For students, teachers and others who are musical, I've found a great new website to share with you: Indaba Music.
Indaba Music is described as "an international community of musicians, music professionals, and fans exploring the creative possibilities of making music with people in different places. It makes finding other people, and working on recording, mixing, or mastering projects easier."
So what can you do there?
Right now there are: 6 contests including one to come up with a podcast theme for Indaba and another to create a mix for Stephen Colbert. 4 artists in residence will work with website members. There are numerous musicians and bands looking for people to collaborate on their projects and many special interest groups to join. (I even find an event going on next weekend very close to where I live here in Vancouver, BC.) There is a library of CC music clips to work with so you need not worry about copyright infringement. This website has even been endorsed by Discovery!
As they say on the Indaba web page: "It starts with an idea >> people come together >> they record and mix online >> a song is created." The free version has some limitations: you can only have one temporary session going at a time. For the Pro ($5 per month), you get 3 sessions that don't seem to have limits and their top rate is $25 per month for unlimited sessions. It might be possible to work out a deal for educators, but I haven't yet tried to negotiate that.
How could you use this in school?
Come up with a theme and open a session for your class: math rap, song of science, create an original composition,remix a collection of CC music found online for a project theme song. They can collaborate with each other online.
Start a group for teachers or music educators.
Invite an artist to do a webinar for your class.
Remix your school's song.
Have the students make a how-to video for using some of their tools an post it online.
Open a session for students all over your city or country to create a song for a special event. Post a notice on Classroom 2.0 that you're looking for partners.
Collaborate internationally to create an Earth Day song. To find out how to broadcast it to the world, get in touch with the people at the Earth Day Network or Earth Day Interactive.
Please add your ideas to the mix by leaving a comment below! OR even better, get back to me with links to your class creations. I'd love to share them online.
I going to start this post with an admission: for about a month I've had an unusual and unexpected bout of 'blogger's block'.
[Image Source: Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons ]
Until today, I wasn't able to pinpoint why or what had changed, but I think I may have the answer. In August as part of a Wilkes assignment, I spent an afternoon moving most of my blog and newsletter email subscriptions over to an RSS feed. Instead of clicking back and forth between my email and each blogging site, I now use a a feed reader (mine is Google Reader) which bundles them up for me and delivers them to one location. Each day, abstracts of the day's new articles appear in a list making it really easy to scan for the choicest tidbits.
"What a wonderful discovery!!!" I thought as I transferred everything over and unsubscribed from email delivery. In theory this switch to RSS should have made it much faster for me to get through all the day's articles and kept the number of unread emails in my inbox from creeping up towards 2000! But it didn't work out quite the way I had envisioned. What actually happened was that using RSS just made it easier to ignore the subscription influx altogether. The end result seems to have been that as I stopped reading, my own dependable flow of ideas just gradually shut off.
I have come to the conclusion that in order to grow ideas my brain requires regular nourishment from other sources. I guess I'm not the original thinker I believed myself to be. It seems that I'm more of a remixer and masher-up of stuff I take in from all sorts of sources: from my experiences at school and conversations with other grad students, from what I read and the technical challenges I face when things don't work. Of all of those, the reading seems to be the most powerful component.
Perhaps my subconscious seizes on new information delivered to my brain through reading and turns it into lightning fast links between previous experiences which then register in my conscious mind as inspiration and new ideas.
I know that a synapse fires in the brain when the threshold has been reached (so everything is ready) and the right chemicals have been delivered. Are ideas just complex brain signals that need the right combination of readiness and new inputs to set them in motion?
If that is the case we have an absolute responsibility to foster the upwelling of ideas in our students by creating for them a learning environment that is rich with experiences and challenges and nourished by plenty of reading and conversation. We have to sensitize them to the way it feels when ideas come and help them learn to give their brains time out from the sensory overload of constant entertainment and chit-chat that can flood the neural pathways and block the birth of insight.
Here we are at the beginning of a new school year. It's easy to for me to let ideas get buried beneath the weight of old habits and new pressures, so I have to keep reading -- yes -- but I also have to make time to turn at least one idea per term into a new experience for my students. Otherwise even the greatest ideas will evaporate, and I might as well retire.
I picked up an item about Wordle from Jane Hart's E-Learning Pick of the Day. For those of you not yet familiar with this Web 2.0 tool, the description from their website says :
"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."
I did the one above about my feelings and thoughts about going back to school. There are all sorts of websites that can give you ideas for uses of Wordle in your classroom:
This last presentation from Tom Barrett (found in a blog called Clif's Notes) is my favourite because it's a collaborative effort in Google Docs. You can write Tom and contribute a slide if you have an idea to share.
It was this item in Jane's blog about actions Jonathon Feinberg (Wordle's creator) has taken in response to one teacher's concern about coming across inappropriate word clouds on this website that prompted me to write this post. Feinberg has recently ensured educators and parents that the Wordle front page will never feature such images or links and has made it possible for administrators to "configure a school's site-blocking software to keep Wordle safe for classroom use." His instructions (which can be found in the FAQ) are as follows:
"Simply have your networking administrator block the following base URLs1:
http://www.wordle.net/gallery
http://www.wordle.net/next
http://www.wordle.net/random
and your users will not see anything that's not safe for classrooms. You’ll still be able to save your work, bookmark your individual Wordle creations, print them out, and share the URLs of saved Wordles with each other and with families.Please let me know whether this works out for you in your school or other institution."
If you have a moment, click his name (above) to go to his blog and leave a comment. I know how many of you especially in the US struggle with prohibitive blocking by your districts and I think this guy has shown some real leadership in responding to all of our needs for safer sites for kids.
This morning an interesting article came to my inbox from Amit Agarwal's Digital Inspiration. This is one of the few subscriptions that I haven't yet transferred to my RSS feed -- which is probably a good thing because I haven't been reading that lately. Amit's list of "Most Useful Websites" was the first collection I came across with inspiring tools I could use with my students.
Wikipedia tells me that "DreamSpark is a program set up by Microsoft to provide students with software design and development tools" including Visual Studio, Expression Studio as well as studios for Robotics and Game development and assorted servers. Apparently Dreamspark has been available to college students for some time, but the offer was expanded by Gates to include verified high school students and is nearly world wide. Microsoft is also giving away Student Passes for 12 -22 hours of free Microsoft IT Academy online training that leads to the first Microsoft certification exam within each track. High school and university adminstrators can sign up directly.
Note: Amit states that the Dreamspark software is full edition, and that "any sofware you download ... will be free for personal and non-commercial use forever." This means: "Microsoft licenses the software to you for educational use [for you as a student so] ... you can use the software without restriction for school assignments or personal projects. If you write or design something that you wish to sell, however, you need to purchase a standard licensed copy of the Microsoft software before you sell your product."
This made me curious about other deals that might be available to me as a student so I began a search. I suggest that you check out the specific package or product that you want at a number of sites and find out the exchange rate on your credit card if you're shopping from Canada like me.
JourneyEd offers software, hardware, books and bags to post secondary students at considerable discounts. For example, Adobe Creative Suite Premium, normally priced at nearly $2000, can be purchased by college students for about $400 (469 Cdn). There's also a price for K-12 students and teachers of about $600. I checked out their Wacom link and also found several discounted tablets. Having a tablet is really useful if you want to develop instructional presentations in math and are less than adept at drawing shapes with a mouse. Products for Canadians can be seen at this link. The first page shows their highlighted items, but if you delve through the lists on the left, you may find exactly what you're looking for. There are products for both PCs and Macs. (Campus Tech seems like a college clone of JourneyEd.)
The Adobe Website has North American shopping sites for higher education and K-12 students & teachers. Purchases can be made online or qualify for free shipping before the end of September. There is also a very nice bundle of Premier Elements 7 and Photoshop 7 for $119 US (not online). To qualify you have to go through a validation process. For countries other than the US and Canada, visit their International Store page.
Academic Superstore has a much larger product line including many items available on the sites above. Products may be full price discounted, or just great deals such as their collection refurbished tablets. There are additional special discounts for K-12 students and parents. (Proof of enrollment will have to be furnished.) There is also a link to their parallel Canadian site, but I'm not sure if the the student discounts apply in Canada.
Studica.com in addition to their general merchandise has 3 additional features that are quite interesting:
(a) their Studica Skills competitions (original and digital music; photo editing; video game, fashion or graphics design, TV broadcasting) (b) Project Lead the Way Challenge -- hands on, project and problem-based activities for students interested in engineering, biomechanics, aeronautics, and biomedical sciences (Parent site: PLTW) (c) Internship Program -- these can be on site or virtual and will provide high school or college credits
Software4Students.ca -- this is an Adobe-only affiliated program for Canadian students in grades 6-12 or on staff in a school in a participating district. After validation of appropriate identification, you can take advantage of the great prices the offered on their Adobe products and enter to win the Vis Tablet.
[McHumor.com by T. McCracken: Software Cartoon 6821]
Finally there is the wonderful Giveaway of the Day. When you subscribe, a new giveaway lands in your inbox or feedreader each day. These are full versions from a wide range of software companies willing to give people 24 hours to download free for non-commercial use. After you click on the orange "Proceed to Download Page" button, ignore all other promotions, and scroll to just below the product description. There you'll find the comments and reviews.
I like to wait until later in the day and read what others are saying about a program before making a decision about whether it's a good one or not. Also, comments often contain links to other online freebies that do the same job and that they like better.
NOTE!!! If you do a download, you must activate it right away. Open the "Read Me" file and follow the instructions exactly to register the product. Otherwise it will turn back into a trial version pumpkin and you'll either have to purchase the product or wait and hope for it to come back again.
My brother, Eric, to whom I get closer year after year and who I think is quite brilliant in his own way, says he hates to read. This is totally surprising to me because he is a deep thinker and I associate reading and deep thought. He's a great speaker and a wonderful listener, so this is a bit of an enigma. Perhaps for Eric reading just takes too much time, or it may interfere with the stream of his own consciousness. However, it may also be that he just doesn't like print.
One of the assignments in the Web 2.0 course -- now finished -- was to create a podcast. Here is my first, dedicated to Eric. Perhaps this medium will interest him more -- after all our parents were both radio broadcasters. He could record his various talks and presentations and later edit them for sharing with others through one of his new websites. Eric, if you're listening, this one was for you.
For a very funny take on Gladwell, I offer Kirby Ferguson's video below. Please be warned, the language and humour are a little 'off colour' and as they say on TV "may be offensive to some viewers," but I include it because I admire the quit wit and inventive thinking that goes into Kirby's work -- so enjoy or skip as you will.
Podcast creation strikes right at my personal perfectionist streak. I have a hard time saying 'enough' until I have every music beat and every bit of narration just right. My podcast was created using a free program called Audacity, and although I don't even understand what all the functions do to a sound file, I 'm confident having completed this first try, that I could get my students started in similar programs as we are not allowed to download Audacity at school. They're pretty quick at figuring out what various software programs can do and would soon show me more effective ways to handle the minimal effects I attempted. With this kind of program a little knowledge and some determination seem to go a long way.
[Note: if using Audacity, you may also need the Lame MP3 Encoder because Audacity does not export in MP3 format. Fortunately you only have to direct Audacity to this file on your computer the first time you need it. After that the process will be automatic. However, to make it work that first time, you must know where this file was installed, so make note of its location on your computer when it installs or put it on your desktop.]
So - how is podcsting a tool educators might use?
I really like this process for classroom work. Without images and video, students have to be really succinct in their explanations. They can't rely on the audience to make unspoken connections. I also think that the processes of editing and repetition that are needed to get the script just right are great ways to reinforce learning. Essay editing often stops after a couple of tries because we don't have the heart to make the kids revisit their work over and over. With podcasting one can hope that their the natural instinct to want this kind of published material to show them at their very best will take over and that the long term memory of the content will linger.
Here are some of the other suggested uses and examples created my co-students in this Wilkes course:
creating a series of instructional podcasts to accompany class lectures; embedding or linking to them from a class or school website or wiki. This becomes a great reference for students who like to listen again to the key ideas of important classes and to help students who are absent keep up with the class (from Kate)
Denise's podcast was in the form of a riddle to be used to help prepare a group of younger children for a field trip to the zoo; she also pointed out that this would be a good way for speech and second language teachers to get students to practise and listen to their own voices.
students can record mock campaign speeches when doing a unit on elections (from James)
record math raps or songs-- as Pam said "anything to get students excited about Math"
help young children improve listening skills by giving them practice in following instructions (from Patricia)
create a jingle or advertisement for a new product or an upcoming event (from Joanie) -- I can see myself using this as an a assignment in a new Science and tech program I'll be writing for our online division this fall. (Her actual podcast about a lesson that mashed up Mcdonald's, math, geography, cultural studies and Google Earth created the most controversy in the discussion forum, but I love her concept.)
Donna composed her own musical intro to her podcast introducing young students to an assignment on melodic composition.
Gina and several others mentioned the benefits of being able to communicate more frequently with or post special online bulletins for parents.
Breanne used her podcast to introduce a very sensitive subject for Black History Month.
Meagan and Rod (both fellow Canadians!) mentioned the benefit of using podcasts to share ideas with other teachers; Megan looked at digital story telling and Rod discussed five of his favourite Web 2.0 tools
Finally here are a two podcasting websites of interest:
EPN - The Education Podcast Newtork: "an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning in the 21st century. "
Tech Chick Tips: "Tips and tricks for teaching 21st century students using 21st century skills from two Texas educators obsessed with anything digital!"
I am the sort of person who tends to react first and then think about things later -- especially when it comes to trying frustrating Web 2.0 applications for which I see no immediate personal need or use. Last week's assignment was to try image editing with a free online application called Picnik. I'm not a photography person. In fact I've been on my first vacation away from home in 20 years in eastern Canada's most beautiful areas -- Cape Breton and the Gaspe -- and neither my point-&-shoot nor my video cam have been used.
Last week's Wilkes assignment was to edit 10 images in preparation for creating an online presentation. I was rushed and the free version of Picnik strips out a lot of the more interesting functions such as cloning and layering, so I tried a few effects, wrote the week's reflection paper, and put the rest off. However, this week, feeling that I missed an opportunity to learn more about processes and applications some of my kids would probably enjoy using, I decided to start over. I switched topics so I could select new photos that would lend themselves better to editing.
Here then are the text of this weeks' reflection paper and my online presentation. [Each of the photos has been edited using Picnik. On the last slide are the links to the original images so you can do before and after comparisons and judge whether you think the hours I put into this were well spent. Most of the images are licensed under Flickr's Creative CommonsShare and Share Alike License, so in that spirit I've opened my presentation to downloading for non-commercial purposes. The only requirement is that if you use it in your classroom you wave a Canadian flag (lol!)]:
This week I resolved to approach the ‘problem’ of using this software in the same way one of my best student mentors would. I am thinking particularly of a fellow named Tom. Since I’ve introduced the use of Web 2.0 tools at our school, he has created some of the most stunning work I’ve ever seen. Tom’s approach to trying new software is first playful and then thoughtful. He begins by just exploring. Because he’s just playing, during this part of the process he’s completely open-minded and in short order discovers what is new and interesting in the program. As he plays, a vision of what’s possible for the project that I will have invited him to work on begins to coalesce. At some point he’ll transition from apparently directionless fooling around and experimentation to planning and producing his final product.
I have learned from watching Tom and other students work that I have to provide time for this unstructured discovery. It’s necessary if they are going to step outside their comfort zone when they take on the task of doing an assignment or project. Playing without the pressure of deadlines and grades allows students to just goof around and get to know the software and each other (if they’re going to work as a team). If I surround them with the normal structures of instructions and expectations too soon, they tend to stick with what they already know and never get to that new place of creativity and self-learning that can turn project creation into a journey of personal growth.
When I knew that the fossil topic could not be reasonably handled with 10 images, I recalled an old ‘script’ I had previously partially developed for a piece on ethical uses of online resources but had never finished. For this topic I knew that less would lead to more. The message had to be presented in a way that was stark and memorable to my students. I could have listed all the do’s and don’ts, but I’ve tried this before and it doesn’t stick with my kids. They think that because they see everyone else treating the internet like a free store, they can download and use anything they like.
Unfortunately, my students often have to learn the hard way that this is not acceptable. One of these instances occurred when several of them developed slides for PowerPoint for Peace. When I asked those who’d used internet images to show me their sources and bibliographies, they had to admit they hadn’t followed the guidelines. In fact they felt that people who post work on the net are asking to have it stolen if they don’t make it available to everyone to use. Needless to say these wonderful pieces of work were not submitted to the website because they did not meet the project requirements, and there were several very disappointed students who felt I was being completely unreasonable.
Those 3 experiences -- feeling I’d ducked out on last week’s assignment, reflecting on Tom’s creative process as he works, and having to disappoint the kids who wanted to see their work online -- were the impetus for this piece.
This week’s work has given me a greater appreciation for the creativity involved in building on the work of others -- i.e. using it to create something new that people will respond to in a positive way. It’s also beginning to please me to think that other people may want to use it not only as is but also as a starting place for building something new of their own. I know in September my students will look at me with different eyes when they learn that I was the one who created this presentation. Doing this kind of work gives me a footing in their tech-savvy world and an opportunity to share creative moments with them. That makes offering them these kinds of activities very special to me.
I am in the fortunate position of working in an alternative, individualized education program so ways can usually be found to give our students course credits for completing Web 2.0 projects. Now that I am gaining a feeling for project-based work as well, I can build more of these experiences into my courses. Having tried them myself, I’ll be able to talk ‘artist to artist’ when I set and enforce the standards and limits within which the students must work. There is no better way to gain this kind of credibility in their eyes than to be a fellow struggler and to be able to speak from my own experiences about the power of discovering that inside the constraints lie the challenges that make success even sweeter. That’s what Tom can knows and what I am learning.
(Note: the presentation is best viewed full screen.)
I am sitting at the door of a cabin in the Markland Coastal Resort looking out over Aspy Bay which is near the northern tip of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
We've put in here so I can get my course work up to date before Friday. Below the cliff outside my door, the surf pounds in on the beach. Here the beach is sandy, but go a little north or south and it turns rocky. If I look to the right (south) I see the sandy spit and the cliffs over by Neil Harbour.
If I look right (north) I'll see the point of land we're going to for more whale watching in a couple of hours.
2 days ago we spotted our first ever whale(?s) from a gravel road atop a cliff on the way into a town called Meat Cove. I've lived on the west coast for over 20 years and had never seen a whale before. It was so exciting to catch sight of a water spout as the whale came up for air and then watch the arch of its back and tail as it dove under the surface. The weather is clouding over now and there may be thunder and lightning and torrents of rain later in the afternoon, but that should wait until after we get back into the harbour at Bay St. Lawrence. The tour operators have even invited Thelma, the wonder dog, along on their boat. She always travels with her own life jacket, just in case.
This trip is turning into a journey of contradictions. Some days we hunt for fossils (the oldest we'll see are over 500, 000, 000 years); on others we search for whales; and in about a week we'll be looking for another an idyllic spot with wifi service so I can get the next assignments done. What's amazing to me is that I'm perched on a bluff in the middle of 'Nowhere', Canada doing my homework which will be submitted to my university in Pennsylvania and marked by an instructor who lives in California. In Dingwall the water supply is doubtful (Thelma would not drink, and the locals say that gypsum from an old mine is leaching into the groundwater) and there's no fresh lettuce to be found in the town, but they have high speed wifi internet and cell phone service!
I wasn't asked to attend Google Academy.Oh well, it's their loss! I've registered instead for a 3 day workshop on making pod/vodcasts.
I wandered across the website of these 2 Woodland Park, Colorado, teachers some time ago and then managed to see them when I was at the CUE conference in San Jose last fall. If I were going back to classroom teaching, this is the paradigm I'd move towards. It uses technology to uniquely change what is going on in math and science classes. These guys deliver the general instructional part of their lessons via vodcast and then use class time for Q & A, guided practice, and tests. They also work on a mastery model, so students cannot move from one unit to the next until they have achieved a grade that indicates they truly understand the material.
What's unique here is that instead of telling the students what they need to know in school and then sending them home to struggle with the questions on their own, Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, let the kids watch and take notes on the instructional material on their own and then work through the assignments in class. Students do what they can most easily handle on their own (i.e. watch a lesson and take notes) on their own. Class time is reserved for for what gives kids the most trouble -- working with the skills and concepts. This is such a simple idea it's almost scary. How powerful would the learning be in all our high school classes if we orchestrated the learning process by giving help and guidance to individuals and small groups during class time instead just dispensing information like so many talking heads?
The fact that kids are also held to a higher level of accountability -- i.e. they do not receive credit for incomplete understanding and inconsistently applied skills -- adds to the effectiveness of this model. Going through the motions of learning -- getting something on paper that shows an assignment has been tried, doing questions but never correcting them, listening but never formulating or verbalizing answers in class -- this just isn't good enough under a mastery model. The kids now have the chance to get the help they need, but they're also required to produce high quality work. It's a win-win.
Finally there are teachers who've figured out how to make the time to really give students the instruction they need and then how to hold those students accountable for their learning. And I'm going to hear all their secrets next month from Aug. 4-6. The workshop is called 21st Century Learning that Works. I'm so glad the Google Academy people turned me down!
For students, teachers and others who are musical, I've found a great new website to share with you: Indaba Music.
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