EdTechWeekly #77
May 18, 2008

This Week's Del.icio.us Links

We welcomed Mathew Needleman who discussed Video in the Classroom. Maria was unable to join us due to her mother's birthday (happy birthday to you!), Alice discussed attending Mathew's presentation at CUE last week. Her blog post is here it includes links to his presentation. We touched on...

• Why to use video in the classroom
• How to structure projects for success
• Resources to help you with projects
• Problems we had, and how to deal with them

Links

Mathew's video work: http://www.videointheclassroom.com
Digital Storytelling by Room36 Jose:
http://ia340929.us.archive.org/2/items/JoseRodriguezADigitalStoryAboutStorytelling/HumphreysDigitalStory.mov

Royalty Free Images for projects
http://www.pics4learning.com
http://www.morguefile.com
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons

Content Links/Tutorials
http://www.flickschool.com, Marco Torres's site
http://www.videointheclassroom.com for monthly digital storytelling carnival
http:www.unitedstreaming.com for AFI's training films
Microsoft MovieMaker
Microsoft PhotoStory

Visit our blog at http://itselementary.edublogs.org

Chat Below

One of the request I've been getting quite often this semester is to put video clips in our Blackboard course. Faculty members are bringing large quantities of video clips on copyrighted DVD's to me and requesting that students be able to access and watch them via Blackboard (our course management system). We or they have gotten permission to put these on the server. The problem is that we don't have a streaming server.

EdTechTalk: 21st Century Learning #39
PodcampNYC Recap plus Interacting with our Listeners 
April 17, 2007

Today on the show Alex had to phone in, but we discussed PodcampNYC and how the experience was live, mobile webcasting from the podcasting unconference. We played a teaser from Podabracadebra who read out podcast fortune with tarot cards (see the full tarot reading at EdTechTalk.com) and highlighted some of the great interviwees that arvind was able to meet. We also discussed the best way to get people to comment and interact with us. We hope that you will use the Crowdabout.us tool below to leave us a text, audio or video comment. We'd love to hear from you. As always, you can also e-mail us at 21 [at] edtechtalk.com

The night before she started her Spring Semester classes at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City, Susan Ettenheim participated in a dialogue via skype with teachers from four different Writing Projects: Paul Allison (NYC), Matt Makowetski (South Coast, CA), Bill O’Neal (Trenton, NJ), and Bob LeVin (Area 3 in CA). This is a podcast of that conversation.

Along with Chris Sloan in Salt Lake City (Utah WP), the six of us are beginning a complex, exciting collaboration with our students in an elgg, YouthVoices.net. Listen as we plan, take a look at Susan’s introduction to her students, and consider joining us. You might leave a comment here, then go over to YouthVoices and see what all the excitement is about.

Writing like the post that we’ve copied here makes it easy to listen to what our students think about our work with them. Here’s what a 9th grader in Chris Sloan’s class thinks about blogging at YouthVoices.net:

What makes a good blog post, by Parker at Judge Memorial High School, Salt Lake City

To create a really good blog post, I really think that people need to open up to the readers. Honesty is most effective, because the actual emotion that others put down is probably something that others have experienced, or can relate to. For example, i just read a letter a girl wrote to her father, but he passed away four years ago. It was the most personal, morose, true example of sadness that i have ever read, let alone on youthvoices. I don’t know anything like that personally, but the raw openness made it something that i felt, not just read. I’ve also published some poems on the site, and i’ve gotten some varied, but positive, responses to those, and that’s encouraging.   more below

A conversation about the new projects that we are working on at our schools this year. Inspired by: K12Converge: From the Trenches. We discussed iPods, Video, Podcasting, Tablet PCs, SmartBoards, Faculty Professional Development and many other topics. We also started a new segment: Heard in our Schools. Check out the audio for details...

Teachers Teaching Teachers
Do we need a new discipline: Stories of Student Online Conversation
October 18, 2006
Download mp3

Our conversation this evening began innocently enough with Gail Desler, the technology liaison for the Area 3 Writing Project in and around Sacramento, California, describing her work over the past four years with blogging in the classroom. Last year 3 different Writing Projects and 5 schools joined together in a project called “Youth Voices: Coast to Valley.” Given that we have stolen their name, “Youth Voices” in an attempt to broaden our network of schools, we are delighted to include Gail and her teachers in the elgg at http://youthvoices.net! Last night Gail said that some of the same teachers from last year’s work would be joining the new Youth Voices. A great question that Gail has been asking is, “How can we sustain and deepen online conversations on a blog?” And part of this has to do with finding the right balance between personal blogging and common blogging around a theme or text.