El.Ed.Tech.Explr. » podcasts

Gone too long…

eledtechexplr — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:28:29 +0000

Wow, the end of the year certainly has come on strong for me. Especially since this is my first year teaching third grade in my school. In the upcoming weeks I will be taking numerous professional development courses and I look forward to sharing some of the new tidbits of edtech information I have learned. Also I would like to start sharing some of the resources I use in my lesson planning and implementation. One I can mentioned right now, on the fly, is Audacity and Podsafeaudio. I have been developing with my students an end of the year memory podcast, and their enthusiasm is through the roof. More details to come later…for now I am off to get some soft serve ice cream for the family!

Thoughts and Reflections

eledtechexplr — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:15:31 +0000

I have to admit that I am new to the whole discussion on Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom. I am not new however to the use of technological tools (I am the Google Generation). I was listening to an older episode of TechPodZ one where the discussion led to the evolution of web tools in the classroom over the last few years. Wow, the rate of techvolution (technology evolution) is staggering! I know in my own teacher training the term “Web 2.0″ was never mentioned. The idea of “podcasting” or “blogging” with students… was never encouraged. Keep in mind that I only graduated from college 2 years ago, so in no way am I an authority for classroom instruction and practice. All I am is a teacher looking to my own peers for guidance, and hoping that my abilities can guide them as well. So this causes me to question. With those out there sharing the message of the read/write web, and web 2.0, how can teacher preparation programs keep up with the evolution of the classroom? I believe the drive towards test based initiatives will come to a head with the inquiry driven opportunities of open source technologies and multimedia art tools. How can I (we) overcome and evolve at the rate that industry is retooling and rebooting?

Along with the wonderful discussions and insights I hear from new and old shows on the TechPodZ one, I have been reading through and viewing some of the sources from Karl Fisch’s blog, the Fischbowl. His “Did you know?” powerpoint, which has since evolved into numerous creative renditions, has been cited on numerous blogs, and I first heard about the slideshow from Will Richardson at a conference I attended recently. At this same conference, when Will geared his discussion to the use of social networking sites and the familiarity (or lack of) parents and adults have with these sites, I personally was afraid to raise my hand (my fellow teachers already pick on my age enough) when he asked how many people have participated in a social networking site. For the 500 or so people in the audience only 10 people raised their hand. To be honest I have a facebook account, a holdover from my college years. I do not update my facebook account very often, but sometimes I do check back and see where my fellow graduates are now (many in their 4th job since graduating). Just recently I signed up for teachade.com which seems so far to be a professional networking site that is more alive (in a collaborative face to name sort of way) than a traditional “click, submit, and wait” teacher resource drop website. I will have to experiment a little more with the site to see how effective and useful the resources are, but the interest groups and profiles are friendly features which can certainly open the door to collaboration. Time shall tell I guess, I just NEED to keep up with the times…

Digging for Resources

eledtechexplr — Sun, 20 May 2007 14:43:22 +0000

This blog has been created as a way for me to share my own personal insights, discoveries, and questions concerning emergent technologies and how they can be incorporated into today’s K-12 classrooms. Specifically, as an elementary school teacher myself, I seek to discover how the web 2.0 technologies of wikis, blogs, and podcasts can be integrated into elementary settings. Along with this I have an interest in virtual math manipulatives, interactive educational websites, streamed video content (from powermediaplus or united streaming), and the evaluation techniques necessary to seperate content rich technologies from those that can be labeled “edutainment”. Sometimes these “edutainment” websites, videos, or even games rely more on glitz than on educational content. Or in other terms, the “mission” gets disoriented in the “packaging”. Kathy Schrock provides numerous analysis tools for educators to evaluate the content and structure of websites. “The ABC’s of Website Evaluation” is a great article written by Kathy, and another resource of hers that is very useful is the teacher web evaluation form.