These are my notes from Dr. Carl Owens‘ presentation, “Cool Tools for the Classroom” at the 2011 Mississippi Educational Computing Association annual conference in Jackson on February 8th.
Dr Carl W Owens
Professor / Director of Technology
College of Education, Tennessee Technological University
cowens [at] tntech [dot] edu
931-372-3851
Currently have approx 2000 undergrads at TTU, production of instructional materials is a major focus
- we are fortunate to have a $2 million endowment at our college
On average one of our digital video cameras gets checks out ten times per day
We are using Bose Companion 5 Multimedia Powered Speaker System now in our ‘standard’ multimedia classrooms in our college
We are also experimenting with the BassJump Subwoofer – adds a much richer and fuller sound at your teacher presentation
I’m all about quality for podcasting tools
- if it’s noisy or distracting no one is going to pay attention
- we want to use tools that can help us create content that will be engaging
A measure for your podcast is: It should sound like NPR
- if it doesn’t, you’ve done something wrong
MY COMMENT: I REALLY WANT TO FIND WAYS TO ELIMINATE EXTRA / UNWANTED AUDIO
Mikes we like:
- Snowball
- Snowflake
- Mikey and Mikey 2 ($80) – attach mic to to your iPhone or iPod Touch
All from bluemic.com
By simply using a high quality external microphone, you can significantly enhance the quality of your podcast
- we’ve never had a Bluemic microphone fail for us in 4 years, and we use them intensely
Digital Microscopes
- ProScope HR and ProScope Mobile
- they have a ton of lesson plans about how to integrate the ProScope into the curriculum
- the HSI kit comes with microscope adapters, 200x lens, stand for time lapse video
- new tool they have:
Tools for TV capture
- Eye TV Hybrid from Elegato Systems
- install it on your Mac at school or home, has connection for cable TV
- automatically searches for available channels you have (DirectTV, ComCast, etc – the guide for what you can capture shows up on your computer)
- cable in the classroom is a much-unused resource for teachers in the classroom (very liberal licensing terms for classroom uses)
- it saves the video to your hard drive AND compresses it
In the old days, the librarian was responsible for recording shows to VCR
- new companion project, H.264 Video converter with hardware accelerator lets you speed up the compression process
Is now an app for your iOS device, can connect via iTV app for $5 to access your home device
Sometimes we have lots of content on different sources, the Elegato Video Capture solution lets you digitize content from any composite video / analog playback device
Look at the Cable in the Classroom website
- cable providers in their charter are required to give free cable TV in all classrooms in your area
- that is a provision for cable classrooms
- in some places cable companies put up a fight to do this, in others they do it gladly
Great lesson plans, programming guides, and more on the CiC website
Radio Shark still great: $49 from Griffin Technologies
- lets you record local radio
- many communities have local programming that might not be on the web
- has been discontinued, but you can still find them for sale online, I’ve seen them for $30
I love music production
- we use GarageBand for the creation of copyright free / royalty free music
- some support devices for music creation
Korg nanoKey
- Garageband has thousands of instruments, can trigger different instruments
- is a keyboard
JamPacks for Garageband really expand available tools
- base install of Garageband has about 4000 instruments
Pulse LiveScribe SmartPen
- you can write and record audio to accompany it
- pen has a built-in mic
- I can save up to 200 hours of audio on the pen
- website has a good video demo
We’ve received grants from the state to meet special needs of students, we integrate those into our curriculum
- 1 is the Krown Sign Language Translator
For video production we’ve gone through many tools and stages, now we’re primarily using and recommending the Sanyo Exacti VPS FH1A DV camera
- HD 1080p, records to compact flash card
- use these a lot when creating iMovies
- flip cameras were all the rage for awhile, but having produced lots of instructional videos I know there are big control benefits for image stability, image zoom, etc is so much better
- we don’t use many flip cameras now
- we have several hundred of these Sanyos
- we have not had any significant support / technical problems with this device
- we have done comparisons with a $5000 high end Canon digital camera, and this $400 one…. to the naked eye for many student productions you can’t tell the difference (this is ideal for student teacher use)
Big deal: This camcorder does support an external microphone
- lav mics really work well
- we recommend our students always use an external mic (lav) when doing classroom recording
- Sony has them: $50 to $100 will get you a good mic for classroom use, Radio Shack too
- Telex is a brand we’ve used for more high-end video production
Pico data projector (Optoma Pico PK-101 DLP) – around $500, there is an newer one now with a brighter bulb
- can be used with your iPod touch to play video
- years ago data projectors were all huge and cost $25,000 each
- amazing we can have that capability now
- it does require complete room darkening
Mobile learning devices
- iPod Touch with FaceTime
I LOVE videoconferencing
Apple used to have a video called “Knowledge Navigator”
- I realized that dream years ago when Apple introduced iChat
Now doing a live demo of a Facetime video call
MY COMMENT: THIS MAKES ME THINK IT WOULD BE VALUABLE TO RECORD A VIDEO OF USING FACETIME IN SCHOOL
One of the most powerful uses of this technology is remote teaching
- a couple of years ago when I was in Shanghai I had a chance to teach my class for several hours with other professors, back to Tennessee
- this was featured in a local write-up at our university
Portable Battery power: Griffin USB Battery Pack (just $15 now)
Tablet Based Computers: GalaxyTab and iPad
- we wanted to look for an up and coming tool that would be good for education and be comparable to the iPad
- we found the Samsung Galaxy Tablet: $599 right now
- same look and feel, and interface as the iPad, but smaller 7″ screen
- now the AndroidMarket is available for downloading applications, similar to iTunes and the App Store
- not as many education apps available yet for Android relative to iPad, but I expect that to change over time
Music creation
- it’s easy to pirate someone else’s music – we address this in our courses,
- repeated 30 sec / 10% limit
- Garageband allows you much greater flexibility, Magic Garageband
- MixCraft is the most Garageband-like software available now for Windows
Florida Digital Educators Program (Carl helps lead and teach this each summer)
Technorati Tags:
edtech, learning, mississippi, msmeca11, technology, tennessee, tools, carl, owens, ttu, tech
If you're trying to listen to a podcast episode and it's not working, check this status page. (Wes is migrating his podcasts to Amazon S3 for hosting.) Remember to follow Wesley Fryer on Twitter (@wfryer), Facebook and Google+. Also "like" Wesley's Facebook pages for "Speed of Creativity Learning" and his eBook, "Playing with Media." Don't miss Wesley's latest technology integration project, "Mapping Media to the Common Core / Curriculum."
On this day..
- Cell Phone Digital Storytelling with Narrable - 2013
- Visualizing Sharing #edushare - 2012
- Create iPad Stories with StoryPatch - 2011
- Podcast370: Cool Tools for the Classroom by Dr Carl Owens - 2011
- Leading Schools with Digital Vision in a Bubblesheet World (Slidecast) #msmeca11 - 2011
- To what countries have you Skyped? (from Mississippi) #msmeca11 - 2011
- Outsourcing school district IT staff - 2010
- Online learning at Crescent, Oklahoma - 2010
- Teaching more content with an IWB is not transformational - 2010
- Bribery apparently not a "new argument" for the Oklahoma Supreme Court - 2010
