Thunder

Apple have produced a DVD about podcasting in education, you can apply for it from here. I have just filled in the form myself so I can’t comment on the usefulness of it, but it’s free so I thought I would let you know about it and you can decide for yourself.

If anyone has already got a copy of it and would like to comment on its worth feel free to do so.

Explore new frontiers in learning.
Educators are discovering the teaching power of podcasts - audio and visual content delivered directly to a Mac, PC, or iPod/mp3 player. Teachers can create content that engages students in the learning process. Administrators are using podcasting to connect with parents, teachers, and the community. MP3 extends learning beyond the classroom, allowing students to access the content anywhere.

Free video series: “Podcasting in Education.”
Discover our three-part series and learn the basics of podcasting, how to use podcasting to help meet national standards, and how real administrators are using podcasting.

Last month I posted about Sir Ken Robinson’s talk for TED, over the last couple of days I revisted their TEDtalks blog and was pleased to see many more interesting talks. I will try and find some time after I return from holiday to download and listen to more of these, including Richard Baraniuk, Jimmy Wales (founder of wikipedia), Ross Lovegrove and Jeff Han.

I have spent the last couple of days leading cpd on the use of blogs and podcasting. My audience consisted of West Midlands ICT Consultants and members of the ICT team in Shropshire. All delegates set up an ethinkblog, links to these can be found on my sidebar in the ‘Consultants Blogs’ link category.

The morning of the session was used to introduce the wordpress blog and its functionality to the delegates, I will get around to putting some notes together to explain exactly what we did over the Summer break.

After lunch (see photos) which was at the local Abbey, we returned to a hot ICT room to continue the training.

To start the afternoon off we looked at Flickr and Del.icio.us, both technologies were well received and delegates set up accounts for future use. My flickr page can be accessed here and my del.icio.us page here, with my network here(that contains links to the other consultants del.icio.us accounts).

The rest of the afternoon was set aside to producing enhanced podcasts using Garageband on the ibooks, I am still looking for an equivalent piece of software for producing enhanced podcasts on the pc. I have found Podcaster by Kudlian Software - that appears to work on the pc but there doesn’t appear to be a pc download!

The podcasts can be heard on the various delegates blogs, here is an example. After publishing their podcasts we looked at subscribing to the podcasts with iTunes, and also investigated finding podcasts on iTunes. To complete the circle I demonstrated the use of Bloglines and Newsgator as examples of RSS aggregators.

Everyone agreed that there is great potential for these technologies in the classroom, both for teacher and student use. Hopefully we will try and produce a sample teaching unit or two that are based around these technologies. If anyone is interested in assisting with their production then leave a comment below and I will get in touch. I would also be keen to hear what the delegates thought about their days experience and what they plan to do next.

Today I took my podcasting roadshow to Sir John Talbot’s school in Whitchurch Shropshire, this is my local secondary school.

It was the year 6 induction day and the headteacher had asked me to get a group of 20 mixed year group students to record the events of the day. Prior to the day, just like at OWS, I emailed the students with a link to their blog and asked them to comment on the first six posts. Unfortunately not many of the students participated in this activity, this lead to me having to spend time going through the questions with them to assess what they knew already. The applications I had asked them to look at where all new to them - so today was going to be a big, but enjoyable, learning curve for them.

So after getting their brief and planning the questions they wanted to ask the year 6 students off they went with ibooks, mobile phones, mp3 recorders and digital cameras in hand to record their discussions.

The students were given a brief introduction to Garageband, iPhoto and iTunes to enable them to produce their enhanced podcasts. All photos taken throughout the day were uploaded to the schools Flickr account, they even caught me doing some work - I think I should frame it!

The students were really motivated and engaged with using the ibooks and ICT being more than spreadsheets and databases. All the teachers that popped their head in during the day were impressed with the work ethic and the buzz that was going around the room. It was amazing to see how much they produced. You can read their evaluations of the day here, at present there is only a couple but they have all agreed to add theirs comments tomorrow.
Please check out their blog and leave them some comments.

It was great to see the students so engaged in their work, there really is great potential in developing this kind of experience for our students. I will have to put some time aside during this Summer break to produce a unit of work for KS3 ICT lessons based around these collaborative and social technologies.

Today I ran a workshop as part of an RE conference at Oldbury Wells School in Bridgnorth. I had 4 sixth form students and 2 year 9 students, that had worked with me a couple of weeks ago.

Our role was to blog and podcast (using Garageband, iphoto and itunes) the events in the morning and to record and publish the question time event in the afternoon.

The blog can be found here - it isn’t complete as I am waiting for the information that the ethics group completed so I can upload it. Photos taken during the morning, mainly of the food group for some bizarre reason can be viewed on their flickr page, unfortunatley we ran out of space on the free account so I will need to upload the outstanding photos in August (I hope I remember). The websites that formed the basis of the ethics research can be found on their del.icio.us page tagged by ethics.

The question time mp3 is 58Mb at present so I will try and splice it up over the next few days and then upload it to the blog.

The year 9 students were stars, and commented that they wished their ICT lessons were more like this and not just using Office applications!

Tomorrow I am off to SJT to set up a blog and do some podcasting with a mixed age group of pupils.

20 September 2006, 4-6pm, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow

What is TeachMeet06?

Learn something new, be amazed, amused and enthused. This is an informal gathering of those curious about technologies.
Anyone can share cool ideas they have or great ideas they’ve triallled in their classrooms. Join us in person or via Skype.
We want things that have succeeded and which have failed. Whatever it takes to further the knowledge of the education community.

Click on the logo on the top right hand corner of the homepage for further details.

The enhanced podcast from the Telford ICT conference are now online at http://edu.blogs.com (part1 & part2).  This was an excellent keynote and well worth the time spent downloading and then watching on your preferred device (ipod video, pc or mac).

Earlier today I was fortunate enough to hear Ewan McIntosh talk about ‘10 ways to stay connected without losing your mind and why blogging isn’t one of them’. It was an excellent presentation, the only slight problem I had was that he didn’t have a long enough slot which lead to the final part of the presentation being rushed and there was no opportunity for audience questions. (If booking Ewan - you need to give him a couple of hours, an hour and a half at least.) Not only was the subject matter inspiring but the delivery was second to none that I have seen, I am sure he will publish his podcast from the day on his blog asap.

Many of the 100+ audience were inspired and challenged by what Ewan had to say, so much so that we should see an increase in the amount of blogs and podcasts originating from Telford.

Following his session Ewan and I made the trip to Church Aston Infant School to watch the students produce their first podcast. The podcast should appear on their website or newly created blog early next week. It was great to see this young students creating their own music to go in the podcast.

After lunch Ewan gave an impromptu session on podcasting using Audacity again a very well received session which just highlighted how well he knows his subject.  This podcast can be heard on his blog.

To conclude an excellent session, I am just waiting to listen to and see his enhanced podcast - if you are looking for a young inspiring keynote then Ewan is definately worth considering.  Keep up the good work Ewan McGregor, or was it Mr McEwan

After having a rest and watching the first half of Brazil v Croatia I have managed to spark up the laptop to post about the fabulous experience I had today.

About three weeks ago I was asked by Lisa Thomas at Oldbury Wells school if I could organise and deliver an ICT day for their able and talented pupils, I nearly bit her arm off So, today the day arrived and I was so nervous - it has been a long time since I spent a whole day teaching

Read the rest of this entry »

After my first exposure to producing a pocast I am keen to think about other places/subject area focuses I could use to produce more.  Below are some of my initial thoughts, but I would really appreciate comments by others, either experts in the field (like Ewan) or novices like myself. Read the rest of this entry »