Tag: audio

Capzles

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Capzles2929 views


What it is: Capzles is another interactive timeline maker. I really love all the little extras that Capzles has! With Capzles teachers and students can add photos, videos, audio, and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles also provides options when sharing your Capzle, it can be private with a specific list of who can view the Capzle or made public for the world to see.

How to integrate Capzles into the classroom: Obviously Capzles is a great way for students to create timelines about any subject. The web 2.0 collaborative aspect of Capzles makes it very appealing to students. I think Capzles could also be very valuable in the primary classroom. Students probably won’t be creating their own timelines in Capzles at this age, parent helpers paired with students to create simple timelines would be appropriate. Becasue Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast, Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Througout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines. Cool huh?!

Tips: When assigning students to create a timeline, direct them to concentrate on the “meat” of the timeline first. Then they can go back and design their timeline with themes, colors, and backgrounds. If you don’t specify they will spend all of their time tweaking the look and run out of time to add the content.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Capzles in your classroom.

Colorado Podcast Summit Revisted

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Colorado Podcast Summit Revisted2492 views

As promised the Colorado Podcast Summit that I participated in is now online. Be sure to listen to the Keynote speakers podcasts for truly inspiring ways to use podcasting in your classroom. If you are looking for my poster session, you can find it under the Poster Session section. Make sure to check out the Resources page where you can find downloads for podcating story boards, rubrics, research, copy right information, and more. You can get to the Colorado Podcast Summit online here: http://www2.bvsd.org/ipodsummit/Pages/default.aspx

Links Galore!

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Links Galore!2593 views

Normally I don’t like to just list links…I would much rather give you a snapshot of a website, give you ideas for implementing it into your classroom, and tips on what has worked for me. Today is different. If you are like me, you read a new idea and immediately want to implement it in your classroom but don’t always have the right resources to make it happen. I have so many links for podcasting that I am going to give them all to you in one shot and then break them down in another post. If you have the podcast itch, get podcasting and browse the links below for some hosting ideas.

The following links are FREE podcast hosting sites (a place to store your teacher or student created podcasts where listeners can access and/or subscribe to your podcasts).

Global Classroom http://globalclassroomusa.org- Expect to see a post dedicated to this one, it is so much more than just a podcast hosting site.

My Podcast http://www.mypodcast.com

Podango http://podango.com

Switchpod http://www.switchpod.com

Podbean http://www.podbean.com

Podcast Summit

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Podcast Summit2751 views

As promised I want to share some of the incredible uses of podcasting in the classroom that I heard at the Colorado Podcast Summit yesterday. One of the keynote speakers was ISTE Primary Teacher of the Year Carol Greig. Her Keynote entitled “Podcasting for the Struggling Reader” was truly inspiring. Carol teaches kindergarten in the Eugene School District in Oregon, here she started a podcasting program for her struggling readers called Reading Buddies. The Reading Buddies program uses several iPod shuffles that are loaded with reading lessons (created and recorded by Carol) that go home with the students. Carol said something that I think rings true with educators everywhere, “No one can teach my students as well as I can.” Reading Buddies allowed Carol to go home with her students every night using the iPod. The goal of the Reading Buddies program was to help struggling readers reach the benchmark. Carol loaded the iPods with reading lessons based on the individual child’s needs, this provided guided learning at home with and extended student learning. In the Reading Buddies packs Carol included vocabulary picture cards which she created, fluency cards, a book or two and the iPod Shuffle. A sample lesson might sound something like this: “Take out the green picture card. What picture do you see first? That’s right, a cat! Cat starts with the letter C. Cat, Cat. What is the next picture?” Carol pauses after a question so that the students have time to think and respond. The Reading Buddies program helps kids with vocabulary, fluency, alphabetic principal, rhyming, phoneme segmentation, and literature. The iPod “buddies” have been a huge success with 99% of students reaching the reading benchmark by the end of the year. Carol started getting calls from parents requesting that their student be a part of the Reading Buddy program, parents and other educators in the district started offering help to create the recordings for the Reading Buddies. At the end of the first year a parent called to thank her for the wonderful program and things it had done for her son, but she also benefited. After her son went to bed, the mother would listen to the reading buddy and follow along, she learned English by listening to her kindergarten son’s Reading Buddy! There are some good rules that were set up for the students who have reading buddies, each child was told that only the child who was given the Reading Buddy was allowed to use it, if a Buddy was lost or broken the students family was responsible for replacing it. It is a privelege that can be taken away if the Buddies were not cared for. They have never had to take a Buddy away or replace one that was lost or broken by a student. The future of the Reading Buddies program includes expansion to other grades, older students could have their anthologies or science text recorded on the Shuffle. The Reading Buddies program won the presidential award for reading and technology…it is easy to see why!

The new iPod Nano would be great to use as a reading buddy because students could have audio and visual presented. The Shuffles are nice because they are so affordable (the 1G just dropped to $49 yesterday!) I am hoping to get a Reading Buddy Program up and running at my school. I will keep you posted with any success stories or lessons learned!

ClickCaster

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on ClickCaster4497 views

What it is: ClickCaster allows you and your students to create a podcasting channel that can be subscribed to via RSS feed as well as publish and embed your podcast for integration with classroom blogs or wikis. The ClickCaster platform is extremely easy to use with professional results. ClickCaster offers different levels of service the most basic is free but only includes 125MB of storage. The other levels are very affordable and ClickCaster gives teachers $3 off of their standard package.

How to integrate Click Caster into the classroom: ClickCaster is a great way to publish your classroom podcasts. Other classrooms and parents can subscribe to the podcast through RSS feed or visit your channel for a complete list of your podcasts. Publish a weekly radio show where your students give a synopsis of what they have learned throughout the week. Or, create podcasts where your students get to be the “expert” on a subject. No matter what the subject, ClickCaster will make publishing your podcasts for others simple.

Tips: Sign up for the basic limited account (free) to find out just how simple ClickCaster is to use…you will be hooked in no time!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ClickCaster in your classroom.

VoiceThread

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on VoiceThread1941 views

What it is: VoiceThread brings Web 2.0 communication to presentations. Slide show presentations are no longer static, VoiceThread makes them interactive collaborative learning experiences. Features include: the ability to create voice comments, voice recording within a browser allows for recording of multiple voices, doodling which captures drawing as an animation synced to voice or text commentary…listeners can watch the process, voice threads can be embedded in other sites, one account can have many identities so a classroom can switch identities on the fly without having to sign out, media importing so slide show presentations and pictures become collaborative conversations, comment moderation abilities, and the ability to zoom in and pan images.

How to integrate VoiceThread into the classroom: VoiceThread has hundreds of uses, the following are a few that I came up with. Use VoiceThread to create a time line of the students day. Students can record themselves describing different events of the day. Parents and out of town family can see what happens on a typical day in your classroom. Debates can be hosted and conducted using Voice Thread. VoiceThread can make history interactive, for example, host an art history artist critique and discussion. Create a book group using VoiceThread where students interact and discuss their reading together. Students can read their stories and record as a VoiceThread (this also makes a special keepsake!). Teachers can use VoiceThread for math problem demonstrations, step by step science “experiments”, staff training, or to teach a second language. Computer teachers, what about creating Voice Threads to teach your students when you can’t be there? This would make life easy for a substitute and ensure that your students are on track when you return.

Tips: Go to the “help” section of VoiceThread for some great interactive tutorials.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using VoiceThread in your
classroom.

Gabcast

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Gabcast2348 views


What it is: Gabcast is a podcasting and audioblogging website that offers an easy way to create and distribute audio content. The most amazing part of this resource is that students can actually use a touch-tone cell (yes I said cell phone, put them to good use!) or land line telephone to make their recordings. Gabcast also provides worldwide access to the sevice through VoIP. Once a student has mad a recording and had it published, a newsfeed is automatically updated to alert subscribers (like other classrooms, students or parents) to your channel.

How to integrate Gabcast into the classroom: What makes Gabcast so ingenious to me is that there is no need for fancy equipment (i.e. immediate computer access or microphones) to record a quality podcast. If you don’t have a classroom computer, or want to be using the computer for other activities or centers, Gabcast is a perfect solution for creating podcasts. Gabcast is an outstanding alternative to more ‘traditional’ methods of podcasting. Students could also easily create podcasts from home since the only equipment needed is a telephone. Use Gabcast to create a weekly radio type broadcast for the rest of the school or learning buddies, create audio books for other students, or for interviewing others. Bring along a cell phone on field trips and record audio clips (like of animal sounds at the zoo). This tool would be wonderful for auditory learners. The possibilities with Gabcast are nearly endless.

Tips: Gabcast is a toll free call, visit the overview page for the toll free phone number for your country. You can embed Gabcast on your school, or classroom website or blog.

Podcast

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Podcast2257 views

 

What it is: A podcast is a digital media recording that can be saved on and distributed over the Internet.

How to use Podcasting in your classroom: Use a podcast to record students reading. This can be used for reading records, for pronunciation, and reading fluency. Students, teachers, and parents can listen to reading records recorded over the course of the school year for fluency and progress made. Podcasts can also be used to share news with students and families, guest speakers, student presentations, student produced podcasts, lessons, assessment, digital stories, motivation, auditory learners, celebrating student work, interactive media center, a tool to help struggling students, to provide a “window” to your classroom for parents, and to show student growth at parent teacher conferences.

Tips: Podcasts can be created using several programs such as Apple’s Garageband (this application comes standard on Macintosh computers), Audacity which is a free open source software for recording and editing sounds, and My Podcast where podcasts can be recorded and hosted for free.