Oh my gosh. These are hilarious. If you are not a big Star Wars fan and didn’t grow up on the series, you might not think so… but I do!
Archive for November, 2006:
Podcast103: Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
This podcast is a recording of my keynote address on Digital Storytelling in the Classroom at the 2006 Hawaii Library Association’s annual conference in Honolulu. In the address, I discussed the connections digital storytelling has to literacy development and the roles of school librarians, shared several examples of exemplary student and teacher-created digital stories, and
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Podcast103: Digital Storytelling in the Classroom [ 33:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4068)Icebound!
We’re icebound in northern Oklahoma City (Edmond where I live) with snow expected later today. Winter is falling! The local weather and news people live for days like this I think. It’s like we’ve had a hurricane and the news reporters are on the coastline reporting as it makes landfall, or there is a war
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IPTV, Less advertising, and new media
The latest (December 2006) issue of Wired magazine has several excellent articles that relate to YouTube, IPTV, the rapidly changing landscape of paid advertising, and new media technology use in general– but especially by younger demographic folks. The three articles are part of a series titled “Web Video Grows Up,” and includes “The YouTube Effect,”
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Audacity quickstart guide
I created a very simple, two page PDF “Quickstart Guide to Audacity” for my podcasting workshop last night. I continue to tweak the online curriculum for that workshop each time I teach it: It remains online (and free to anyone) at http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/podcasting. I love Audacity because it is free, cross-platform, simple to use, exports directly
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Skype later today/tonight?
I’ll be teaching a workshop today about classroom collaborations using videoconferencing and other technologies, from 4-7 pm US Central time. If you are interested in “Skyping in” briefly to say hello (with or without video) please leave a comment here with your Skype address, and we’ll try and give you a call! You can use
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IM assists in a local hostage crisis
Well, today was a bit scary for people living in Edmond, Oklahoma, where I live just north of Oklahoma City. A man off the street broke into a woman’s house, took her hostage, went to a bank and then Home Depot where the woman escaped by loudly yelling “Man with a gun!” He then proceeded
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A workshop first
Tonight was a personal first: I taught a three hour workshop on podcasting to about twelve teachers in St Louis, Missouri from my house in Edmond, Oklahoma! I have taught this workshop on podcasting a fair number of times, and taught (and just “met” with others) via videoconferencing technologies a fair number of times too–
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Preferred communication
I’ve moved along this continuum, but I don’t see these as mutually exclusive. I currently prefer f2f, telephone and im. I’d also add blogs to this list, and also include it on my preferred list! I agree with Jenny‘s comment, these are more parallel than linear.
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Hawaii iChat pics
Aaron Schmidt posted a few interesting (but perhaps not too photogenic) photos of me in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago at the Hawaii Library Association’s conference to his Flickr site. He caught me iChatting with my family! I was actually making faces with my three year old in the following pic: I’m not sure
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Nominate a tech-savvy superintendent
eSchoolNews is accepting nominations through December 1st for its 2007 Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards. Consider nominating a deserving superintendent you know. This was my nomination: The leadership and vision of Jerry Vaughn continues to be pivotal as Floydada ISD has defined itself as one of the most innovative and successful small school districts in the United
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Boredom and engagement
I saw this quotation today on Mike Temple’s blog, and was reminded of the reading and thinking I’ve been doing lately related to flow and learning: Children, taught either years beneath their intelligence or miles wide of relevance to it, or both: their intelligence becomes hopelessly bewildered, drawn off its centers, bored, or atrophied.- James
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Reservations about empowerment without accountability
Joe Makley shared a thoughtful comment last night to my post from December 2005 on “Educational Banner Evangelism.” Joe is questioning advocacy for constructivism and empowering teachers without accountability and at least minimum expectations based on identified standards. He wrote: The point being, we still have standards, and they are more important than ever. It
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Online music collaboration tools
I just love articles that include phrases like, “The only limit is the teacher’s imagination!” According to last week’s eSchool News article, “Music education moves online: Web 2.0 technologies, broadband access fuel extension of music education beyond:” Using eJamming Studio 1.5, musicians can plug their MIDI-enabled digital instruments–keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, drum kits, and wind
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K-12 Online reflections
It was a great learning experience as well as privilege to serve as a convener this fall for K-12 Online. In the weeks ahead I’m thinking I’ll be putting more ideas, reflections and responses about the conference down in writing and possibly in some podcasts. Here are a few thoughts I drafted tonight. K-12 Online
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Private file sharing proliferates
I learned about Dropload as a result of K-12 Online the last few months, as a great website to use to transfer large files to other people without sending email attachments and bogging down mailservers and email accounts. The article “Peer-to-peer gets personal” from November 1st lists a veritable plethora of other sites offering similar
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Dabble offers powerful webvideo search
As the number of webvideo sites continues to proliferate (as information online in general continues to grow) the most apparent challenge is wading through an overwhelmingly large quantity of content to find relevant, high quality material that is entertaining or of use for a particular purpose. This morning I discovered Dabble via a CNN Business
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The Wii redefines interactive gaming!
Yesterday I had my first opportunity to personally experience gameplay with the new Nintendo Wii game system, and my summative thought is: WOW! My cousin managed to purchase a Wii shortly after they came out, and we played (along with other members of our family gathering for the Thanksgiving holiday) the Wii Sports games bowling,
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Flow, curiosity, and engaging education
I am continuing to read “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and am seeing lots of connections for educators and learners. At the outset of chapter 4, Csikszentmihalyi summarizes the “common characteristics of optimal experience” or flow: …a sense that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in
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3rd grade website about Africa
Several weeks ago when my 3rd grade son, Alexander and I presented at the regional technology conference in Plano, Texas, he won a free copy of WebBlender software from Tech4Learning. He has wanted to make his own website for quite a while, and several years ago he made a little progress using a WYSIWYG webpage
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