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I have recently sixcovered voicethreads and I wanted to share one with you. How could we use this in schools and specifically classroom instruction?
http://voicethread.com/share/576571/
Here is just a little tid bit of news that I found today and thoguht it was very interesting. Could we really be going in this direction? Are textbook publishers in the next few years going to be sending MP3 files of the text book to students? Well, we all saw the Encyclopedia Brittanica go down the whole as Encarta and late Wikipedia came on the scene. I mean when I was in school and a kid Encyclopedia Brittanica was the bomb and the one source of information on everything. It was the end all be all of resources and the place that everyone (I mean students) all devoured to create their state reports or biographies of a famous person.
Yet this is just not the case these days. The rate that information and knowledge and life in general is speeding up so quickly due to computers and the internet it is not really feasible any longer to publish huge tomes of knowledge like Encyclopedia Brittanica. So more and more students and teachers are turning to online resources like Wikipedia. Who knows the next step just might be students turning to Twitter, and the blog sphere to find updated and recent information. It is definitely where many of us go for instant quick breaking news.
Anyway here is the link. I won’t wax philosophical any long tonight.
UK Pupils To Study Twitter and Blogs
I know you are probably going crazy with all of the web 2.0 names right. After all you have twitter, Diigo, Dig, Flickr and a billion other weird sounding sites all with inventively spelled names. So what is Animoto you ask? Well, glad you did and if you didn’t well at least bare with me for a few seconds.
Since late 2007 video has taken the internet by storm. After all you have the grandaddy of them all youtube.com which is wonderful and at times not suitable for work or students but a great exploration into online web video or streaming video at any rate. Thus of course has lead to a billion other sites popping up left and right trying to duplicate the success of youtube. Yahoo has video now as well as tons of other sites.
In the teacher realm where things are safe for students, and moderated we of course have teachertube.com There are some great videos here to watch and some thign that might catch your interest or better yet the interest of your students.
However, creating videos for your classroom can be a long drawn out process and often not feasible for daily lessons. Until now. Well at least to some extent the website Animoto Animoto allows a person to upload a series of image or graphic files such as a bunch of .jpeg. Then select music and the rest is done for you. You now have a cool edgy rock video lesson planned for your students.
THe easiest way that I have found to use this is to create a story board. I typically like to storyboard on a scratch piece of paper or better yet a napkin at while at the dinner table. If nothing else I grap my little mp3 player and record my ideas as I am driving home and then convert it to a story board later on. At any rate get a storyboard for your idea. Whatever it is you want to present put it in a sotry board format. Then create the slides in powerpoint. Next go to the File menu and select Save As. Roll over the “Other Formats” choice on the menu. This will pop up the familiar save as menu where you can type in the file name you want to save the production as. Next under where you type in the file name you can select the format you want to save it as. HEre you want to scroll down and select Jpeg. This will take each one of your slides and export them one at a time as a graphic. Next you can load these into animoto and select your music and you are good to go. Produce the film and publish!
If you are looking to publish the film for maximum viewrs and consumption then you can always look into using TubeMogul You never know you might just be the next teacher video superstar!
Here is an example from the Animoto website of a teacher that used Animoto to produce a video for her students. Her Blog is called Teaching College Math and she has a nice sample video that shows one way to use Animoto.
One of the hardest part these days for elementary educators especially those of us in California is not only what technology do we use in the classroom but how do we use it. Sure Web2.0 sites are fun, interacting with peers is great and posting to a blog is cool. However, how do we use technology in a meaningful way int he classroom. That is the main reason we started this blog and as my partner in crime stated in his last post send your ideas one and all! That is the main reason we started this blog was to be a resource and gathering place of how to use all of the technology that is out there in the classroom. For example what can you do with twitter anyway? Sure I can post what I ate for breakfast and my students can view it but beyond that what other things are out there. That is the question on our mind. So let us know. I will also continue to post ideas, thoughts and ramblings of things that I have found, used or am thinking about doing with the hope that it will give others ideas also.
I teach second grade and I have some good ideas of how to use the web 2.0 tools that are out there. What I really need is to have someone give me an example of how they use the technology in the classroom, especially the early grades. High school adn jr. high i understand are more geared to tech just because of the use and mentality of the students. Are blogs and wikis usefull for the elementary grades like 2nd grade. I need some help from anyone who would like to share their thoughts.
This is our first and sort of next post in the Common Craft Series. I figured that the most appropriate place to start was with blogs. Yes I know I had already posted the Twitter video yesterday. However, at the time I did not know about the Common Craft website and that there were other videos. I thought the Twitter video was the only one.
So here is a great explanition of what a blog is. Keep in mind if is in plain English and easy to understand. However the intended audience is not just for teachers. It is a very general video meant for a broad audience of anyone looking to start blogging or even anyone who wants to know what a blog is. So watch the video and we will be posting more of these videos over the next few days. Then we both Jdawg and myself will also be posting some useful tips, tricks and ideas for using blogs, wikis, smartboards and all kind of other technology in the classroom. So this is the general over view for the public and we will be providing the 411 for the teachers in the up and comming posts we have planned.
So get a cup of coffee, soda, tea or whatever beverage you like and sit back and watch the video. Only drink your beverage quickly as the video is not very long.
Signing Off
Cdawg
Over the next few posts I will be posting some great videos from the website CommonCraft . These are a great series of videos that are super easy to understand and it explains some of the best technology out there and in plain non geek speak English.
Hey There Jdawg-
Glad you jumped right in to our new blog. Welcome to the new site and great first post.
Cdawg
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