Chalk It Up 2.0 by Ryan Palmer

Answergarden: What is your goal?...

2010-10-18T06:57:00.001-07:00

Answergarden: What is your goal?...: "Answergarden: What is your goal?..."

Answergarden: What is your wish?...

2010-10-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

Answergarden: What is your wish?...: "Answergarden: What is your wish?..."

Back to School

2008-09-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, back to school. As part of my new back to school outlook, I have decided that I am going to use my blog not only as a means of sharing new technology tools with my audience, but also as a journal of projects I have been spending time on so that I have some documentation at the end of the year. I do not know how this documentation will be used, but it will be nice to reflect on my activities as they occur.

So, this is the third day of school, which makes me behind already.

On Thursday, August 28th, we had a Teachers' Workshop Day. My principal asked me to give the staff a quick review of Infinite Campus. This was a little stressful for me in that I did not have all that much experience with IC. After a quick immersion from our SIS Coordinator, I felt much better. I then created a little cheat sheet for the staff that they could download and use. I also created another instruction sheet for staff to use so they could access their documents on our new file server.

On the first day of school, September 2nd, I spent a good chunk of my day troubleshooting issues staff had with printing, connecting to FirstClass or Infinite Campus etc. I was thrilled though to be asked by the Kennebec Team to do something that actually had to do with integration. In years past, this team would have students do a desktop publishing activity using AppleWorks called Kennebec's Most Wanted. They asked me to take part in making this activity happen again, but possibly updating it. I immediately thought of using Pages instead of AppleWorks and instead of the teachers using a digital camera to take all of the students' pictures, transferring them to a computer, and then making a web page from the pics and posting it to their site, I would have each student plug in an iSight camera and then use Photobooth to take their own picture which could then be put right into iPhoto. I created a Pages template of the activity and then made it available to the students through an activity blog in iWeb which I put on the Kennebec Team's site. I ended the day with a Technology Integrators meeting where we made plans for the year and set goals.

On the second day of school, September 3rd, I presented the new and improved activity to the Kennebec Team. We made plans on the logistics of the activity. I also spent a bit of time transferring some staff files from the old file server to the new one.

That finally brings me to day Three. I started out this morning reading my email and found one from the folks at Nettrekker. What was intriguing about this email was that it was letting users of Nettrekker know that they have free access to hotmath.com from 5AM to 5PM. So, I checked that out right away. OMG! What a cool site! Check it out if you get a chance. The next thing I worked on was the issues that the Saco Team was having with their homework calendar and the Lang. Arts teacher wished to do the same Pages activity that the Kennebec Team was working on. So, I set her up with that, created an activity link on their team page, and then fixed their homework calendar as well. That is about as far as I have gotten. It has been busy, busy, busy.

So, if you have a moment, you may want to check out some of the links I have added to this post.

Playing w/ Community Walk

2008-08-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

I was doing a little surfing around and discovered a blog in which the writer was providing viewers with a list of his 15 favorite Web 2.0 tools. I decided to check out a few that I was unfamiliar with. On was a site called CommunityWalk where users can create their own Google-esque maps complete with markers for places and provide images of those places. This would be a great educational tool for students to create virtual field trips of a city, town, state, or country. Users can also copy and then paste the code necessary to post their map on to their blog or web page. This could be a really cool tool for visual projects. In my playing with it, I created a map showing the schools within my district. It should appear below.

Playing w/ Slide

2008-08-06T19:31:00.001-07:00

Playing w/ Photobooth

2008-08-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today I was playing with Photobooth on my MacBook. I loved this Andy Warhol effect. I was able to export the pic to iPhoto and then play with it a little bit. I really liked this.

My Wiki

2008-08-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

If you look at my links on the right side of this blog you will see a link to my wiki. On this wiki you will find (at the time of this post) information about myself and a link to a page about some of the Web 2.0 tools I discovered while at the FOSSEd conference this past June. For those of you who do not know what a wiki is, to put it in simple terms, it is a webpage or site where other viewers or friends can change and update the information on it. You have probably heard of wikipedia, which is entirely created by various viewers who are self-proclaimed experts on the topics that provide content for. A wiki has great potential in the classroom. There are teachers who use wikis for collaboration activites. One example is creating a wiki about a novel a class is reading, with some groups working on chapter summaries while others are creating pages on vocabulary, information about the author, or plot mountains. Another classroom use of a wiki is to have the teacher and students collaborating together in creating the textbook for whatever topic they are studying.

There are several different choices available to the educator who wants to create a classroom wiki. I use wikispaces, but there is also pbwiki, wikidot, wetpaint, and many others. You can also create a wiki in Moodle (if your district has a Moodle server).

There are many more educational used for a wiki and I have only touched on a few in this posting. If you do a search of wikis in education, I am sure you will find more ways to use this collaborative tool.

Web 2.0 Revisited

2008-08-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

At our Summer Technology Institute 2008, it was asked by a couple of attendees, "What is Web 2.0?" A few years ago I started a web page that attempted to answer that question as well as share classroom uses and provide examples of Web 2.0 tools. It occurred to me that I had neglected to complete this page and that I was much more aware of the many tools available to educators. It also occurred to me that I was neglecting my blog, having only written a few post throughout all of last school year. So, my goal for this school year is to complete and update the "What is Web 2.0?" site and to write posts to my blog that align with those changes. So, if you frequent my blog or have it on your RSS subscriptions, this is what you can expect to see in the near future.

Donuts and Police Officers: Not What You'd Expect

2008-01-30T08:05:00.001-08:00

I was thrilled this morning to have a two hour delay. Having a busy evening planned I was concerned that I would not have time to get to the gym today. Thankfully, mother nature was looking out for me this morning an provided me with the gift of two hours to spend at the gym. I calculated the time at the gym, showering, and traveling to CRES and left my home at 7:30 A.M.

Now I pretty much just hit autopilot when I get in my truck and set off for the gym. My mind was mulling over what I would do at the gym, what I ate last night, and how many calories were in it. A quick look in my rearview mirror revealed a dark blue SUV behind me. Another quick look told me that it was a Police SUV. A third look and his blue lights were flashing. I pulled over thinking to myself, "Hmm, I wonder what I was doing wrong?"

The police officer approaches me and says,"Now I could let go that you were going 50 in a 35 and even that you were going 40 in a 25, but when you also rolled through the stop sign too, I had to pull you over. License and registration please."

As I take out my identification from the glove compartment, he asks me if I am on my way to work. I replied that I was going to the gym and then going to work because I have a two hour delay. He asked me when the last time was that I had a ticket and where I worked. I told him I worked at CRES and that I honestly couldn't remember when I had last received a ticket (Thinking back now, about five years). He proceeded to call in my name and birthdate to find out more about my driving record. As he is waiting for the response from the police station he starts asking me questions like it is the Spanish Inquisition.

"What do you do at CRES? Where is CRES? What grades are the kids in? How many students are there? How many teachers are there?" I answer all of his questions and am finally saved by the police station dispatcher calling him back saying something to the effect that there are no points off of my license.

So the officer turns to me and says, I am going to give you four choices here...
1) I wont give you the ticket for going 50 in a 35, or for going 40 in a 25, but I will give you the ticket for rolling through the stop sign and yell at you for being an idiot.
2) I wont give you the ticket for going 50 in a 35, or for rolling through the stop sign, but I will give you the ticket for going 40 in a 25 and yell at you for being an idiot.
3) I wont give you the ticket for going 40 in a 25 , or for rolling through the stop sign, but I will give you the ticket for going 50 in a 35 and yell at you for being an idiot.

At this point I started to chuckle because I am thinking to myself, "He should yell at me for being an idiot."
He says, "I'm not done yet. Choice number four is that you need to stop and buy the teachers at the school donuts and muffins today. So which choice do you want?"
I eagerly told him that I would gladly go with choice #4. He asked if someone for CRES would need to call him to prove that I had really bought the muffins and donuts. I told him I would have someone do that if he really wanted. He told me that I looked like an honest enough guy and to just be sure to slow down and come to a complete stop at all stop signs. As I drove off towards the gym I realized what a bargain he just gave me. He could have easily given me a pretty hefty ticket which would go in the Windham coffers, but instead he decided that he would indirectly do something nice for the teachers here at CRES. So, everyone, enjoy the goodies on me.

Pepsi & iTunes

2008-01-08T12:22:00.001-08:00

As I said in the last post, I spent some time at the iTunes Music Store over the past Christmas break searching for songs for my son's new iPod Nano. Luckily, he also received for Christmas, a gift card for the online store. As I entered in his card # to redeem the $15 on it, I was take back to 2004 when Apple and Pepsi teamed together to give away one million songs at the iTunes Music Store after the Super Bowl. During this promotion, codes for one free song were printed at the under the bottle caps of one in three Pepsi bottles. I thought back to how after entering in each code, your credit to your account would increase by one song, or $1.00. I wondered whether they were gearing up to do the same promotion by any chance since the Super Bowl is coming up relatively soon.

I did another little Google search (makes me wonder what I ever did without Google) and discovered that Pepsi has dropped Apple in favor of Amazon MP3. Now I had no idea whatsoever that Amazon was in the .MP3 business, but apparently they are. So, I did a little more research and playing around. I created an Amazon MP3 account for myself, downloaded and installed the Downloader software, and tried downloading a song for the first time.

There were a few cool things about doing this: One, the song was completely compatible with iTunes, so as soon as it downloaded, it played in iTunes. It even downloads the album artwork! Two, just like the iTunes Music Store you can preview the song prior to purchasing it. Three, it seems that the prices for these songs (especially if you a buying entire albums) are cheaper than iTunes.

Now it seems that I have yet another reason to look forward to the Super Bowl. (If the New England Patriots being in it wasn't enough of a reason.)

Trying Out Some New Things / Ringtones

2008-01-08T11:24:00.001-08:00

I have been spending some time trying out some new technology related things lately. I hope to share some of them in the next several posts. Some of these new tools are items I found in issues of Macworld (subscription~priceless) and others I just sort of looked into because a need or curiosity arose. I will start with the latter.

During this past Christmas break I found myself spending a lot of time waiting around in my truck, usually for one or both of my boys to get out of or return from some sort of sporting or social event. I took this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with my cell phone. I downloaded an application so that I could find, preview, and download different ring-tones. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my cell phone (which I picked up at a yard sale for $5) would play ring-tones that were pieces of actual music, not just the MIDI variety. I soon discovered that these cool ring-tone would run about $3 each to download. That just seemed like too high a price to pay, so I kind of let the topic slip to backburner of my mind.

Another way that I spent some of my precious Christmas vacation time was downloading songs and videos to my oldest son's new 3G iPod Nano which he purchased using Christmas $. While at the iTunes Music Store searching for songs, I noticed that some of them had little bell icons next to them. My son told me that they were songs that could also be used as ring-tones. "Ahh Haa!" I thought. "Maybe I could use one of these as my ringtone?" I wondered. A little research into this idea came up fruitless for two reasons, one, it costs $2 for the ring-tone from the iTunes Store ($1 for the Song and $1 for the ability to edit it into a ring-tone) and two, they only work on iPhones. So, that option was out.

I finally decided to search for an easy, yet free, way to get actual music ring-tones on to my cell phone. A quick Google Search lead me to Mobile17. Once you register you are able to create ring-tones using .mp3 files you have on your computer. It will ask you to browse for the file. Next, it will ask how many seconds/minutes into the song you want to start the ring-tone. Then, it asks how long you want the ringtone to last. Finally, after hit SEND, it sends the ringtone (in my case as a PICT) to your cell phone. You open the PICT message, save it, and then select it to be your ring-tone. I tried this out twice for myself and it WORKS! I love finding ways to do things for FREE.

In my next posting I will share another cool thing that I found just from need or curiosity.

Weebly Page Trying out Tools from ACTEM

2007-10-15T07:35:00.001-07:00

I am taking a look at all the cool (geeky) tools and and resources I learned about at ACTEM. Below, I am trying out Flixin.com, which allows you to record yourself with a webcam (iSight) and then it gives you the code to embed the video on your blog or website. Pretty Cool Stuff.

The Sixties Movie

2007-04-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

Below is the movie I created about the 1960's. It contains pop culture, news, children's literature, movies, and television. All of the music you hear were number one hits in the 60's with the exception of Dillon's "The Times They Are a Changing".

Give it a minute or two to download so that you don't catch up to it while playing it.

New Stuff

2007-03-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have come across some new stuff lately. One site I came across that really impressed me was Quizlet. Unlike other flashcard sites, this learning resource takes the data you typed in and allows you to create online quizzes with T/F, Mult. Choice, text, or matching. I used it for each of my sons as they were studying different body systems. They especially enjoyed the matching quizzes.

Check it out if you get the chance.

Its Been a While

2007-03-27T08:06:00.002-07:00

Wow! It's been like three months since I have posted to my blog. Don't think that the reason is because I have had nothing new to post about technology integration. On the contrary, there has been A LOT going on.

The health teacher at CRES, Terry Reed, asked me to create a presentation for the 6th graders on Internet Safety which would become a part of her unit on safety. I used some of the videos and activities from NetSmartz.org to create a presentation which students took part in during late February.

The biggest project I worked on during the last few months turned out to be time-consuming, but extremely fun and educational. This project was a movie about the 1960's which was played for the students of CRES during 60's Day. 60's Day was the culminating activity for the 60's unit taught by the Phys. Ed., Library, Art and Music specialist. They asked me to create a movie that the students would see which would include music, news, and pop-culture of the era. What an educational experience it was for me personally. I made connections and learned about topics that I didn't know before. It was well received by the students, but I think it was the teachers who enjoyed it the most.

I have also be trying to get some teachers to use blogging as a means to help students with peer editing for their writing. I have a few teachers (C. Albert & B. Wandishin) who have created blogs for this purpose. Some are prolific while others have yet to post anything written by their students. Granted, this has been an extremely busy time of year for the teachers with MEA's, report cards, and parent-teacher conferences, so I hope that when things settle down, they will get back on the stick.

I am also splitting up my time now between CRES and Songo Locks School. I am at SLS on Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings. So, if you are trying to catch me, that is where you will find me.

Starting, today as a matter of fact, I will be doing a series of after-school workshops on the use of some Web2.0 tools in classrooms. I will be covering Podcasts, Blogs, Wikis, and Social Bookmarking. Some people have been asking me when I was going to do some afternoon workshops (which were my bread and butter when I was in this position a few years ago) like I used to do. So, to appease them, and to practice my presentation skills, I set up these quick, down and dirty, workshops. I have about a half dozen educators signed up for each topic. I like having small numbers in workshops like this so that I can get to everyone in the group with questions.

So, this has been me checking in with my blog. I will try to post more often and share with you some of the neat resources I have come across in the past few months.

I've Been Tagged

2007-01-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

Apparently, a game of tag is currently going on in the blogosphere - and I have been caught! In a better attempt for you to get to know me better I'm to "reveal" five things about myself that you otherwise wouldn't know from reading this blog. Here goes:

According to the rules, I am now supposed to share 5 things you may not know about me. And then, I am supposed to tag 5 other bloggers.

1. I LOVE food. I love to shop for it, cook it, eat it, read about it, and watch tv about it. My boys say I have "food issues". They are probably right, but there isn't much about food I don't like, except the fact that not all foods are calorie free.

2. I did not start out in education when I went to school. When I was in H.S. (during the 80's) I wanted to go to college, get a high-paying job, and make a Lot of $$. (Kind of the Alex P. Keaton mentality). But as I made my way through 1.5 years of college I didn't think I was cut out for the business world so I changed my major to Elem. Education.

3. I am the Webmaster and voting Board member of WYSA (Windham Youth Soccer Association). I was appointed to this position this past August to finish out the term of the previous Webmaster. I am hoping to be elected to the post this January for a three-year term.
I have also coached several of the soccer teams my boys have played on in both spring and fall soccer. Take a look at what I have done with the website by clicking this url: http://www.windhamyouthsoccer.com

4. About 80% of my clothes I purchase at Eddie Bauer. When I go to that store, it is not unusual for me to already be covered "head to toe" in their clothes. Luckily, my family supports my habit, giving me nearly $300 in gift certificates this past Christmas for the store.

5. I love going to Disney World. I have taken my boys to WDW when they were 3 and 5 years old, 5 and 7 years old, and when they were 8 and 10 years old. My neice is getting married this April on the beach in Tampa, so it looks like the family will be flying down to Florida again this April. We will definitely spend a day or two at WDW while we are there.

So now that you have read five things you would not know about me otherwise, consider yourself tagged. You need to now create a posting on your blog listing 5 things about yourself that readers would not know otherwise and tag 5 more bloggers.

Christine Albert, Betsy Wandishin, Laura Gurley-Mozie, Mike Nolette, and Alice Barr.
Have a great day.

"The World is Flat" a book report by former Governor Angus King

2006-11-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

The World is Flat by Thomas Freedman is a book referred to when talking about education in America today and about how education needs to change in order for our students to competitive in a global economy. I downloaded a digital copy of the book into my iTunes Library through Audible.com to discover that I need 24 hours of listening time in order to hear the whole book. Now, I downloaded it because audio books tend to play at a much faster rate than I read. If you find that you don't have 24 hours of spare listening time, but still wish to be "in the loop" when this book is referenced, I highly recommend you subscribe to the Angus King Podcast Book Report. It is an enhanced podcast complete with stills of the important points in the book. Another plus, besides being shorter than reading the entire book, is that the Podcast Book Report is free! So, click here to get to the web page where you can subscribe to the podcast. If you don't have iTunes, click here to get to the download page.

CMTC 2006 Key Note Presentation

2006-11-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

Alan November gave the keynote speech on the opening day of the 2006 Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. I had heard Mr. November speak on two previous occasions and found this speech to be the most relevant and thought-provoking. You can view his keynote using RealPlayer by clicking this link.
After I watch/listen to it again, I will provide my commentary and how it relates to teaching and learning. Feel free to comment with your own.

CMTC 2006 Blogging in the Classroom

2006-11-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

Blogging in the classroom
By Susan Adams NHPTV

YouTube
Trenspotting social networking

blogging url:k12

podcasting url:k12

Develp a focus for student blogs. Whether the blogs are daily reflections, reading reflections, classroom experiences hobbies, or blog from a character for literature or history, each student should have a definite focus for their blog.

Tips
don't share personal information
parental permission
understand netiquette
set goals and expectations establish rules of conduct
consider classroom blog instead of individual student blogs

Classroom Blog
book club
comment on news and current events
rsopond to media
reviews of media

Set up account at Blogger

Showed how Blogger works

ePals now has blogging service and is a good place to find classrooms for collaboration

www.nhptv.org/kn

Podcasting for Educators: A Tutorial

2006-10-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

So, it's the end of October?! Wow, how time flies. It seems not so long ago that it was the first day of school. With the ending of the month, I decided to take a little stock in what I had accomplished in the first two months of school. When I did this I realized that the three teachers who have their students podcasting their classrooms' newsletters have been doing so for about a month now. They have been sending their students down to my office where I record them, edit their performances, put the tracks together, and then upload them to their Gcast accounts.

I thought to myself, "If I am going to take another classroom per grade level on this podcasting adventure, I need to get the three teachers who are currently podcasting trained on how to do this on their own. I thought that I should put together a tutorial webpage (which could also be printed out) for teachers to use, which has step-by-step instructions, links to resources, and plenty of screenshots. So, I created just such a webpage. I also included some audio files so that viewers could also hear the differences in audio files after specific steps in the process. Eventually, (when I get a copy of SnapZ Pro X) I will add some tutorial videos as well.

Podcasting can be a great experience for students and provides them with another publishing genre that can also provide a world-wide audience, giving students greater purpose for their work. Teachers may not jump into podcasting with their students if they are unsure on the "how to's" so I am hoping that this tutorial page will help those well beyond my own district. I know that, for me, I struggled with podcasting, not with the "why" but on the "how". I would have embraced the tutorial that would have gotten me going on this. Now that I know the "how" I want to share it will all that have an interest or is in search of help.

Gliffy: Online Concept Mapping

2006-10-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while at a technology integrators meeting, one of my colleagues asked if there was a free version (Open Source) of something similar to Inspiration®. None of the people in the room knew of any open source application that was as simple to use or had the bells and whistles of the well-known visual learning tool. I did a little surfing around and stumbled upon FreeMind, which is an open source app for concept mapping. I downloaded it and played around with it for a little while. I found it to not be very user-friendly so I looked at what was next on my search list. I was really impressed with what I found next.

My next click sent me to Gliffy. Gliffy is an online diagramming tool. It feels like a desktop application that you download and use, but it isn't. You only need a web browser. It is FREE. You just need to spend all of about 30 seconds registering and you are ready to get started. Not only can you make several different types of diagrams, but you can post them online on a web page, a blog, or a wiki. You can also collaborate with other users. One only needs to email the link to the document to those who need access to it and they can work together. There was also a great little introductory movie about Gliffy that not only displayed what it could do, but was almost like a little tutorial. Let's put it this way, after watching the introductory movie, I was able to create a diagram myself without any further instruction. See image below:

Gliffy is a great example of a Web 2.0 application. Here are the reasons why:

You do not need to download anything to use it.
It's FREE
It does not matter what operating system you use, you just need a computer that has a browser and has a connection to the Internet.
Collaboration is not only possible but simple.
Earlier versions of the work are accessible. Every time a diagram is saved, that version becomes available to view and work on.
Publishing the work on a website, blog, or wiki is easy to do.
It is simple to use.

Flash Cards are No Longer Old-School

2006-10-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

My own two boys go through a lot of flash cards at home. With one seventh grader and one fifth grader rarely does a week go by when they haven't had to utilize this "old-school" way of memorizing vocabulary or concepts. They seem to get as much studying done in preparing the flash cards themselves as they do while using once they are made. So, I realize the importance of students writing out their own flash cards. Sometimes though, daily schedules just don't allow them to take the time to write out their own study aides. There are also times when students (my children especially) forget their study materials at school in a desk or locker. It was this later predicament that my youngest son and I found ourselves in this past weekend.

My son was to have a test on Tuesday over the first chapter of his science text. Here it was Saturday and he discovers that he did not bring home his text or any study materials. Now I happen to know the title and publishing company of his science text and that the title of the chapter was "Mapping Earth's Surface". So, I set out on an online quest to find materials having to do with this topic that he could use to study. Had I had his text, I am certain it would have provided me with url's to sites with these types of supportive materials. Since I did not have the text, I was at the mercy of Google. I typed in the title of the chapter and found a few interesting things that he could use; a crossword puzzle, a powerpoint presentation with some of the vocabulary, even a movie about making maps. But the site I stumbled upon that really wowed me, (and prompted this posting) was "The Amazing Flash Card Machine". The link I clicked on lead me to a listing of all the sets of science flashcards made previously by other members. Low and behold, there was a set with the same name as the chapter my son needed to study. I selected the title and started the study session. At this point I had my son come over to the computer and sit down. He had a choice of starting with the word and clicking Flip to see the definition, or visa versa. Not only could my son work with these flash cards online, but there was a button to view them in "printer-friendly" HTML. He worked with them online for a while, but then chose to print them out so he could study the vocab anywhere he wanted.

Not only could a user view the flashcard sets made by others, but they can also create their own. This, I think, would be a great resource for teachers to use with their student. Teachers could go into this site, create a set of flash cards for whatever topic they are teaching, and then give the url for the flash cards to their students to use at home. I was so impressed with site that I had to share my finding with a colleague of mine. When she saw it, she immediately thought of how her own sixteen year-old could use this right away on a quiz on the periodic table of elements. We did a little search on the site and found a set about the topic right away.

Before I started writing this post I wondered whether this resource would be considered to be a Web 2.0 tool or not. (not that it has to be to be included on my blog) But, I decided yes, it is, because a user can publish content on the web and share it with other users. So even though flash cards are an "old-school" tool for memorizing things, this resource gives it a modern update without the cost purchasing index cards every other week.

Give this site a try and let me know what you think or ways that teachers/students could utilize it.

Podcasting With Students

2006-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

So, now that I have figured out the basics of podcasting, I am starting to work with students using this medium. I started with a 4th grade class whose teacher just left on maternity leave. My thought was that she (as well as the parents of her students) could keep up to date with what the class is doing by listening in on the podcast which would consist of an audio version of the classroom newsletter as well as writing pieces that the students read aloud.

As I got going with this project I thought to myself that there should be at least one podcast per grade level, so I got a couple more victims (I mean guinnea pigs). I chose a 6th grade class whose teacher has been doing technology integration with her class for years. I also chose a 5th grade class that has a "brand new" teacher. All of the classes seem VERY excited about their podcast and are eager to be a part of it. Now that I have got them going, I am going to start showing these three teachers how it is done so that they can one day take over and post their own episodes. Once they reach that point I will move on to another three classes so that eventually my goal of "total podcast infiltration" while be acheived, "whooa haa haa haa!" (evil laugh)

Here are the links for the three Podcasts that are currently available for subscription:

CRES Room 101

CRES Room 203

CRES Room 209

I MADE A PODCAST

2006-09-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

I DID IT!
I made a podcast! You may have already noticed that on the right side of this blog window there is even a button to click to subscribe to my podcast. This might not sound like a huge acheivment to those of you who have been doing this for a while, but to me this is like climbing Everest. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when I was listening to a Bit by Bit podcast by my fellow SEEDlings Bob Sprankle, Cheryl Oakes, and Alice Barr. In this episode they made note of a site called Gcast.com which would host your .mp3 files for you and provide the RSS feed for your podcast. Well that was like telling me the secret of life! I immediately got to work. One of the things that has held me up with podcasting was that I had an older version of GarageBand (2.0.2). Well I played around a little with it, and even though it is not as slick as the GarageBand in iLife 06 and doesn't have all the bells and whistles I managed to create a (I think) dynamic .mp3 file that could be uploaded to my Gcast account.
I didn't use iLife 06 even. I used an old version of GarageBand, Audacity, and iTunes.

Here is what I did.

1. Used Audacity to record intro.
2. Used Audacity to record post from my blog.
3. Went to a site called GarageBand.com that copyright free music to download.
4. I then used an old copy of GarageBand to bring in each of the tracks (introduction, music, and post)
5. Edited the volume of the music so it would fade out when talking started.
6. Exported it to iTunes.
7. Took it out of iTunes folder and placed it on my desktop.
8. Went into iTunes Preferences, opened Advanced, selected Importing, and changed it to .mp3 and lowered the bitrate.
9. Imported the .aif back into iTunes.
10. Under the Advanced menu converted it to .mp3
11. Created an account at gcast.com which hosts .mp3 files for podcasting for free.
12. Uploaded the now .mp3 file from my desktop to gcast account.
13. Subscribed to my own podcast through iTunes.
14. Submitted my podcast to the iTunes Music Store so others could find it.

Goals For the Year

2006-09-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

If you read my previous posts, you know that I am returning to a job I have been away from for a couple of years. Now a lot has changed, not only in this job, but in educational technology. When I was last an integrator, WebQuests were the big thing in educational technology. Now, its Web 2.0 tools.

While I am absolutely thrilled to be back at CRES, I am feeling a bit behind the 8 ball so to speak. I so want to share with the teachers what I have learned about blogging, podcasts, RSS and such, but I have not had any actual classroom experiences with these tools.

This being said, here are my goals for the 2006-07:

Learn as much as humanly possible about Web 2.0 and their applications in the classroom.
Share what I have learned with teachers in these ways:

Post definitions and educational uses on "What is Web 2.0?"
Present these tools during staff meetings and professional development workshops
Teach the teachers when working with them and their students

Take part in professional development for myself; workshops, conferences, and peer training

Movie Post-Baseball

2006-08-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

This is a test to see how well a video post goes. This is hosted on my firstclass webserver and is a fairly small movie. It seems to only play once the entire movie is loaded. I might be able to tweak this so that it will autoplay once enough has loaded so that it doesn't catch up to itself.

About AudioBlogger

2006-08-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

As you probably noticed, my last posting was a bit different in that it was an audio posting. I don't know if this was a new experience for you, but it certainly was for me. Now that I have done this, and seen just how easy it is to do, my mind is beginning to process the possibilities that this might exist for using this tool in a classroom.

Now when I created the audio post I used my cell phone w/ headset plugged in. When I did this I pictured myself driving into work and adding a post to my blog as I commute the 30 min. to CRES from my home in Windham. Now I find that my mind is usually at its most creative either early in the morning (post coffee, of course) or late at night. So I can imagine creating audio posts as I am driving along in my truck. For a classroom teacher who has a blog they can be providing content to their students as they are driving, sitting at the beach, or imagine this, sitting at a conference. This last possibility really gets me excited because when I am at a really good conference and listening to a dynamic speaker my wheels start turning in my head. I need to be able to process and document what is going on in my head right then and there before it gets lost or replaced by some other new pieces of information. Audioblogger could be the solution to this.

Another use that just came to mind is if a teacher is sick or away from their class for some reason and they want to alter an assignment or give special instructions that the substitute does not have in their plans then they could upload this audio post right from the comfort of their bed or doctor's office. I am sure that other uses will come to mind as the days go by.

Now at first I thought there were some limitations to AudioBlogger, but, if you know a litte about html code there is a way to get around these limitations. First, let's talk about using the phone. You don't HAVE to use a phone if you are willing to host your own audio files to your web server. Second, you are not limited to only 5 min of recording if, once again, you are willing to host the audio on your web server. Third, now this is a biggie, you can also include a video post.
Here's how:
Below is the html code that is generated to make your audioblogger play as a post:
[div class="audblog"][a href="http://www.audioblogger.com/media/131264/398283.mp3" class="audLink"][img src="http://www.audioblogger.com/media/images/audioblogger.gif" class="audImg"border="0" alt="this is an audio post - click to play" /][/a][/div]

If you upload an audio file to your web server all you neet to do is change the url that the audioblogger play button is pointed to and it will play the audio you uploaded. For example: I can copy this code, start a new post, paste this code in, change the url to www.sad61.k12.me.us/~rpalmer/baseball.mov and once I publish the post I have myself a link to a video post. In this case it is my son's baseball team. In doing this, I can create a snazzy and professional sounding podcast-like post, upload it to my server, and then point a new post to that file. So, I can basically alter few limitations there are to AudioBlogger just by tweaking the code a little. Pretty Cool!

My First AudioBlog

2006-08-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

This was my first attempt at AudioBlogger. This is very cool, making audio posts to a blog using a phone. Too Cool :-)

At first I thought there were some drawbacks, but as you read my next post, you will see how I get around them. Where there is a will there is a way.

Former SEEDling Social and Overload

2006-08-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know that I was once a Technology Learning Leader for SEED (Spreading Educator to Educator Developments) for about four years. This organization provided not only opportunities for me to develop my technology skills and knowledge, make some extra money, develop my presentation skills, but it also gave me the opportunity to develop friendships with many like-minded geeks like myself.

Our group of TLLs in Southern Maine became a very tight-knit group who revelled any chance to get together, share what is going on our lives (personally and professionally), and of course, share what new "Geek Tool" we have discovered. We always had a great time sharing with one another and working together. When the grant that financed SEED ran out and SEED had to come to a close, it was a very sad time for us all and we all vowed that we in Southern Maine would keep it going in some way, if not for the personal relationships, but to also be a means of support to us technology integrators and coordinators. Many of us do not have colleagues within our own district that we can discuss these things with.

We have had a handful of SEEDling get-togethers that have been wonderful. It is always great to see these people, catch up, and share. I just came from one of these social gatherings at L. Girr's house in Freeport. It was so great to see some of my old buddies. These people are so up to date and cutting edge! They have so much to share and are really pushing the envelop with Web 2.0 tools. It made me realize just how much I have to learn about those things so that I can be a good resource for the teachers at my school. We talked a lot about blogging, podcasting, Edublogs vs. Blogger, the new Garage Band, Flickr, NetTrekker, del.ioic.ous, Skype and a host of other things. So, many things that my mind started to go into OVERLOAD. My brain started to feel like it did at the end of the day when I took the National Teacher's Exam back in 1990 (I know, I'm dating myself here).

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

One thing that I am glad I remembered when I got home was Cheryl Oakes telling me about a Web 2.0 tool called >BubbleShare. She told me it was a place to upload pictures into albums and that you could share the albums with other people by emailing them to others or by posting a slideshow on to a blog. Another feature she mentioned was that you could add 30 seconds of audio to the album so that you can explain your pictures to those you share with. So, as you can see, I just had to try this out for myself.

Once I set myself up with an account I discovered some really cool things you could do with this site and its tools. First, I downloaded and installed a Pluggin for my iPhoto so that my pictures could be exported from my iPhoto directly to my Bubbleshare account. Next, I discovered that not only could you add audio, but you can also add little text captions (like comics) to your pictures. You can order prints and gifts that contain your pics as well.

Anyway, I wanted to add a slideshow to this blog so I opened iPhoto and exported my pics of the tour of Fenway Park that my oldest son, father in-law, and I went on earlier this summer. It was prettly slick! Next, if look at the instructions for putting a slideshow in a blog. Not only was it easy, but what really WOWed me was the different formats there were for the slide show. As you can see, I used the vertical format. What I do wish though was that I knew how to alter the HTML so that the words from this blog posting would wrap around the slideshow like it would a picture. What I ended up doing to make it look like it does is to create an invisible table (border=0) and then paste the code for the slideshow in one skinny column and a couple paragraphs of text in the larger column.

So now I am pleased. I have caught up with friends, learned a few things, eaten well, and have applies something I learned to something I find meaningful. All in all I would say it has been a good day.

The Return of TechnoMan

2006-08-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

Let me start my explaining the title of this post....
Technology can sometimes be pretty fickle. I don't think there isn't anyone out there who has not struggled over some sort of glitch with a computer or an application. What makes it so frustrating is that sometimes, all it seems to take is just the mere presence of another person to suddenly make your computer behave the way you want it to or the application to do what you have been trying to get it to do for the past hour. Some other person just has to look over your shoulder and suddenly, "Poof" it works.

This phenomenon has happened to me a number of times. Once I was stuggling with some image in Photoshop and I could not for the life of me get it to do what I wanted it to do. My boss stopped by on one of his journies (to escape the confines on his office and see the light of day no doubt) and just about as soon he peeked his head over my shoulder, Photoshop suddenly came to life and made the image as I had wanted it to.

While this can be annoying if you are the person for whom the computer is not working, it can be most gratifying if you are the onlooker, like you have the Midas touch. Being a technology integrator, I am often in this position. A student comes to my office saying, "Mrs. ******* can't get her computer/projector/application to work. Can you come and help her?" So I go to that teacher's room. Now sometimes, I just have to step into the room and the problem ceases to exist. Sometimes, I have to just look over the teacher's shoulder and it suddenly works. Most often though, there is some reasonable explanation as to why things weren't working the way the teacher wanted it to and it ends up being a 30 second fix.

Now, when this sort of thing happens to me, I get a little frustrated and then laugh it off as one of those freak things that happens when using technology. But when this happens to some teachers, I become their hero. When all hope was lost, I swooped in and made things work. There is this one educator at CRES (JVP) to whom this happened many times. She would joke each time about how I had saved the day. She was the person who came up with the name TechnoMan. I shared this with my family one night at the dinner table. My wife thought it was pretty funny but thought TechnoGeek would be more appropriate. But for my boys, who really didn't understand just what it was that Daddy did all day at school, it helped to simplify my job for them. Daddy sometimes helps people with their computer problems.

So, now that I have explained the origin of the name, I will explain the "The Return of.." portion of the title. Here is the short version: I was the Technology Integrator for CRES for three years. I left for two years to be the Computer Teacher at Windham Middle School. I am now returning to CRES this fall to resume my job as Technology Integrator. Hence the title, "The Return of TechnoMan." Picture by: Brandon Palmer
Age 9

To say that my job will have changed from the time that I once held it would be an understatement. Two or three years ago the big buzz around educational technology was WebQuests and teachers who had a web presence at all were considered on the cutting edge. But since I have been gone there has been the widespread use of Web 2.0 tools. Some experts in educational technology feel that while K-12 education has been slow to get started with these collaborative Internet tools, they will transform teaching and learning as we know it.

I myself, while knowing what many of the Read/Write Internet tools are, have yet to use them or to apply their uses in an educational setting. So, over the next several months, I hope to learn more about them and how they can be used in the classrooms at CRES by both teachers and students.

Gone are the days when my job consisted of being a technology trainer who taught mini courses on specific applications before and after school. My job now requires that I become a one-on-one coach who aides individual teachers as they work on specific projects which utilize technology. Gone are the days when I wished teachers had to have a technology goal that they had to accomplish within the year. Now regardless of what the goal is a teacher chooses to focus on for the year, I hope that they will look at how technology can be a tool for helping them attain those goals.

In closing, I have got to go on the record about how thrilled I am to be returning back to CRES. I do feel a little bit like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" though.
"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with!"