, see http://bit.ly/am6BLG.

Super Soph Simulation

As I mentioned in Embracing Failure, I continue to tinker with my American Government tour de force -- The Congressional Simulation.

Last semester, finding myself overwhelmed by my effort to take "The Game" online, I instituted changes in the evaluation process. All were helpful this time around.

But I also encouraged some creative changes. Like last time, each student was required to design a web site for her fictional game persona. But I encouraged the following additions:

1) A podcast welcome to the site performed in character.

2) Instead of a journal, students posted press releases, memos to staff, and letters to constituents.

3) This semester, a presidential aide character was created. Part of her responsibility was to produce a multi-media White House site.

Of course, new innovations mean new complications. Down the road I will no doubt blog about further adjustments. In the mean time I wish to share some of the best work produced by my current tenth grade students. If you visit Super Sophs you will find some of the best web designs, podcasts and documents. A very creative White House site is included in the mix. Hope your get a chance to check it out.

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Super Sophs: Annie, Susan, Laura, and Audrey. Great job, ladies!

Teaching without a Safety Net

Over the next few weeks I will be presenting some guest posts from key folks in my personal learning network.

Lynn Waldsmith is a high school English and Journalism teacher who has become an active ed tech adventurer. Here she reflects on how she have used tech in her courses and why she is determined to do it.

When parents, teachers, and other adults discover that I used to work for The Detroit News, many give me these knowing glances and comments. “Ohhh,” they say with a nod and a smile. “Aren’t you glad you’re no longer in journalism? You got out just in time. Bet you’re glad you have a ‘safe’ job now.”

While it’s true that traditional jobs have been slashed at newspapers everywhere as the transitioncontinues from old media to new, I decided to become a teacher for two reasons: I love to teach young adults and I love my subject matter – English and journalism. Indeed, embarking on a mid-life career switch felt anything but “safe”. I wasn’t running away from technology to the safe, non-technological haven of education. I was leaving a career that I had been quite good at and had always enjoyed. But teaching was a risk that I wanted to take. Indeed, I wanted to share my love for the subject matter and inspire others to enjoy it as much as I always have.

So it strikes me as ironic that many teachers fail to understand that they are not immune to the shift in the technological paradigm that is affecting journalists. It’s just slower in coming to education. Just as new media journalists must embrace change, so must teachers be willing to take some risks in the classroom -- or risk failing to help their students think critically in an increasingly complex global marketplace of ideas.

Like most time-starved teachers, I know I can’t possibly become a tech-savvy wizard overnight. So I’m trying a few things at a time and learning while I go. This year, in particular, I made a more concerted effort to incorporate more technology in my teaching. I decided to try a blog and podcasting for the first time. I’ve been using the blog for my journalism students to post weekly updates that either reinforce something we’ve discussed in class or preview an upcoming topic. The blog works as a great tool for including links to outside reading or video clips of real life examples of things like bias in the news.

In my British Literature class, I introduced podcasting as an activity at the end of our unit on The Canterbury Tales. Students had to create and record their own “modern” Canterbury Tale. Then they attached their podcasts to a google site that I created for the class. While there were a few glitches along the way, these podcasts were, for the most part, a successful way for students to emulate and appreciate Chaucer’s work while sharing and showcasing their creativity. I have even tried Twitter this year for the first time, and while I don’t like it as much as blogging or podcasting, I no longer feel Twitter is for the birds.

In short, I no longer worry about whether my students have more tech expertise than I do. They often do. So what? They don’t have my world experience or expertise in the subject area. I also know what every good journalist knows: there is no safety net. We must all adapt and take risks.

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"Balance without Safety Net" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Ikhlasul Amal

Full Circle

In March. '07 our entire staff was required to attend the MACUL Conference at Cobo Center in Detroit. I was more than skeptical. Our school was transitioning to a 1:1 HP Laptop program, and I had the impression that we were just chasing after tech for tech's sake. Nevertheless, the conference changed my professional life. I got excited about Google's apps and decided to explore podcasting as a result of sessions I attended. For the rest of the spring I began to aggressively put mp3s on Moodle for the students. In May I required my first student podcasts.

In the '07-'08 year, I decided that I could jettison my American Government text. I also presented a list of tech integration suggestions to our school administration. By the end of the year they had formed a tech integration group for '08-'09. And by that time I was growing very curious about using video (something I knew nothing about) . While serving on the tech integration committee I plunged into tech whole heartedly. I initiated my blogging on vlogs site for AP and began to use wikis and Google Sites. In November I started this blog. By December '08, I was planning my first workshops for staff and had decided to apply for the Apple's Distinguished Educator program. As part of my application, I developed a couple of major Web 2.0 projects.

Of course, the ADE experience greatly expanded my personal learning network and helped to give me the confidence to pursue sharing technology solutions and ideas with other educators. This year I presented to MAME 36 and MAPSA. I led our staff in-service day. But I had the sense of coming full circle when two week's ago I was chosen to be a presenter at the March, 2010 MACUL conference.

A lot has happened in three years.
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"Halo, 22-degree halo, Solar Halo, 22 degree solar halo - aka (incorrectly) Rainbow, Full Circle, 360 Degree, Round, Circular, Whole. Directly overhead. Morro Bay, CA. 12 June 2009. Flickr Creative Commons photo by mikebaird.

Quick and Easy Podcasts (at MAPSA)

I'm at Cobo Center, November 2, hosting an Apple Computer Breakout Session for the annual conference of Michigan Association of Public Schools Academies (MAPSA). Here's the description of today's breakout:

Quick and Easy Podcasts

In this session, join Apple Distinguished Educator Larry Baker to see how easy it is to create and edit podcasts using GarageBand. He will also take a look at how iWeb allows even a novice to stylishly share audio and video with others. As time permits, the group can sample interesting podcasts and learn that with a couple of mouse clicks one can subscribe to them for free at the iTunes store.

This is a labor of love. After all, it was podcasting that accelerated my exploration of educational technology. Now it is a fundamental part of all my courses. I will begin by showing how I began using them on Moodle and how I now use require student podcasts in all of my courses. I will then give a GarageBand demo. I hope there is time left over to take a stroll across the virtual campus of ITunes U. If not, they can come back, on November 3, when browse the Apps Store and the Apple Learning Exchange as well.

Click for Slides on Quick and Easy Podcasts

Apps & Sites Worth Revisiting

I would like to revisit some web sites and applications that I now lean on even more heavily than when I first recommended them:

Magnatune In Transcending Words (and copyright!) I recommended Magnatune as a source of Creative Commons music-- pieces by professional musicians that you are free to use so long as you give attribution. Each day I get a "Free Song of the Day"in my inbox. These have added up to a wonderful collection of music from which to draw for my projects. I now go to this playlist regularly for my movies and slide shows. A majority of freebies are classical and ambient, but I have found some wonderful electronic and blues music too. Excellent stuff.

Garageband I only use one little piece of GarageBand-- its podcasting feature-- but I have lbecome so hooked that I will enthusiastically present a break out session on this feature at MAPSA. It is so elegant, yet so simple. Now I can mix and edit my own mp3 productions with ease. Adding a Logitech USB Desktop Microphone, has even further upgraded my podcasts.

PhototoMovie These days, I often I produce an GarageBand narraton and then drop it right into PhototoMovie. This is the best $50 I spent these summer. Another simple application (Do you see a pattern, here?), PhototoMovie allows the user to add jpegs to narration or music and quickly piece together a movie that can be shared on YouTube. I have now produced several, like the Werner Herzog Filmography (play a few seconds of it in order to listen for the Magnatunes theme music by Lawrence Cresswell).

iTunesU Go to the iTunes store and visit iTunesU with its plethora of free video and audio podcasts from Duke, Stanford, Yale, NY Public Library, Library of Congress, New York Metropolitan Museum, Holocaust Museum etc. Using PhototoMusic I produced this little iTunes Preview to insert into a Keynote presentation I will make in October to Mame36.

Twitter "Enough already about Twitter," you may say. After all, I sang its praises in Why Twitter? But I use it more heavily than FaceBook or any other social media. Since the summer institute, many fellow ADEs have joined. Furthermore, some of the savvier sports journalists in town have jumped in as well. I find myself checking for filtered tweets half a dozen times a day. An addiction? No way. The majority of my professional, sports and political reading now comes from blogs that are linked by Twitter or my Google Reader.

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"Summer Revisited for Hope" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Madmoiselle Lavender

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

If It's not Broke .... FIX IT! (The Digital Anthology)

I have finished my digital anthology, but of course this is just a manner of speaking, since one of the advantages of going digital is that, unlike a printed text, it will never be "finished." It is always updatable, which means I may very well add content before I actually start drawing from my new resource.

As you may recall (see A Digital Anthology. . . .), I decided to replace the $50 reader for my AP American Government & Politics class with a free, multi-media resource which could be entirely up-to-date.

I have now found material that corresponds to each chapter in our text (an ebook, by the way). Granted, I have far less material than the traditional readers , but this is not really an issue since I only used about half the reader, anyway.

Please, be my guest and take a peek at a sample of my D.A.

You'll notice that I have tapped a variety of sources for this sample. In addition to text, I have edited a podcast from iTunes U and linked to some excellent PBS videos. I have found the Stanford University podcasts* to be particularly useful for political science, but they are quite long, and I have reviewed fewer of them than I thought I might (I usually listen to them in the car). Additionally, I have also found some outstanding outstanding video for my anthology at New York Times Video, Academic Earth, and The Museum of the Moving Image.

Unsurprisingly, my anthology is still dominated by text sources. Most of these I come across in my daily reading (though family members have forwarded a couple of gems). I have also researched some subjects. For this, I have primarily used our Media Center's subscription to Gale Student Resource Center . Since all my students are licensed to use this resource, it is fairly easy to share articles.

You may wonder why I have only given you a slice of my anthology. Well, it will be sliced off to students in small portions as well. There is no reason to assign from it weeks ahead. After all, something more interesting and pertinent may appear on the scene in the mean time. The anthology fits perfectly into my scheme of the Tinker Toy Curriculum of modules that can be connected then reassembled from semester to semester.

As I've mentioned in this space before, I think anthologies like these could be constructed with ease by members of academic departments, or interdepartmentally for that matter. I would enjoy your reactions to my sample, and welcome links that I might put into my "book."

I'll be making a presentation on the Digital Anthology to the Michigan Association for Media in Education at Grand Traverse Resort on October 23.

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*visit this link and download 30 free songs from iTunes!

Web 2.0 Summer School (or Camp!)

This post is for teachers like me who generally plan some kind of "work" project for the summer, imagining how good it will feel to salt some big something away for the next school year, but vaguely dreading a tedious task. It's easy to imagine that "technology" might be such a project for a teacher who is anxious to bring a meaningful internet activity with his or her classes.

If so, I suggest that you relax, find something limited in scope, and explore areas that may have lifestyle benefits even if they don't work out for school.

I've put together some possibilities that are QRS- quick, rich simple.

* Open a Flickr account and spend a couple of hours collecting photos on a subject of interest. When I began to search for pictures to publish in my Dad's Ann Arbor Memories book, I became absolutely intoxicated with this resource for personal and/or classroom use.

* If you don't have a Google Account, open one. Go to Docs. Then spend a couple of hours uploading a handful of your most heavily used documents. After they are uploaded, "share" them by publishing them as web page. Be sure to check the "automatically republish when changes are made box". Now you have some options. You might want to book mark your documents. Better yet, link them all to a single table of contents which you also publish and bookmark. The publishing feature of Google Docs has probably impacted my work life more than any other tech application (with the exception of web browsers). I think the experience of playing with Doc htmls will open up your eyes to some great info sharing possibilities.

* Record a lecture with Audacity (or better yet, GarageBand). Choose a topic that is tried and true. If it is longer than eight minutes, plan to break it into parts. Audacity is a free download and if your computer has a built-in mic, all you have to do is press the red button on the application and record. Upload the file(s) to Moodle or some other storage site like box.net. When lecture time rolls around next school year, have the students bring headphones to class or listen to the talk as homework. You'll have discovered the joy of podcasting.

* I won't repeat my Why Twitter? post here, but I have a fast track suggestion if you want to jump into Twitter with both feet. Sign up for an account. Decide what kind of information flow you want. Identify a couple of heavily followed Tweeters in that area, and then "follow" who they are following. For example, I do Twitter for Web 2.0 teaching info. The majority of those I follow provide quality tweets on Web 2.0. If you poached my list, you would get the same flow of information to start and then you could tailor it to your interests. (You don't need permission to follow others on Twitter).

* Enjoy learning about religion, history, math, science, literature, etc.? As summer homework, download some courses from Yale, Stanford, Michigan, or Oxford. Put then in your iPod and listen to them while you garden or walk. Where do you get them and how much will this cost? These lectures are free and available by the dozen on any topic at iTunes U.

* Researching a vacation or prepping a new topic? The next time you complete your research try Diigo. Get used to using tags and enjoy the highlighting and sticky notes features. Better yet, see if you can collaborate with a friend or colleague on this project and have the experience of sharing bookmarks, highlights and notes.

* Many of my baby boomer friends have been bemoaning the demise of their daily newspapers. Have you tried setting up an RSS Reader, yet? Most of your favorite newspapers have set up some rss feeds for their columnists and bloggers. (Locally, the Detroit News has been most successful transitioning their writers to blogging). Of course a Reader has the advantage of pulling blogs from sources all over the internet. Once you start, it will be hard to resist the urge to overload. Educational uses? Hey, teachers deserve a few moments of quiet time with their "newspaper" in order to be at their best with their students.


P.S. If you wish to explore more easy to use tools, check out the Web Warriors.
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"Summer Relaxation" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Third Eye Studios

Ten by Ten Top Techs

As the end of the school year approaches I've been tempted to make lists of this or that, so why not go all out and make a 10 x 10 list?

My Ten Best Blogs this Semester:

Wrap that Red Herring in Paper

At Long Last...ebook Joy!

A Vast Tinker Toy Playland

Hyperlink Heaven

Techno Topsy-Turvy

Sage Schuste Seduced by Cyberspace?

Tooting Your Horn

To Leap Forward or Hunker Down?

The Digital Natives Aren't that Restless

Teaching Literature Unbound

10 Lessons I've Learned at Age 55

Tweetdeck Top Ten: @bridgers, @cultofmac, @englishcomp, @jackiegerstein, @markwagner, @Milw_Mac_Guy, @ScottElias, @mcleoud, @potsie, @TweetingTigers

10 Necessities of Education Reform by Judy Willis

The 10 Commandments of Power Point. How can people possibly think that reading PowerPoint slides to an audience is an effective way to communicate? This post by David Pierce is a must read for those who use (abuse?) PowerPoint or teach it to others.

My 10 RSS Feeds Knowing that I would just get depressed if I loaded more and more feeds into my Google Reader, I always limit myself to ten. Click here for my current feeds.

My 10 Largest Delicious Tag Bundles: finish, blog, tenthings, google, dadcalx, AP, mhs, 13, technology

10 Reasons to Tweet: The nine I wrote about in Why Twitter? plus this obvious one that I forgot: # 10 Twitter is perfectly suited for mobile communications.

10 Sites I Check Daily

10 apps or sites that I've enjoyed learning to use this year: GarageBand, iMovie, QuickTime Pro, Google Docs, Audacity, WikiSpaces, Google Sites, Twitter, Presentation.

10 Compelling Reasons to Teach with Technology

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"The 'Ten Truck' FDNY' Flickr Creative Commons Photo by stevejonesphoto

Blogging on Podcasts

The final "project" that my AP American Government class completed is worth mentioning because it produced excellent results and is easily adaptable to a variety of subject areas. It was conducted entirely outside of classroom time, and the kids really liked it.

Students were asked to independently view a documentary film which related to our course. They were then required to produce a ten minute podcast which included a summary and dealt with such areas as

*Did the director betray any biases?

* What important things did you learn from the film?

* Name one or more weaknesses of the film.

* Would you recommend this film to others? On what basis? Explain.

The podcasts were uploaded to an iWeb podcast page. Students were then randomly assigned to review two of their classmates' podcasts and blog the reviews at the site. Here were the instructions for writing the reviews:

1. Whose podcast did you review and what was its length?

2. Was the main theme of the film explained clearly? What did you understand the main theme to be.?

3. How was the general pacing of the broadcast? Was the volume satisfactory? Did the student seem prepared?

4. Did the broadcaster seem informed and confident? Explain.

5. Describe at least two important facts or arguments that the student provided.

6. Did the film sound interesting? What came across as its strengths and weaknesses.

7. What other information about the film did you glean and/or what other stylistic points about the presentation were noteworthy?

The exercise produced excellent blogs, and once again I found that podcasting produced excellent writing. (Just listen to Allegra's superb review of The War Room).

The students responded to the transparency of the work and sampled each other's work beyond the requrirements. Each watched a worthwhile film, and quite possibly some have been enticed to watch a few more that their peers recommended.

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P.S. If you missed it due to the holiday, take a peek at "Rick's Off to College Computing Tips" and forward link to families of graduating high school seniors. The post now followed by some worthwhile commentary from college students.

Blog Squad

Part 3 of 3

Sorry, Rick. I got you fired up over the prospect of a Web-Design club at school. I had visions of a service group of talented and curious design students who would learn about web design and then help groups in school where some still think p.r is tacking up a couple of posters in the hall and or setting out a stack of books at Open House.

Well, I circulated my idea and got tepid responses from a couple of teachers and four students. No administrative response to my emails. But the deal-breaker for me was my assignment for next year which does not build in any tech-specific time for staff development, school wide programs and the like . So all we have to show for my scheme is the neat logo you made.

However, I am certainly not going to let the limited imaginations of others keep us from pushing forward. At MHS each teacher has an obligation to be involved with an extra-curricular. And as I indicated in Part 2 , the little technical issues that arise during a major web project can be overwhelming. So I have dumped the club I was moderating and proposed the following to our principal and our dean of students:

What I would like to establish is something like a "Blog Squad" which would offer message board help to students who are having specific challenges with wikis, web sites, podcasts, blogs in our classes. Believe me, tons of little issues arise with projects using Web 2.0 apps, and they occur when class is not in session. Usually the problems are easy to solve and do not warrant tying up valuable tech department or class time. I envision that the "club" would initially recruit kids who are adept at Audacity, WikiSpaces, Google Sites, and/or Blogger and give them "genius" (apologies to Apple) status as problem solvers. Trust me, these geniuses are often not the same kids who make all the honor societies. This would be a service activity but it would not physically meet as a group. I would, however, want to hold a brainstorming session with interested parties like Tom J., Rick Strobl (who has terrific design skills), participating teachers, representative kids to try to figure out the best online vehicle for the message board (possibly a Ning?). At this time next year I would reevaluate. Perhaps we could expand to offer broader services, workshops, include school-wide help. Fran, Lynn, Alison, and I are generating a large pool of veteran wiki users. Ann's, Steve's and my students move on from our courses as veteran bloggers. Thus, the pool of helpers is growing.

On the other hand, I am also not afraid to declare that I have failed. The plan will die a quick death if a critical mass of users is not achieved by mid-semester. Final note: If this brain storm does not count as my "extra-curricular" at least I've just written a blog post for Larry's Opinion Drive-thru. Perhaps someone out there in the distant reaches of cyberspace will pick up on the idea and run with it in their school!

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"Web Warrior" logo posted to my Facebook wall by Rick Strobl. Rick will guest blog on Monday with a terrific computing check list for the student who is going off to college. This is one that you will want to pass along to friends and family

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.

A Digital Anthology for Poli Sci (or any course!)

Sometimes I blog and wonder if my words make any impact. Then I am comforted by the thought that one reader often takes the words to heart. . . . Me!

This happened again recently after I posted Teaching Literature Unbound. In it I described Jim Burke's Weekly Reader-- A Digital Anthology. Afterwards, I found myself musing about the types of lit I might include for an English class. Then I hit on the realization of how valuable a digital anthology would be for my AP Government and Politics class.

I have have always included a "reader" companion to the text for this course. Typically it costs about fifty bucks. And even though I regularly order newer editions, many of the articles typically seem dated in even the newest collections. A digital "reader" could be current, free, and include multi-media.

Since having this brain storm I have thrown myself into the project. I've drawn from four main sources so far:

Academic and news articles-- Gale Student Resource Center

Video Lectures-- Academic Earth & NY Times Video Library

Podcasts-- iTunes U

I am using Google Docs to collate my materials. The hyperlink feature (see Hyperlink Heaven) allows me to pull all the resources into one space. After seven years I have a pretty clear idea of the kinds of topics I want to include for my students. As I pull together the resources, I also compose critical thinking topics, which I compose in a different color text)

Next school year, besides saving my students fifty dollars, I will break by anthology into course packs which correspond to each unit. Students will have direct links to the resources with attendant topics to write, vlog, blog about (according to instructions).

From the teacher's point of view, the anthology can continually be refreshed and tailored exactly to each year's course.

If you have suggestions, please comment. If you would like to see a section of my anthology, just shoot me an email: labcbake@umich.edu

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Screen Capture of "Academic Earth". Thanks to our Jonell, our Dean of Students, for passing this link along.

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