EduTech’s West Central Region Blog

I attended a podcast workshop at the National Educational Computing Conference this past summer in San Antonio. The presenters were Jonathan Bergmann, recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching and Aaron Sams. They both teach AP Chemistry at Woodland Park, Colorado and use video podcasts of their lectures for students to view at home.

Students view the vodcasts each evening. They can stop, rewind and fast forward through the lectures as needed. The next day students discuss the lectures for about 10 minutes and then have 75 minutes to devote to guided practice and labwork. These teachers have found that their students’ test scores have improved as well as their grasp of the content.

Bergmann and Sams use software called Snapkast to record their PowerPoint slideshows which include live voice-over audio and pen strokes created on a wireless tablet. This software then converts the presentation into an MP4 file.

This week, Learning & Leading with Technology (December/January 2008-09) has an article entitled Remixing Chemistry Class by Jonathan and Aaron. To access this article, go to: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/Current_Issue/L_L_November.htm

To learn more about Chemistry Vodcasts go to:

Bergmann’s Web page: http://www.wpsdk12.org/~jbergmann/Podcasts

Hatak’s blog: http://21chatak.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-ideas-seem-to-come-in-sets.html

Hatak’s podcasting blog: http://hatakappodcast.blogspot.com/

Sam’s Web page: http://www.wpsdk12.org/~asams/

Snapkast: http://snapkast.com/

Web site on how to start vodcasting lessons: http://www.educationalvodcasting.com/

On October 23, I made a presentation to the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders in Bismarck. My presentation was entitled Web 2.0: Uses & Implications for the Classroom. I used EduTech’s new blogging/podcasting service as my presentation tool. We are currently piloting this service to about a dozen schools in the state. You can see the blog I created for this presentation by going to http://blogs.edutech.nodak.edu/lynnande/

The blog was fun and very easy to create. I uploaded a few different podcasts and PDF files. Check it out and let me know what you think! You can leave comments on this blog or on that one. Who would have ever thought I’d have more than one blog?

A list of resources to utilize when you are just getting your feet wet with using podcasting in your classroom:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11293_7-6246557-1.html?tag=bnav
Step by step podcasting directions and a wealth of links.

http://www.edublogs.org
A free hosted blog solution for any educator or researcher.

http://www.addysg.org.uk/ipodined/news.php
Discusses using iPods and Podcasting in education.

http://learninginhand.com/podcasting
Contains information about podcasting in education and links to podcasts and podcast directories.

http://www.epnweb.org
The Education Podcast Network brings together podcast sites for teachers.

http://esp.mit.edu/web/discoveresp/studentpodcasts.html
Educational Studies Program, MIT Middle and High School students from MIT produce podcasts as part of an Educational Studies Program.

http://www.power-team.org/kidcast/kidcast.htm
Elementary students using podcasts to develop reading fluency.

http://www.stager.org/podcasting.html
Gary S. Stager Podcasting resources for educators and students

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/tips.html
Apple Education Essential tips for podcast lovers

http://www.liberty.k12.mo.us/~elanghorst/blog
Speaking of History Middle school students produce history podcasts

http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio
Radio WillowWeb Elementary students create podcasts. Tony Vincent is the first teacher to have student podcasts in iTunes.

http://www.smithsonian.org/podcasts/default.htm
A collection of podcasts from the Smithsonian

http://www1.gcs.k12.al.us/~podcast/
Gadsden City Schools “Podcast Central” contains elementary students podcasts.

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/evalpodcast.html
Kathy Schrock posted a guide to evaluating podcasts.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help
Audacity documentation, tutorials, and a wiki are found on this page.

http://www.learninginhand.com/ipod/audio.html
Downloadable audio content like music and historic speeches and sounds.

Here is a list of sites with music that can be used in videos and podcasts. Be sure to check the license agreements for each site.

http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos
-many musicians choose to release their songs under Creative Commons licenses, which give you the legal right to do things like use their music in your videos.

Freeplay Music
-a good collection of royalty-free music

Soundzabound
-royalty free music for education grades K-12

MagnaTune
-another good collection of music

Download.com
-and another

Partners in Rhyme
-royalty free music and sound effects

Free piano music by William Cushman at Ghost Notes Blog
-royalty free impressionistic improvisational piano music by composer, William Cushman, that explores different feelings and situations.

Recently I taught a SMART Board™ workshop and found a great website that contains a weekly SMART Notebook™ lesson, a podcast and resource links. Here is the site address: http://pdtogo.com/smart/ The podcast can be delivered automatically to your iTunes or email address. Past lessons can be searched by category.

Also, on March 7, 2008, SMART Technologies began working with Scholastic to design lesson plans that provide teachers with digital resources to complement their SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards and Senteo™ interactive response systems. The microsite features SMART lesson activities for Notebook™ collaborative learning software, resources to help with lesson activity creation and links to customizable tools and templates. Math and science lesson activities are currently featured, and additional lesson activity subjects will be added regularly. http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplans.jsp

Check out these podcasts on interactive whiteboards!

ActivBoard Tips http://www.prometheanplanet.com/us/server/show/nav.1252

ActivBoard Teacher Ideas http://feeds.feedburner.com/PrometheanPlanetTeacherFeature

SmartBoard Podcasts http://pdtogo.com/smart/?page_id=28

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