Nov
4
Written by:
Instructional Technology
11/4/2009 8:47 AM
Hi teachers! As we all know, the pace of technology isn’t slowing at all, and resources that we’ve shared with teachers have, in some cases, been augmented with new tools. Included in this post are some of those new tools and some ideas on how you might use them in your classes. One I’m very excited about is
Aviary.com's Myna. Myna is a web-based sound editor and .mp3 library all rolled into one. Picture a sound editor like
Audacity, but with its own catalog of copyright-free music. And it’s as easy as drop and drag to get sound tracks into the editor. The final product is a unique, original podcast, highlighting student voice, that can be downloaded or posted as a URL. Why this service fascinates me is twofold: 1) the integration of content and sound-editing engine, and 2) the steps involved in uploading music into the editor.
Hi teachers! As we all know, the pace of technology isn’t slowing at all, and resources that we’ve shared with teachers have, in some cases, been augmented with new tools. Included in this post are some of those new tools and some ideas on how you might use them in your classes. One I’m very excited about is
Aviary.com's Myna. Myna is a web-based sound editor and .mp3 library all rolled into one. Picture a sound editor like
Audacity, but with its own catalog of copyright-free music. And it’s as easy as drop and drag to get sound tracks into the editor. The final product is a unique, original podcast, highlighting student voice, that can be downloaded or posted as a URL. Why this service fascinates me is twofold: 1) the integration of content and sound-editing engine, and 2) the steps involved in uploading personal music into the editor.
Note that each student is required to think about his or her product being used by others. I think that this is profound: Students are asked to consider how their work is not the final step in their own creative process, but could be a stepping stone someone else’s project. What a fascinating prompt for discussions on attribution, intellectual property, and digital citizenship. We’ve always asked our students to consider their audience, but has it ever been couched quite like this? This is just one more shift brought about by technology. Students need to consider that their published products are not just reviewed, assessed, and evaluated by others, but used by others. And isn’t having your work sampled, cited, mashed-up an evaluation? By the way, the idea of not having a final, published draft isn’t entirely new. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass comes to mind.
So, note the Terms of Service call for an email account and that users need to be over 13, unless with the consent of a parent or guardian.
The next tool that I think has a place in the quiver is an EtherPad. This web- based editor works without registrations, can handle simultaneous editing, and color codes by author the contributions. Think Google Docs, but faster and far simpler. I can see this used in variety of ways: brainstorming, peer editing, class notetaking, test prep… The list goes on. If you value simplicity and immediacy, this is the tool for you. Also age 13 for Terms of Service.
Finally, I have had the real pleasure of helping a team of educators from Heritage High School prepare for a trip to Sierra Leone. There, they will help launch Heritage High School in Sierra Leone, which was made possible in part from the Heritage community’s contributions of $60,000 over the last three years. You can read all about their work, history and itinerary here. Where I come in is helping Ken Moritz, Principal, and Tony Winger, the HHS Instructional Coach prepare for their trip. To tell their story and share it with their community, they’ll be using a Flip Camera, a digital camera, a netbook, and the HHS Web page. We’re looking to have Ken and Tony Skype back to HHS, and connect kids from Africa with the Littleton students, via blogs. Two important takeaways here for me: the incredible work that the HHS community is doing for their African sister school, and how digital tools have become the mode of communication. One of the most important gifts Ken and Tony will leave behind is a laptop with a cell phone modem, giving HHS Kabala students an ongoing method to stay in touch with their sister school. I can think of no better gift for the students of both schools.
1 comment(s) so far...
Re: Resources and an observation or two...
Etherpad is a tool I used last year in grad school for collaboration. It is so much better than Google Docs for small groups and refreshes automatically. We found though the limit of 7 people on at a time. I introduced this to my kids for out of class group work. They really enjoyed it.
A couple other tools I introduced this year were xtranormal.com, and picture trail (introduced to me by Steve Wolf) and glogster (introduced to me by Heather Greenwood and our famous Chris Moore)
By AnneS on
11/4/2009 1:55 PM
|