Director of Innovation and Strategy
Last week I led an after-school workshop on podcasting with students, and I’ve turned my portion of the presentation into a video podcast.
Thanks to my friends at VSTE, the Virginia Society for Technology in Education, for hosting the podcast. This month they’ve been highlighting and focusing upon mobile devices in learning – and podcasting certainly fits the bill for putting educational content on the gadgetry teens crave.
The example I created and PDF handout is available here.
Yesterday while visiting Byrd Elementary, I saw the great work from Mrs. Nixon’s 2nd graders, who used Comic Life to create their G21 products. Great work, indeed! This project not only addressed their science SOL, but gave them real, hands-on experience in using the Macbooks to create something they could call their own.
This is a sample podcast I created for this evening’s class on podcasting. It details the the process of backing-up your computer following my “Instructional Podcast Model.”
Download the handout materials in PDF format, and also visit our podcasting information via our Wiki.
In Goochland, teachers have multiple outlets for having tests and quizzes graded by computer. Back in 2000, I devised a way to do this using FileMakerPro. It was a hit on the conference circuit.
Today, we have Moodle, but did you know you can also use Google Apps? By using the Forms function, along with a free script called Flubaroo, you can create a quiz that gets automagically graded.
If you try it out, let me know how it goes!
Bea Cantor shared this article with me, which is an outstanding endorsement for using Scratch across the curriculum.
The author makes the point of where we should aim, using software like Scratch:
Yesterday afternoon, we had a class on using spreadsheets for both calculations and for mining data with students in the classroom. The tools and techniques used are appropriate for grades 5-12.
I’ve recorded the session for teachers to view at their leisure (190MB download, 57 minutes). In the video, you’ll see several tools highlighted:
Links contained within are listed below for your convenience:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
QR Codes are barcodes that can hold a lot of text, not just a number like those on the back of products at the grocery store. You can embed things like an entire paragraph or a weblink. I recommend the following sources for creating QR codes.
You can use a mobile device like a cell phone or an iPod Touch device to read these codes. They make great shortcuts for leading students to online resources. Episode #153 of TechTimes Live, available below, details more about these special barcodes that hail from Japan.
