A world of pod-abilities!

I'm starting to develop a slight inferiority complex because it seems that every post I write for this course starts with "Since I didn't know anything about    (insert topic of the week)   , I had to do a lot of research." And, yet again, this is how my post starts. Sigh.

This week, Twitter came to my rescue riding on a white horse! At the beginning of the week, Steven W. Anderson (aka @web2.0classroom) tweeted Kit Hard's education and technology related blog (Hard, 2010). On November 15, 2010, Hard wrote A Teacher's Guide to Using Audio and Podcasting in the Classroom. This post is complete with a helpful chart of the audio and podcasting resources available and videos demonstrating the use of each one! After viewing each of the videos, I chose to spend this week exploring Audacity as a recording and editing program.

I enlisted my husband's help to create my podcast. One of the things that I love about him are the accents that he can do; they always manage to cheer me up when I'm feeling down. In order to keep things somewhat educational, I asked him to record himself reading Sandra Boynton's "The Going to Bed Book" in his Three Little Pigs accent (yes, the accents all have names). I used Editing for Beginners: Part Two Cut, Copy and Paste to select the areas that I wanted to keep and take out the audio where some impromptu Ernie from Sesame Street happened (though I kept that in a personal file for myself to listen to when I need a pick-me-up).

I was left with a simple audio file that would have been good enough until I started to reminisce about the good ol' days of my childhood. I used to sit for hours with my little red record player and accompanying books and play them over and over again. Each time the page needed to be turned, there was a lovely chiming noise. That was what I needed for my audio file! Jeff of Caddicks.com suggests using Microsoft Clip Art for simple sound effects. I found that their selection was satisfactory but a little bit frustrating because the titles for some sound effects are not an accurate description of the audio. For example, they classify this as a lullaby. I don't know who puts babies to sleep with that!

I was ready to attach the mp3 or wave file to my blog but first I needed to upload it to a hosting program. I was unsure about where I wanted to put it so I turned to Learn It In 5 (2010).

Audioboo is a simple and easy to use program. After only a few clicks I had an account and had uploaded my file.

Click #1: Create my account

Click #2: Add a boo

Click #3: Upload my file

Click #4: Get the embed code
(It is also easy to tweet, share it with Facebook,
add it to iTunes or create an RSS feed)

So... drum roll please... here is my final product!

Now that I've had experience with creating my own podcast, how can I use podcasting in my personal life and in my teaching? Well, I'll be honest, I think I will use it more in my teaching than in my personal life. I have a very hard time with auditory learning, so listening to podcasts does not really appeal to me. I prefer to see videos of topics that I am learning about (ex. using Adobe InDesign, sewing zippers, starting vegetables from seed) and I will probably continue to use that mode for my own learning.

However, I think podcasting is a fabulous resource for classroom teachers! While doing this research, I have found some fabulous sites that I have sent to the teachers in my school: The Education Podcast Network, CBC Podcasts, Education Podcasts and Podiobooks. These sites have some amazing content and they cover all of the subject areas that are taught in high school. Teachers can find a podcast that fits their area of interest and subscribe to it through their iTunes account. Choosing to automatically sync their iPod to their iTunes means that every time they plug their iPod into their account, the new podcasts will automatically be added for them to listen to at their earliest convenience (Richardson, 2010).

If I have a classroom again I will definitely be podcasting with my students! I can only imagine the creative things that they would come up with to show their learning through this mode. Kerilee Beasley (2009) has a list of ways to use Audacity in your classroom like recording a radio show or taping the kids as they read aloud. I can imagine having my intermediate class create a tailored listening lab for a kindergarten or grade one classroom based on the books that the teacher owns. I would also love to record the read-alouds that I do in class when I'm teaching or put readers' theatre productions up on a classroom blog. It would be exciting to have a student-created podcast of our classroom events each week.

I wish that I had known how to use podcasting and audio recording last year when I was teaching a student with serious reading difficulties. I would sit with him, read the instructions and questions, and then scribe his responses. Hard's blog (2010) outlines the steps to embed audio into a Microsoft Word document. Recording the instructions for the student and enabling him to record his answers would have made things so much easier! I'm glad that I will have this knowledge under my belt for the future.

Other sites to check out:

• For a general overview of podcasting in the classroom and how to make it work for you, see Poducate Me: Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education.
• Voicethread - Audio recording supported with images and pictures. My favourite combination!
• Voki - Who doesn't want a speaking avatar?
• Art Mobs combined with Google Art Project to take a student-led tour of MOMA.

References

Beasley, K. (2009). 10 great ways to use Audacity with your students. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://kerileebeasley.com/2009/04/08/10-great-ways-to-use-audacity-with-your-students/.

Caddick, J. (2008). Free music and sound effects for podcasts. Retrieved on February 21, 2011 from

http://www.caddicks.com/blog/2008/01/12/free-music-sound-effects-for-podcasts/.

Hard, K. (2010). Ed tech kit: Be the change. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from  http://edtechkit.blogspot.com/.

Learn It In 5. (2010). How to video: Using the all-in-one podcasting application Audioboo. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://www.learnitin5.com/Classroom-Podcasting.

Ovadia, M. (2010). Poducate me: Practical solutions for podcasting in education. Retrieved on February 23, 2011 from http://poducateme.com.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 

Better bookmarks

This is how I keep track of websites that I like:

I love being able to file away a snapshot of the website in my "important papers" binder under the corresponding topic. To atone for the waste of paper, I say a small prayer for each tree that has been sacrificed for my enjoyment of this organizational system.

To learn about social bookmarking, I watched Social Bookmarking in Plain English.

It was a good starting point and inspired me to create a Delicious account. However, after a few days of use, I was still printing out screenshots and filing them away in my binder because Delicious did not agree with my predominantly visual learning style.

Delicious allows users to save websites with a series of user generated tags (keywords). The bookmarks are  then filed by tag and date. My difficulty with Delicious was that I could never remember the websites by name alone and I would have to reopen each of them. One way to remedy this is to create notes for each page, but that takes time, and time is what I don't have a lot of these days. (I'm also nervous to invest more time in Delicious because of rumours that Yahoo is selling the site  (Tsotsis, 2009) and who knows what will happen to everything I have accumulated.)

I kept looking for more information about social bookmarking, convinced that there had to be a better way. I perused an overview of social bookmarking (Educause Learning Initiative, 2005), enjoyed a quick tour of other services (Jackson, 2009), and read Crane's Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom (2009). Finally, while reading Richardson (2010), I found Diigo!

Since my learning style is so visual, I knew Diigo would be the perfect fit for me. I had bookmarked Diigo in Delicious (ironic) and I had intended to go back and check it out later, but this was my motivation - Diigo has a tab which opens a website preview without navigating away from your Diigo page. 

To learn more about Diigo, I watched their clear and informative introductory videos and quickly felt like a pro at the site (an indication that the videos are very well done).

Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

View this list here

Diigo also made the transfer of my Delicious bookmarks easy with step-by-step instructions for exporting Delicious bookmarks in an idiot-proof process. But best of all, now when I save a site in Diigo it automatically links to Delicious and ensures that the same link is saved there as well! Genius. I am in favour of any site that does the work for me.


In an attempt to seem invaluable to the teachers in my school, I have been putting learning links onto the website. However, I have run into difficulty when linking to our EBSCO database and it is confusing to try to lead students to the location (and it takes way more than the suggested 3 clicks). Searching on Diigo allows me to find the sites behind the password and save them for kids to view. If students want to expand their search they can simply enter the school's username and password and continue their search within EBSCO. Perfect!


I set up a Diigo account for school use (separate from my personal account for the same reason that I have two Facebook acccouts) and bookmarked some sites for a teacher's upcoming Humanities 8 project. Diigo was so simple to figure out that I easily created a list for the sites and exported it to Blogger. Within minutes I had the link posted on my school library site. I tried adding annotations but I didn't like that other people's annotations also show up when students access the site through the Diigo bookmark list. 

It is also possible to set up an educator account in Diigo where you can create private groups and share bookmarks within the group (Wylie, 2010). This isn't useful for me in the position I'm in this year but it is definitely something that I will look into if I enroll a classroom in the future!

Finally, I have to mention one thing that disturbs me - the sharing aspect of social bookmarking. Richardson (2010) and Crane (2009) both tout social bookmarking as an indispensable researching tool where you can save bookmarked sites (great!), search other people's bookmarked sites (okay) and even get RSS feeds when select people add new bookmarks (and this is where I become uncomfortable). 


I do understand how social bookmarking can help find research. I love reading bibliographies to find further references but these people have published their work with the intention of having it viewed, referred to and critiqued. I feel like my bookmarks should not have to stand up to the same sort of dissection.  


I view my bookmarks as akin to my closet. I have some things that I want to have people see and other items that are more personal. Using social bookmarking and making any links public is just like inviting anyone and everyone to take a browse through your closet. I can just hear it now... "I'm sure that site makes her hips look huge" or "Who does she think she is looking at that site?" Who knows what people are thinking? Who knows who is traipsing through my bookmark closet? Creepy. 

Oh well, at the end of the day, the pros of social bookmarking greatly outweigh the cons and I have officially become a convert. 

For further investigation (when time allows):

• Image Spark - This is perfect for the graphic design work that I do on the side. It would be an online inspiration board.
• Have students create their own research list and tagging system with the lesson outlined in Developing Info-Seeking Fluency (Hendron, 2010).
• Use annotated bookmarks as a way to share comments and conversation with a future class as Richardson demonstrates on his blog (New Reading, New Writing (April 9, 2009)).

References


Crane, B. E. (2009). Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc. 


Educause Learning Initiative (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf.


Hendron, J. (2010). Developing info-seeking vocabulary. Learning & Leading with Technology, 38(2), 32-33.


Jackson, L. (2009). Sites to see: Social bookmarking. Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml.


Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


Richardson, W. (2009) New reading, new writing. Retrieved on February 10, 2011 from http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/new-reading-new-writing/. 


Tsotsis, A. (2010). Is Yahoo shutting down Del.ici.ous? Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/16/is-yahoo-shutting-down-del-icio-us/.

Wylie, J. (2010). Teaching social bookmarking with Diigo education. Retrieved on February 11, 2011 from http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/62228.aspx.http://www.delicious.com/