screencasting/podcasting

Still doing lots of screen and pod castings. I can see that it would be a great idea to have a web site that has podcasts of the powerpoints I present to class. By using video to capture the stories and drawing that I do based on questions the students ask, those that missed class will have a much better feeling for what they missed when compared to just going through a powerpoint. I've also found that in making short podcast of vocabulary for our ELL students, it has helped me come up with additional examples that should help all my students. I'd like to try to use them for quizzes by doing a demo which would then be consistent for each class. I have to say having a little Flip video camera has been great! It is so easy to quickly grab it and shoot some video the just plug it in to the computer for editing. I plan on shooting a lot of video this summer and getting things ready for next year.

Action Research

Well I went to the class last night to learn how to do the action research paper. Sara was there so we got a few things set up since we are going to try and cooperate on this project. Yes, we know we have to have two separate papers but the idea that we can use both our classes and maybe even add another teacher to the mix is great. I think we will be able to collect all the data we need this school year and if everything goes well we might even get a chance to do the paper before the deadline, but it is nice to know that you have a year to get the paper done. This is the first one I've done for the district so I'm sure it will take some time to figure out just what they want. Not real clear yet about when we need to have the video done so I've got some checking to do to find out. Gil was talking about after our next class, I'll have to find out for sure so I've got it done and ready to show.

screencasting

I've been working on doing some on-line course development for the district for a class for next year. They want a lot of podcast and/or screencast so I've been making a number of screencast lately. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It is very different being in front of a class and teaching something using a screencast than relying on just the screencast to get your message across. Doing the screencast and talking while your doing it was a challenge at times. I kept thinking of other ways I could say things and then would get off track a little and have to start all over. You can't preview with the software I'm using but you know when things aren't the way you'd like them to be when you get done. I can see that this could be very helpful for those students that miss my class and can watch these at home to get ready for when they do come back to class.

iMovie work around

Trying to use the Flip camera to create podcast was a little troubling at first but I found out that the new version of iMovie is the problem. I used the older version and was able to import just fine. I like the older version anyway, the new one is to messed up to be able to quickly edit short clips for podcast. So it looks like I should be able to get some podcasting done in the near future.

podcast troubles

Still working on podcasting. Ran into a couple of bumps in the road using some of the districts equipment. I got to use on of the flip video cameras, it is really nice and easy to use but doesn't work with iMovie. When you hook it up to the Mac's USB port it shows up as a flash drive but iMovie wouldn't import anything from it. So I tried to move the files from the camera to the hard drive and they came over as AVI files. So I tried to import them into iMovie and that didn't work either. I later found out that it all depends on which OS you are using and the camera's software/firmware can't be changed you have to send it in and exchange it for another camera. One of my fellow teachers spent hours with tech support and then had to send his in. I'll see what happens when he gets his back.

For now I'm using a work around using an old video camera that hooks right up to iMovie. I guess if I was better at doing a great job with the first shoot I wouldn't need iMovie to clean it up! I'll work on that, yea, right;)

Thing 19 Screencasting

I went through the lesson on screencasting today to see if I could get some good ideas as to how to use it more effectively with the on-line class that we are building. I have an wiki to put it on but there are some things with the districts set up that we have to figure out yet.

I looked at Jing, Skitch, KickApps and Screentoaster. They all seem easy enough to use and I like the fact that on some of them you can preview and edit what you've just done. Being able to put them in a format that allows you to use the iPod Touches that are going around could be very helpful.

I can see that using this as a tutorial for teaching students how to set up a lab or use a piece of equipment will be very useful, especially for our ELL population. I liked Screentoaster but there is a cost associated with it so for now I'll use the one from the district that we used during our podcast training.

google docs

I didn't know very much about google docs before we were introduced to it during our class. Since then it seems to be everywhere. Many of my students that usually do a powerpoint used google docs to do there presentations this quarter. It really worked nice since nothing got lost or had to be converted from one version to another, it just worked.

I'm working on a project with other science teachers putting together an on-line course for the district and the team is made up of people from many different schools, so we decided to use google docs to get started putting things together. We also set up a wiki and a blog so we can keep in touch and post our lessons and podcasts.

I sure am glad I took this class. Its making this new way of communicating much easier than setting up meetings and running around town carrying floppy disks with lessons on them;)