rgallwitz

 I had to post this video of one of our students singing the National Anthem this past Saturday night at the Div I boys state basketball finals in front of 13,000 fans. To say the least it was very exciting and we are all very proud of her.

I have used the common craft videos with my staff regarding blogs and wikis. Now that I have learned to embed them I plan to create a professional development page full of help videos. The possibilities are endless.

Well I may have cheated a little. I had made a recording a few weeks ago of myself reading one of my kids favorite books, Food Fight. I used Garage Band to compile, edit and include sound effects. The process was not that difficult and was actually fun. Once I figured out Gcast the process went even smoother. I did have trouble when I tried to upload the file to Gcast. I had not saved it as an MP3 file. Also, word of advice, create a new folder on your computer for items you plan to upload to your podcasting host site. I didn't the first try and couldn't find it. 

I did embed my podcast on my wiki in the sandbox. It is titled web 2.0 journey.  If you vist my wiki you will need to mute my slide show by clicking audio button on the slide show. The music starts automaticly when you open the page. The podcast is at the top and the slide show is at the bottom. You may need to scroll down a bit.

I still need some practice with podcasting. In the future I would love to create podcasts as a way communicate with parents on our school web page, or daily podcasts for students that would include the daily morning annoucements.

I wanted to share an article I read using my reader account. Titled: As economy falters, interest in teaching surges. Basically the article is about people getting into the field of education through alternative means. I thought I would also post a quote from the article and hopefully you can check it out and form your own opinion. Before I do though I have to say that yes there have been a number of great individuals come from the business word and become successful teachers but there are some who also struggle. I am somewhat disturbed that some individuals  make it to the classroom with only content knowledge while others take hours of classes the traditional way. Pedagogy and content knowledge are both important.

Quote:

Friends had always said she would make a good teacher, and Salvans thought they were right. She applied to Texas Teaching Fellows, a program like Chicago's that trains teachers in the summertime and lets them teach full time in the fall.

She had to go through a rigorous, six-hour interview.

"Part of the interview was that you had to do a teaching session for five to 10 minutes," Salvans said. "I thought, `Well, I haven't taught science.' But what I would do all the time is teach women about makeup and their faces.

"So I got pencils and toothbrushes at the dollar store and taught everybody how to measure out and find the best eyebrow shape," she said.

 

Sorry Derick!

Leading the Change
Teaching Web 2.0 - Everything you need in one place

 http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com

The conference included a helpful video and voicethread including essential questions but I spent a great amount of time  on the supporting link/wiki also listed above. I actually joined it! The wiki includes numerous web 2.0 tools and a breif description and S.W.O.T evaluation of each tool. (Strengths, Weaknesses,  Opportunities, Threats) The S.W.O.T evaluation of the web 2.0 tools is really valuable to educators searching for tools to use in the classroom. It provides a different perspective, the good, bad and risks involved. 

I really think the title was a little decieving. I gained a great deal of information about "everything in one place" but not so much about "leading change". 

I found the wiki very valuable and plan to use it in the future.

I really enjoyed playing with www.befunky.com.  The above pictures are my son. As you can see there are a number of ways to edit photos. I chose to change my picture of him into a cartoon. You can also transform pictures to look as though they were created with charcoal pencil. It was edicting and very fun. I could see students using this to create their own art work or to enhance presentations.

I also enjoyed blabberize.com. At this site you can edit photos and add audio comments to the picture.You change the picture so the mouth moves with audio comments to appear as though the picture is talking. The possiblities are endless with this. I see teachers using this to edit pictures of historical figures as part of lessons. It could be interesting and fun for the students.