Podcast - Activity 2 & 3

The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt

For this activity I recorded Mary Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly." I choose this poem because it was very popular with high school students for the Poetry Out Loud contest. And I thought having two characters and a narrator would create a fun audio recording.

I used GarageBand for recording and editing. Thanks Smith School for letting me use your MacBook for this process. First I recorded the spider's part, then the fly's, and then the narration. I kept the parts on different tracks so that I could then manipulate the sound for each track and have different "voices" for each part. I quickly learned that I needed to click the microphone on and then wait before speaking, otherwise the mic cut off the first word or so. Then I edited out the dead space at the beginning and ending of each section.

Next I added a music loop to the background. I "ducked" the music so the volume changes if there is a vocal part. You may notice the music is louder when there is no narration and quieter when there is narration.

Uploading the MP3 file to Blogger required a little research since Blogger only allows links, image or video files. I found that I could create a Google Site and upload the MP3 to it and use the URL to link to this blog. By clicking on the link in the blog the MP3 automatically downloads. This is how I created the link at the very beginning of this post.

However, I wanted an embed feature. So a little more research lead me to divShare. This site allows the account holder to store 5GB of information (audio, video, image, etc) for free. After uploading my MP3 I selected embed and then pasted the HTML code on this blog. This creates the MP3 player on the second line of this blog post.

This was a fun project that I can easily see being used in the library curriculum. Students could create podcasts of school news, new books, interesting tidbits that they researched or to create audio books (or chapters). I could create podcasts to create audiobooks for younger readers, provide lessons (citations, research tools, etc) or library announcements. Grammar Girl is a popular podcast in our HS English classes, the library lessons could follow a similar format.

Video Editing 2.0

The latest assignment for my library technology class was to create a book trailer using an online video editing device. I choose One True Media as my editor. And "A Ranger's Guide to Day Hiking in Yellowstone" by Roger Anderson & Carol Shively Anderson for the trailer. This particular guide book is one of my favorites. Last summer we spent 4 days hiking 30 miles in Yellowstone - all hikes from this particular book. We found it to be amazingly accurate, right down to the "turn at the burned tree" and 3-4 hour hikes taking exactly 3.5 hours with picture breaks.

Anderson, R. & C.S. Anderson (2005). A Ranger's Guide to Yellowstone Day Hikes. Helena: Farcountry Press.

One True Media was easy to use. Upload images/video, upload music (or use the in house music), change the order and viola. However, I wanted to add captions to make the video a little more understandable, and that's a "premium" option. So I decided to splurge and get a month subscription for $3.99 and be able to add text screens and captions. I think it adds to the project and since we didn't have a text this semester I could afford to splurge a little :) While One True Media is adequate many of the cool features are under the premium, which makes sense but would be somewhat frustrating for students. They allow the creator to edit with all the premium things, but they are taken out of the video before sharing.

I used the in house music provided by One True Media. I choose to use rap first just to clash with the theme of YNP. The bird chirp marks as a transition to nature and getting out of the crazy urban world. And then folk for the part highlighting the features of the book because the tune is relaxing and unassuming. The images are my family's with the exception of the book cover which obviously the publisher created.

I tried out several other video editing sites including: Animito, XtraNormal and one other that I can't remember the name. Each definitely has its pros and cons. I really wanted to use XtraNormal - however, it does not allow images to be added to the video (instead you create a script and use the characters and settings that they have) so it wouldn't really work for this assignment. But it was fun to play nonetheless.

The other really cool site I explored was Voice Threads. I love it!!! I had to share with colleagues who are now trying to figure out how to best incorporate the site. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Truly innovative Web 2.0.

http://tiny.cc/cs1nl

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

$250,000 Free Technology

CIM Solutions will be giving away $250,000 worth of technology this year. To enter the monthly drawings register on http://www.cimav.com/giveaways/.

Motiving 5th & 6th graders with Programming

This is another session for my Business/Computers hat. notes...

LOGO, Alice

John Newson
Bonnie Brodd
David Miller

Teachers.lakesideschool.org/ms/tech/ncce2010
handouts
powerpoint
downloads


Computer Skills
45 min 1 day/wk
Keyboarding
Email and email etiquette
copyright
Office 2007 basics in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Programming 5th LOGO and Alice 6th Scratch
support the curriculum so drop what they are learning in computers to help with the other class projects


Introduction to Logo
Walking the Turtle around a square
FD
RT
tape shapes on the floor and walk out the steps
The Challenge draw a house using procedures (walls, roof, door window, not draw, etc)
practice on the smartboard and then individual
Then Challenge draw a face (circles, etc)
add an input and use it in your procedure
Fun with Turtle (change color, width)
Final Project
create a design or drawing of your choice
multiple pen color
different pen widths
multiple turtles
procedures
procedures within procedures

LOGO Terapin upgrade lab license of 20 is $300
10 weeks for unit 45min/week

ALICE - Free
http://www.alice.org
worlds-templates
objects
tools

First Project
Create a new world using the water template
add the island from the gallery
add the shark
position the shark so it looks like it is swimming to the left of the island
create a second world and add three objects

Moving Objects
create a new world using the winter template
add a snowman and snowwoman from the gallery
switch to cars

1 new alice thing each week

SCRATCH

Logo Linear, Text based
Alice Object Oriented Built-in Movements 3D Graphics
Scratch Object Oriented, Open Ended

students go to class website for initial instructions
The Spot
Three before Me

computers on the edge of the classroom
The Spot - minimize distractions (turn off screen, sit on hands) do what they need to to pay attention (independent)
Teachers and students both can use the spot
inside voices (mutual respect finish before stopping)
Three before me (verbally communicate - don't grab mouse)

Scratch Project
An editing recording of yourself reciting your poem using audacity (free for audio editing)
two animated sprites
two backgrounds
1 imported image
3 color-coded block categories
This was based upon the English class memorization of a poem
these are minimums students must stretch themselves

What went Well
collaboration
knowledge sharing
peer review
motivation

Lessons Learned
concept was too abstract for first Scratch project
Did not account for gap between classes

next time give mini-projects first

handouts at MIT website

Tools that complement Scratch
Atomic Learning ($)
Jing
Audacity
Photoshop ($)
Sketchup
Picoboard

Benefits of Programming
Independent learning
collaboration
critical thinking
problem solving
creativity

This would be a great addition to any computer applications class!

Teacher Librarians

Colet Bartow - from Montana OPI is one of the presenters
Steve - President Elect

http://NCCETeacherLibrarianSummit.ncce.wikispaces.net
information from the Summit on Wednesday - this will be streamed video soon :)

Title "Teacher Librarian" to emphasis the Teaching role of the Librarian
Bridge the link between Information and Technology literacy
effective users and producers
Library & Information Technology Program (LIT)
Mission: To ensure that students are effective users and producers of ideas and information.
3 essential functions
1. Information Technology Instruction
2. Reading Advocacy
3. Information Management

Bar on the left is the agenda from the summit

wallwisher - tool to gather ideas
join and contribute to the wiki

Then we broke into groups to discuss what needs to be done to move our libraries forward. This session was very motivating and I came out of the session reinvigorated to move forward. I have some ideas that I would love to incorporate into my library. More later...

Keeping Up with the Googlebots

Dr. Patrick Crispen

netsquirrel.com

look for Google 201 shows the advanced Google features (free presentation)
tinyurl.com/googncce
check out windows tab

In the search....
conversions
weather sea
calculator 2+2 (2*2)/pi*G (gravity)
1 mile in smoots
Capital of Belgium
Population of France
many answers before pressing enter - similar to AskJeeves

More options - search blogs, specific date (last week, etc)
archive.org has archived back to 95 (the evolution of the web)

nearby - local hits based upon IP address
custom location - you choose

wonder wheel - your search term in the middle with spokes of other search terms and the click on another search term and it continues creating wheels - brainstorm search terms, click on web and then search for currently highlight search

timeline - wardrobe malfunction

images from the page - 2-3 pictures from the page and display on the search results
page views - thumbnail of the page prior to loading
fewer shopping sites (more shopping sites)
limit to discussions - Q&A sites (yahoo answers, etc)
images - more options - sizes, face, photo, clipart, line drawing, color
video - time, quality, slide shows, CC, cartoons
image-swirl.googlelabs.com

filter - images and languages built into google
google.com/preferences and click Lock Safe Search - password protected cookie for all google sites (this must be done on each browser) - you know safe search is on if you see balls on your screen
fastflip.googlelabs.com
Google Buzz - social medium center - contact lists and profile are public by default
neutering or disabling Buzz - in preferences to make private or disable altogether
Google Chrome (web browser) - google.com/chrome - best features: security and speed - minimalist approach - each tab a seperate application (one tab goes down - others available)

youtube.com/disco (pandora)- playlist from youtube
youtube.com/html5 (safari 4 and chrome)
feather "lite" version of youtube - reduce latency (beta)
Google Public DNS - Domain Name Servers (code.google.com/speed/public-dns) - use google DNS server to speed up searching DON'T do this on a laptop
Google.com/moderator
function space to zoom (some computers)

autocompleteme.com
googlegoggles (for android)google.com/mobile/goggles take a picture of anything with words and google will search for those words, or take a picture of something (ie golden gate bridge) and search,
images.google.com/hosted/life -
dictionary.google.com pronunciations (audio sometimes), conjugation, related phrases and languages
google.com/support

Google Story video
4 blogs on PowerPoint (squirrelnet) to keep up with google

Last Day

It's Friday, usually that means excitement for the weekend and ready to crash. Today however has mixed emotions, I'm exhausted, but there will be time to sleep on the bus ride home. Right now I just need to be the most absorbant sponge I can be. I'm sad that the conference is almost over...