Wiki Assignment

I just finished editing my page on the class's Wikispaces Wiki, and I have to say that was easier than the google site I set up for my own class website. For future reference, I will use Wikispaces for my classroom websites. It seems more manageable, and the idea that students can edit portions of it intrigues me. It goes back to the idea of social learning which all these technologies bring to the surface. Helping students help each other is the sign of a great teacher, because a great teacher motivates his or her students, not lecture.

My contribution to the Wikispaces Wiki is Mike Lemon's Podcasts. You will find my lesson plan for my Personal Technology Project, as well as the soundtrack to my video. I learned while doing these podcasts that, if I use Audioboo for the RSS feed, the recording must be under five minutes. I incorporated the time constraints into the lesson plan. Since I am not taking classes during the summer, I might record some more podcasts, just to make sure I understand the technology.

For the second portion of this assignment, I am amazed at how my Personal Learning Network grew during the semester. Because of good blogs, I found other blogs where I found ideas for classroom activities, as well as free technology. On the Wikispaces, I added links to these two blogs: Classroom as Microcosm, and Free Technology for Teachers.

My First Podcast is Posted!

I finished editing it awhile back, but, due to schedule conflicts and having to re-record the Coltrane clip, I finally posted it on the class website. It was definitely an eye-opener getting this lesson done. The podcast itself is relatively short -six and a half minutes -but it took a lot of preparation before and after recording to get it ready. I know it's not the highest quality, but I'm still learning about Audacity.

I set up a new page on my website, outlining the purpose behind recording. I'll expound a little on that right now. Firstly, I want to give students an opportunity to interact with the text. I know that may seem a strange concept, seeing how books and poetry are inanimate. However, in reading them out loud and preparing samples for the internet, the students become engrossed in the text. They begin to see it in context, studying the history and cultures around a piece.

Secondly, I see that podcasts of lectures can help students outside the classroom. I felt sometimes as a high school student a little lost when presented with daunting homework. I wished I had someone or something that could help me understand the principles at that time. It's funny how I can understand in the classroom, but once at home, my mind shrinks from the task. Recording lessons and posting them on a class website will give teens an opportunity to get that extra help. What's more, students can also post lessons for present and future classes. They can help a student who is ill, and can't make it to class. He or she can download a lesson, and not be as intimidated to get caught up.

I know a concern I have with podcasts is copyright. I knew about public domain, but now I'm going to look into other sources where I can pick up ideas. It isn't enough to say we will record, but the class must abide by law as well. I'll write more about this in my post tomorrow. Until then, head over to the website, and enjoy the podcast.

mike

Setting up a podcast has become something of a frustration. I know the technology, but I'm having trouble getting all the pieces together. I need to go to record a snippet of John Coltrane to illustrate how someone should approach reading Langston Hughes. That's right, I decided for my first podcast, I'll go over some of the contexts behind Hughes' poetry. I'll be putting this recording up on my class website in the next couple of days, and we'll go from there.

It's been a frustrating couple of weeks in education. A school district in Rhode Island decided to fire all the teachers at an under-performing school, which doesn't make much sense. What will happen to all the students? Will they be shipped off to other schools, which are probably experiencing budget cuts and oversized classrooms? If the incentive is to do better at the national standards, isn't dismissing all the teachers to clear up room for budget counterproductive? It just seems to make sense to place greater emphasis on the areas where we need the most medicine, then taking away the money. What do you guys think?

Looking at More Podcast Technology

After deciding on podcast technology as a personal project, I went to YouTube, for a tutorial about podcasting. After searching a few of the clips, they all agreed that I had to download sound mixing software, of which I downloaded Audacity, as well as the LAME MP3 encoder. Here's a link to a tutorial about Audacity. For this week, I'll be toying with soundmixing, testing its functions, as well as finding pieces of literature in the public domain that I can record without incurring the wrath of copyright infringement.

The idea behind this technology is simple enough, but the ramifications in the classroom is unparalleled. Just think for a moment if students were to get excited over podcasting. They would study and practice their lines, just to hear their voices performing. It won't excite everyone to record, but others might find pleasure in editing the podcasts, in encoding them. Plus, future classrooms can inherit or compete against the past in recording better podcasts. The amount of money needed for this project is minimal. All that is really needed is a microphone, the software, and an area to download the MP3 (a class website, maybe?)

Personal Technology Project Proposal

I know I'm a little late in posting this proposal, but here it goes. I am really interested in Librivox and the technology behind it. In my opinion, having students listen to the text while reading raises their level of cognition and awareness. In other words, they will pay more attention while listening. Aside from Librivox, there is another website that provides free podcast downloads of public domain literature. It is called AudioOwl, and it is the site that I use to download podcasts.

My proposal works in two ways. First, I want to use these free podcasts in the classroom, to whet the students appetite to the literature. I know that in my high school, they experimented in giving all students an I-Pod for homework; students could easily place these reading onto their I-Pods and take them home.

However, listening to a podcast is not enough. I think recording a class podcast, recording passages from the books being studied, would make a great class project. I will be looking into podcast technology, and how to upload these recordings onto a class website, or one of the two websites listed above. Wish me luck!