Listening and Watching: The Future of Media

Computer History Museum

Ever since I stumbled on Faith Popcorn's book, The Popcorn Report, I realized I enjoy watching trends. I’ve read her other books and check in on her company, BrainReserve. (Be sure to check out trends for 2011, especially This Holiday Season Watch Your Digital Diet for current trend information.) I am looking forward to her forthcoming book, The ARK: The Ten Commandments of the New Marketing and Popcornography, a Futurist's View, Backward and Forward.

After my husband and I visited the Computer History Museum this past summer, I’ve been thinking about how fast media content delivery is changing.  Having listened to podcasts for years, I’ve seen improvements in the ease of getting audio content onto portable devices. However, it still seems cumbersome and time consuming to download content into iTunes and then sync it to an iPod or MP3 player.  The good news is now you can listen right on your computer. I’ve convinced a few friends and colleagues to give the experience a try. When I first started listening to MP3s on my old iRiver, I always wished I could sync content directly to my car. Hey look… the new 2012 Fords include your own Wifi hot spot. We are getting closer!

I have to admit that instead of syncing my iPhone to my computer to load content through iTunes, I’ve been using an app called InstaCast to automatically stream content. It works effortlessly and I can opt to download too. If I’m listening to a program, it even remembers where I stopped. It is possible to stream through iTunes as well, but it does not remember my place.

Small Internet broadcasting networks are beginning to take hold. Individuals are starting their own networks without the help of traditional media. Check out Leo Laport’s TWIT Network, Dan Benjamin’s 5By5, and Revision3 to name a few. I thought it interesting that Revision 3 posted an article about audience viewing habits, trends, and predictions: IPTV Research for 2011.

Content…content everywhere! The following are some of my recommended picks for listening:  Leo Laport and Tom Merrit on Triangulation interviewed Daniel Kottke who is known for being one of the earliest employees of Apple. Daniel Kottke added an interesting point of view while I was listening to Steve Job’s biography. The interview with Gordon Bell, engineer and Microsoft researcher, is also worth a listen. Interestingly, he was instrumental in starting the Computer History Museum. 

Apple I signed by Steve Wozniak

David Sparks and Katie Floyd, hosts of  Mac Power Users, have recently joined the 5by5 Network founded in 2009 by Dan Benjamin. Mac Power Users is a show for all you Mac geeks as it gets pretty techy. I enjoyed their interview with Michael Lopp, author of Rands in Repose, where they discuss the Apple technology he uses for his day job as well as his writing strategies.

In addition, Martha Stewart talks tech and was interviewed at Google by Marissa Mayer. (Did you notice Marissa is speaking January 12^th at the Computer History Museum? KQED Radio will stream it on February 23^rd, at 8:00pm PST). Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is now publishing magazines for the iPad, and the content available online is amazing. See her pictures from the interview here.

Happy trend watching and listening in 2012!

Links of the Summer

Summer passed us by in a wink of the eye.  We stayed busy traveling and exploring.  This post reflects some of our learning and finds.  They are on the topics of Triangulation with Leo Lapport, TED Talks on the topic of language, brain-based learning, transmedia storytelling, and Google Sketchup.  Enjoy!    

NETCAST and TED TALKS PICKS

 Kacey’s picks—Triangulation: Leo Lapport has moved the TWIT.tv company to the new studio where they are netcasting even more content. (I had the opportunity to visit the studio with my husband this summer.  Stay tuned for a post about our visit.)   Recently, I’ve been listening to Triangulation where Leo and Tom Merrit “talk to the smartest people in the world about the most important topics in technology.”  It is part of the TWiT Netcast Network and streamed live every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern/4:00 PM Pacific at http://live.twit.tv.  Triangulation – David Allen Getting Things Done was my most recent listen.

Cheridy’s picks-- More Amazing TED Talks:  TED Talks continue to keep me coming back for more.   Although I’ve enjoyed a wide array of TED topics, I’ll point to the language focused ones I blogged about this summer.  See my low tech intro to my upcoming series from the eyes of a newbie about gaming in education.  It highlights John Hunter’s World Peace Game. Watch and read about some excellent language and listening TED Talks here.  Check out related past posts.  Also, be sure to look at this 2011 TEDxRedmond link.  The talks organized and delivered by kids took place on Sept. 10^th.  They are truly inspirational to watch! 

Karenne Sylvester has an excellent post called 10 English Speaking Activities Using Ted.com.  My experiences using these fall right in line with her philosophy that these really work as a springboard for discussion and use of all the modes of language. As a wrap-up, keep your eyes open for an upcoming post about Raghava KK’s latest talk.

 

LINK PICKS

Kacey’s picks-- Brain-Based Learning: Recently, I came across  Steve Reifman’s blog . He has been an elementary classroom teacher for 17 years, author, and interested in brain-based learning.  I’m looking forward to further reading and exploring his books and blog! Another teacher blogger I’ve been reading who is interested in brain-based learning and technology is Diane McKinney .

Cheridy’s picks—Transmedia Storytelling and Google Sketchup:   Unexpectedly this summer, I stumbled upon what have become new areas of interest for me in ed tech: transmedia storytelling and gaming.  See my post on Inanimate Alice and ponder the exciting potential in ed. 

 I’m also throwing in a link to Google Sketchup which my kid played with this summer for hours.  One of my College of Ed. students used it in excellent lesson plan for ESOL students in math.  

How could you use any of our links in your class or personal learning?  Happy  exploring!

Quick Byte: Seedlings Wraps Up Another Great Season

Awww....summer is upon us and it is time to relax and catch up. We each just finished listening to Seedlings @Bit By Bit podcast  “Wrap-Up” Show for the Season 3!  We loved hearing that Bob is having lunch and learning with his kids. You can read the Let’s Have Lunch! post here.  He also posted a helpful TED outline complete with links and summaries.

One of the underlying themes that stood out in this podcast is empowering students.  It ties back to our TEDx Redmond talks post.  This all relates to social justice, students taking learning into their own hands, and students doing amazing things with topics of relevance to them like bullying, etc.  It's powerful stuff!

Another concept that caught our attention is how quickly learning can spread when the right apps/tools are placed in the hands of students!  Hmmm... it sounds simple.  Could it be possible that we've got it turned around in part?  We're trying to educate the teachers how to use the tools, but they don't spread them at the same rapid rate and in the same way the students do.  We shouldn't stop educating ourselves as teachers, but there seems to be something to empowering our students to discover the apps/tools in ways that are relevant to their lives and learning.  We've seen evidence of this in our own students and teaching.

Quick Byte

As always, these are just a few of the interesting take-aways we gleaned from the podcast.  Seedlings, thanks for sharing, and congratulations on three seasons!

*This is one Quick Byte briefly highlighting podcasts, sites, etc. of interest.  More are on the way.

Co-post KK and CA

Links of the Month: May

This month, Kacey highlights Keith Schoch’s blog, Teach with Picture Books, and shares interviews with John Merrow, Kevin Kelly, and Sir Ken Robinson. Cheridy focuses on bookmapping  and a Seedling’s podcast that in part explores the topic of the balance between banning technology and integrating it.  Our links include sites that we see potential in or that have worked for us in our own classes. 

PODCAST PICKS

Kacey’s picks:

John Merrow:  Here is Harvard Graduate School of Education EdCast interview with John Merrow.  John discusses how the teaching career has changed over his time of reporting on education. He also discusses his new book, The Influence of Teachers. More Harvard EdCast interviews can be found here.

The Future of Education:  Steve Hargadon conducted two great interviews for his current interview series called The Future of Education.  One was with Kevin Kelly and the other was with Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken Robinson talks about promoting creativity in schools and organizations and about his revised book, Out or Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. In our previous posts Brain Food and Changing Education Paradigms: Sir Ken Robinson, you can read more about Kevin Kelly and his new book What Technology Wants and link to the amazing RSA Animate  video with Sir Ken Robinson.

Cheridy’s picks: 

Bookmapping:  My first podcast explores bookmapping.  It's a short 15 min ISTE Podcast interview with authors Terence Cavanaugh and Jerome Burg about their book Lit Trips and Beyond.  Listening to this podcast gave me the push to explore a bookmapping site that I’ve been interested in for awhile, Google Lit Trips.  Check it out!  There are some great examples for K-higher ed.  I’ve highlighted some of my favorite books:  K-5 Flotsam, 6-8 The Slave Dancer, and 9-12 The Grapes of Wrath. Here’s more information on bookmapping by the American Association of School Librarians.

Ban or Integrate?: I also enjoyed listening to this Seedlings podcast 113 with guest Rebecca Peterson.  It includes an interesting conversation about schools’ attempts to ban laptops, smartphones, and other electronics.  The conversation carries into thinking of ways we can use these as tools to engage our students rather than banning them. There is also discussion of the need to be aware that as our students face change due to new technologies, this creates the necessity for some emerging pedagogy to meet their needs.  In addition, there is some practical discussion of things to consider when using iPads in the classroom.

LINK PICKS

Kacey’s picks:  Teach with Picture Books and Teaching That Sticks are blogs by Keith Schoch, an educator in New Jersey. I enjoyed Keith’s post, Make Language an Adventure: Learning Grammar with Picture Books.  Be sure to check out Keith’s links to blogs he reads.

A picture book I was reminded of after viewing Keith’s blog is a book recommended at the Oregon Reading Association Convention by children’s author George Shannon. The book, Three By The Sea by Edward Marshall, is an easy reader but has a wonderful lesson on writing a good story. Three friends at the beach each tell a story. Each one becomes more detailed, and the final story by Lolly has lots of details and is actually a bit scary. It is fun having students try their hand at “writing like Lolly!”  I’ll be adding this to the list for a beginning lesson on writing next year.

Cheridy’s picks:  ClassTools.net.  If some creativity is employed and it is selectively used, this site has potential to add some simple technology spice to the class.  Some of their links that I have used are fakebook, random name picker,  countdown timer, and some of the graphic organizers such as the venn diagram and the hamburger diagram. 

The Seedlings Geeks of the Week inspired me.  I want to explore Storify.  Perhaps this will be a future post.  I used this TED Talk by Eric Whitacre in one of my classes.  It will be a part of a future post.  

Happy listening and exploring!

Links of the Month: April

This month, we chose to think about some overarching educational reform topics.  The Bit By Bit and the Teachers Teaching Teachers podcasts highlighted below fall into this category.  The November Learning Flipped Classroom Podcast demonstrates application of some of these ideas.  We also highlight a few sites we have used in our own classes.  Read on for more details and links!   

  

PODCAST PICKS

Kacey’s picks:   

Panel Discussion on Race to Nowhere: Bob Sprankle posted a podcast of a discussion that took place after viewing the movie Race to Nowhere. The discussion was part of the Wilcard Movie Series at the Portsmouth Music Hall.  Bob has listed the names and links of the panel on the Bit By Bit web site.  It contains interesting discussion from the perspective of parents, teachers, and principals about issues such as homework, utilizing class time better and differently, customizing instruction, and much more. We both enjoyed this podcast since we watched  Race To Nowhere and discussed it earlier in the year.

Cheridy’s picks: 

The Flipped Classroom: When Kacey and I started talking this summer, I recall thinking that one of the first visible signs of ed tech integration changes within the classroom would take place in the form of videos and audio, both in the hands of teachers and students.  Over the past few years, I have watched digital storytelling spread and enjoyed using it my own classes.  From a language acquisition standpoint, the use of video has long been accepted as a good means of instruction. With that background, this November Learning podcast caught my attention this month.  Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams talk about how they use The Flipped Classroom Model in their high school science classes.  This podcast can be accessed here.  The basic idea is that the teacher creates vodcasts for students.  The students watch the vodcasts at home, pausing and rewinding as needed, for homework and then come to class prepared to do the hands-on stuff and receive support from the teachers.   The videos become one way of supporting student learning and individualizing instruction. Below is a video demonstrating their Flipped Classroom.  They also have an interesting  Ning site called The Flipped Class Network.  Their ideas remind us of the Khan Academy, which we discussed in this previous post.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action:  In this Teacher’s Teaching Teachers podcast, Renee Hobbs discusses her white paper.  You can read, listen, watch and learn more about her plan of action here.   I like how she looks at the bigger picture of tech and ed, talks about the tools being tools but need for more, and looks at grass root community level implementation, involving stakeholders, etc.  These ideas reminded me of Kacey’s March podcast picks and the importance of attempting to put this thing called tech and ed in a larger framework.

LINK PICKS

Kacey’s picks:  Mr. Salsich’s third grade blog  is a fantastic example of a class blog that works. Be sure to check out the students’ Poetry Madness and the links to their Blogging Buddies in Australia, California, and New Zealand.  If you would like to spend some time looking through a whole slue of student and class blogs and even take the “Blogging With Students” challenge, check out Teacher Challenge supported by EduBlogs .  

This month our class has also enjoyed Noises Everywhere – Interesting internet tidbits for kids to ponder. Excavating a giant ant hill and watching baby eagles hatch have been our favorites.  

Cheridy’s picks:   This month, I have experimented in my College of Ed. class with some collaborative writing and sticky note web 2.0 tools.  I set out to find collaborative tools that are simple, low frills and have no login for my students.  Titan Pad and Primary Wall have worked well for us and allowed us to build on the same document both synchronously and asynchronously.  Titan Pad can be public or private.  It has some fun features such as the timeslider where changes to the document are displayed in video mode. Primary Wall is similar to Wallwisher, but with a background geared for elementary students. (See more collaborative tools under our web2.0 tab.)  I have also enjoyed experimenting with classroom tools.net and some of their online graphic organizers.  The Teacher’s Challenge blog gives a good overview of this site.

Happy listening and exploring!

Khan Academy Conversation

The Khan Academy is a site that we have been following with interest for some time.  This link gives a good overview of it, what it offers, and how teachers, parents, and students could use it.  Its library of videos covers k-12 math, science and some humanities.  Browse their free educational videos here.

Here’s a snapshot conversation of some of our thinking and questioning about Khan Academy.

Cheridy:  Hey Kacey, have you heard of The Khan Academy?

Kacey: Yeah, the tech guys from TWIT have talked about it.  I checked it out when it first came out but just took another look.  Thanks for reminding me about it! WOW! It sure has expanded since the last time I browsed his lessons.

Cheridy:  Will you use it in your class?

Kacey: Absolutely! I love how students will be able to access it anytime and anywhere.  The lessons are short but include multiple strategies.  I think I'll incorporate this lesson  into our new unit on division! Students and parents can then access the videos from home.  Did you see the practice section?  You can log in and see your proficiency on a math concept.  I love that students can work at their own pace,  track their progress, and receive “awards.”  It looks like Khan Academy received a Google Grant in September 2010.  They used the money to hire a team to build out the structure of the site.  You can watch the CNN video.  They will be translating the content into different languages and expanding the content into other areas of study.  Also, I liked the video where Salman Khan talks at the MIT Club of Northern California . He talked about starting the site as well as research they did with students in a summer program.  He also gave this TED Talk.

Cheridy:   I also noticed that the teachers or parents can track the students’ progress if they login as a coach and have students add them as a coach.  It appears they can get class reports as well.  The way that the statistics for each student are shown reminds me of the Seedlings podcast I listened to on The Horizon Project that mentions how technology will make data like this more manageable and meaningful, allowing teachers to potentially individualize instruction more.

Kacey:  There are some positives to this site and concept.  On the other hand, I have a few questions like how will I be able to keep students from "getting help" from parents or peers on the actual practice test, so I can see it is their work?  There still needs to be a second assessment that I'm in charge of.  Slip-age between the cracks can still happen.   Also, you need to have a gmail account to document your progress.  Some kids have it and some don't.  However, even if they are looking at the videos it could still be helpful.

Do you see any drawbacks?

Cheridy:   I’m not a math or science teacher, so I don’t feel comfortable talking about the quality of the videos.  From a language perspective I liked how in the few videos I reviewed some of the math vocabulary was written down.  (It would be good to see even more of this.) This can be very useful for ELLs.  He also drew pictures, which can be useful, and related it to real life examples. 

Kacey:  I LOVE the idea of kids working at their own pace.

Cheridy:  I agree with you on individualizing instruction.  I also teach online courses and create my own videos in my content area for my classes.  This can be a ton of work, but I get just enough positive feedback from my students to continue my endeavors.  It seems to me that the demand for quality, short 5-15 minute videos in all academic disciplines for educational purposes is there.  I can see using them in a variety of ways, both inside and outside the class.   It is interesting to think how this type of product and instruction could influence education. 

Kacey:  This also makes me think about the book Disrupting Class that we talked about last summer.  Did you know there was a new edition?  I haven’t read it yet but heard Michael Horn interviewed on The Future of Education by Steve Hargadon.

Cheridy:  The whole concept reminds me of Flipped Instruction Model  that I will highlight in our April Links of the Month post. 

Conversation Wrap Up:  It’s evident our conversations never have a tidy wrap up.  We continue to explore our findings and views on this type of video integration and how it fits into the larger picture of tech and ed.  And as a final thought…  There’s an app for that.

Happy learning!

Links of the Month: March

PODCAST PICKS

Cheridy’s picks:   For as long as I can remember I have been interested in the idea of space and how we utilize it.  This Clever Sheep podcast called  The IDEA about school learning environments, space, and 21st Century technologies caught my attention. Rod Lucier, The Clever Sheep blogger, also blogs about it in his post entitled IDEA, which includes an interesting video. Lucier's 7-10 minute podcasts are ideal for packing in interesting ed/tech ideas in a short amount of time.  Another one of his podcasts I enjoyed was Teach vs. Reach.  It's in part about reaching out with interactive smartboards and network learning by using tools such as Skype, Scribblar, etc.

Kacey’s picks:  I continue my podcast“professional development commute.” Here are some things I’ve been listening to.

·         The Future of Education  with Steve Hardigon offers interesting interviews that give many perspectives. I like how Steve’s questioning follows what I want to ask his guests. All the podcasts have been good listening. Recently, I enjoyed this interview with Kevin Kelly.  I also liked this interview with Yong Zhao on Education, China, and Tiger Moms.   

·         ED Tech Crew is new to me and worth it for its quality and topics.

·          Bit By Bit "Play Time (Please Don't Cry)” is a blog post by Bob Sprankle with an embedded audio of Bob’s “Sandbox” routine recorded during one of his kid tech classes. You can also download the short podcast from iTunes. Look for “Play Time! (Please Don’t Cry) between shows 109 and 110. Happy Listening!

LINK PICKS

Cheridy’s picks:  Glogster EDU is my web 2.0 tool pick for this month because I have had so much fun employing it in the classroom.  See my post below.  I also RSS feed to Technology and Education Box of Tricks and appreciate this gold mine post of useful web 2.0 tools called A-Z Resources for Education gleaned by Jose Picardo.  I have added it as a link in our web 2.0 tools tab.

Kacey’s picks:  When I found this one I e-mailed Cheridy, “bazzinga!” Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites has a wealth of links and information for students, teachers, administrators and parents. This section is by grade level with links to teacher’s web sites. This part of the site could be useful for new teachers.

Happy Exploring!

Links of the Month: February

Thanks to one of Cheridy’s TCE students this term for the picture created with Make Beliefs Comix.  This question inspired us to begin what we hope will be a monthly series of our favorite podcasts, webcasts, blogs, and/or links.

PODCAST PICKS

Cheridy’s pick
Click HERE to link to Women of the Web 3.0: Ed Tech Talk #121 (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the audio.) I’ve been intrigued by Skype in the classroom since my father did a Skype presentation at NECC. I am mulling over its possibilities and was delighted to listen to this podcast with one of my favorite bloggers, Syliva Tolisano of Langwitches.  

Kacey’s pick:
Angela Maiers interviewed Debbie Miller, retired Colorado teacher and writer, about her latest book Teaching With Intention. You can listen here.

LINK PICKS

Cheridy’s pick:
In keeping with the Skype theme, here’s a link to Syliva Tolisano’s seemingly amazing project Around the World With 80 Schools.  There are opportunities for connecting with classes grades 1 – possibly higher ed.  Drop me a line if you participate!

Kacey’s pick:
Last weekend, I attended the Oregon Reading Association's Annual Conference in Portland and came home with new reading strategy ideas swimming in my head! One of the presentations I attended was about iPod use in the classroom (stay tuned for the post). It got me thinking about Apps and how I might use them in the classroom. Perfect timing as Michael Gorman blogged ...There's an App For That and reminded me about I Education Apps Review! Thanks Michael! 

In wrapping up the post, here’s a stab at answering the question asked in the comic… Our ideas and links in our tabs at the top of our site are inspired by our passion to learn more about tech and ed integration by listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and exploring applicable sites.  We RSS feed to various blogs, podcasts, and webcasts.  We also find ourselves trying out sites that are in beta.  We are enjoying the journey.  Thanks for adding to the inspiration Theresa!  

Co-post by CA and KK

A shout out a long time in coming!

I became familiar with Bob Sprankle and his work through Room 208. Listening and reading what he and his students were up to transformed my thinking. Wow! That really was in 2005? I continue to listen to the Seedlings @ Bit By Bit  podcast where Bob is joined by Alice Barr and Cheryl Oakes. Congratulations on 100 shows! Bob is now an Elementary Technology Integrator in Wells, Maine. Though I have never met Bob I'm always interested in what he is up to. His latest focus is working with parents and technology TechTime at Wells Elementary School. I hadn't seen this video he posted and thought you might enjoy it. Technology the size of a building now fits in your pocket!


You should also check out Bob's Lab Lessons for K-4th grade and Link of the Week.
Thanks Bob (Alice and Cheryl too!)!

Brain Food

I was excited to find out that Leo Laporte interviewed Kevin Kelly. I've listened to Leo for years on his nationally syndicated radio talk show at The Tech Guy Labs and now on his TWiT (This Week in Tech) Netcast Network. I first heard about Kevin Kelly starting with Whole Earth Catalog and The Well with Stewart Brand, and then read Wired magazine when he was executive director and now Cool Tools.

The interview can be heard on TWiT Live Special 49:
Now of course I had to read the book What Technology Wants. I've downloaded  it from Audible.com and started reading it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Changing Education Paradigms: Sir Ken Robinson

I saw the below video clip of Sir Ken Robinson in various RSS feeds I subscribe to and finally took the time to listen to it. Wow, it's interesting stuff! Not only do I love the RSA Animate (which reminds me of an exciting time one of my artistic students drew a picture of a scene in the book on the board as we listened to a difficult passage from the book), but it has some interesting concepts worth pondering.



Here's a link to a post on Open Culture by Dan Colman that has additional information and related links about digital technology worth exploring.  If you are not familiar with RSA, I suggest browsing their site.  

Happy thinking!

TEDx Redmond: It Doesn't Get Much Better!

Last week, my TCE classes explored the importance of setting high expectations for our students. This is also a topic Kacey and I have discussed as well. Do we give students enough responsibility and trust? Do we give them the necessary tools and empower them to take learning in their own hands? Do we allow them to have a voice? What would happen if we did more of these things? Perhaps TEDx Redmond offers us a glimpse of the possibilities.

Watch some of the excellent TEDx Redmond video clips of children and young adults talking with passion. Bob Sprankle has made them easily accessible on his blog Bit by Bit.

Watch this video of Perry Chen entitled For the Love of Movies! It will be obvious why I chose to highlight it.



I also recommend Cayle Diefenbach's talk Preserving Heritage.




TEDx Redmond was initiated by Adora Svitak. You can listen to her interview podcast on Seedlings show 94. Check out the line-up of TEDxRedmond speakers.

Happy viewing!

Ted Talks: Worth the Time

TED Talks are amazing!  Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) has talks, TEDx conferences, communities, and much more.  I find myself visiting the site at least weekly and have a RSS feed set up on my itunes.

Here are some of my favorites.  (I may not endorse all of the ideas presented, but will step out and say they promote thinking.)

• In What Adults Can Learn from Kids, "Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach."
•  The Danger of a Single Story discusses how "our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding."

Here's Jeff Utecht's talk on Community Trumps Content.

Here are some recent TED talks I've enjoyed.

• Sugata Mitra: The Child-Driven Education   

• Steven Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From 
• Matt Ridley: When Ideas Have Sex 
• Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to Global Voices 

Happy viewing!

Classroom 2.0 Professional Development Site

Classroom 2.0 is a must explore site!  I recommend signing up for it.  If you don't wish to, at least browse this ning site created by Steve Hargadon.  I recently joined it and am still exploring everything it has to offer.  Here's an overview of some of the aspects I like.

Webinars:  This is my favorite aspect.  The site offers free live webinars delivered via Elluminate.  (If you register for the site, the weekly schedule gets delivered to your email.)  If you can't participate in a live webinar, you can watch a recorded version at your leisure in Archives and Resources.  I particularly like this section because it contains a list of links mentioned during the presentation.  The webinars I have listened to so far have all been top-notch.

They currently have a Featured Teachers series that I have been enjoying.  I recently listened to featured teacher, Zoe Branigan, and particularly enjoyed her discussion of the need to make technology available to ELLs in relationship to social justice.  She looks at both sides of the coin of tech use in the classroom and demonstrates many coooperative applications of it. (These recorded webinars are available for free on itunes as well.)

Groups:  You can join a special interest group, post questions and participate, or browse discussions.  There are many topics available. You could even create your own group.  ESL and Technology is a group that I recently joined.   

Accessing Podcasts for Professional Development

Tech:  Listening to podcasts is a great way to sneak in professional development within your day.  First, identify what you want to view.  Next, you can use your computer to consume it if possible or download it to a mp3 device for your on-the-go listening pleasure.  Here's a video to get you started.



Podcasting in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Met Ed
I am a newbie at listening to podcasts for professional development.  About three years ago, I had one of my classes create podcasts, but until this summer I never realized how many quality podcasts are availabe for professional development purposes.  I have only been listening to them in this manner for about three weeks now. So far, I find it extremely beneficial and exciting.

Future posts will highlight favorite podcast and webcast episodes.  For now, here are some suggestions to get started:

• So far, Seedlings is my personal favorite.  It also highlights a variety of tech topics which are relevant to the classroom.  A big plus is that it offers links to most of the web 2.0 tools that are discussed within each episode via Bob Sprankle's blog called Bit by Bit.
• TED is a must see!  There are many dynamic speakers on this site.
• EdTechTalk has a variety of topics related to both tech and ed.   
• Edutopia offers some interesting vodcasts
• Colorin Colorado! is a site I send my TCE students to view webcasts on ESOL and bilingual ed. issues.  
• Reading Rockets is a related site with some broader literacy videos and podcasts.