Hey All,
Remember a couple of posts ago when I was comparing online applications like Second Life to a Star Trek Holodeck! Then check out this article! It's from Wired magazine, a magazine I would definitely recommend for those who want to find out about the latest in technology and technological advances. Virtual Sets Move Hollywood Closer to Holodeck, By Hugh Hart Check it out and imagine, what's next?
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2009/03/filmmakers-use.html

Time to go back to school!

Our assignment this week has been to take all of the wonderful online applications we've explored for the last few weeks, and apply them to a teaching unit of our choice. I found this to be a bit daunting because the last time I had to set up a unit or a lesson plan was in 1983 before I graduated from college. I am blessed, however, to have an advantage I didn't have 20 years ago. I have the internet to help me create a unit. My hardest decision was to actually choose a grade and subject. My final choice was the American Revolution, grade 8. I chose it because I love history, I work in a middle school (so it may be useful information to have available0 and my daughter is in 7th grade this year. She may just be interested in this information in the near future. (I was reminded we have 56 more days of school for this school year, yikes!)
The lesson plans examples are as infinite as the internet. http://www.lessonplans4teachers.com/templates.php offered excellent choices for lesson plan templates. I spent one afternoon with my best friend, who also happens to be a 3rd grade teacher,showing her the applications and lesson plan templates. I shared my technology knowledge with her while she shared her classroom knowledge with me; an excellent collaboration. My son helped with my Voki example on the classroom blog example http://mannshistorylesson.blogspot.com/. Although the assignment was time consuming, it did emphasize how easy it is to enhance any lesson plans with the infinite applications available today.

This week we also explored virtual worlds like Second Life, Gaiaonline and World of Warcraft. Through experimenting with Second life, I came to a realization. Second life reminds me of the holodeck on Star Trek; the Next Generation. On the holodeck, one can explore an alternate life, time period, analyze data and run test simulations as Data, Gordie and Captain Jen Luc Picard often did on many of the television episodes. I case you haven't guessed, I am a Trekkie. Not the wear-costumes-to-conventions kind, but the I-like-how-Captain-Kirk-keeps-talking-about-the-Prime-Directive-of-no-interference-yet-usually-destroys-a-planet's-culture kind of Trekkie. Star Trek is a phenomenon because Gene Rodenberry had insight. He and his writing team created communicators, replicators, phasers,and voice activated computers. This wouldn't be impressive except he created these items in the early 1960's long before our current technology boom. Now communicators look eerily like cell phones, voice activated computers are available and the military has the prototypes to phasers. That's a pretty good track record. I can see Second life as the forerunner of a holodeck. On the holodeck people move through computer simulated worlds interacting with three dimensional holograms. It's used for educational purposes, art and cultural recitals and entertainment. Yes, I can see Second life and virtual worlds like it becoming the precursor to future educational learning centers to engage students of the future. So as Jean Luc Picard would say, "Ahead. Warp factor two, engage!

Just believe!

Call me old fashion, but I am still not comfortable giving out personal information to a global market. I enjoy my privacy. At first I opened my FaceBook account with minimal information. That being said, my husband started peering over my shoulder, hinting about his interest in trying Facebook. “All my friends keep talking about it”, he murmured. I got the hint; I took a break from my account to help him set up his. I thought maybe I would get more out of the experience through the eyes of my husband? Nate is an adventurous type who will try a new product first before understanding the consequences

which is why I don’t allow him to play with my school laptop. We added all the suggested personal information and profiles; we gave FaceBook Nate’s email account so it could search for friends, etc. Nate found his friends plus many more people he hadn’t thought about in years. Nate took the plunge into social networking with both feet and he was rewarded with all these names from his past. So I thought, why not. If he can do it, so can I, right? To this day, I have to say, I’m glad I stuck my head from that turtle shell and entered the world of social networking. I have found past friends and relatives I haven’t heard from for years. My experience has inspired my sister, brother and even my 77 year old father to take the plunge on FaceBook. FaceBook is a site I plan on continuing in the future.

Lights! Camera! Action! But no professionals required.

This week in class we explored Online Multimedia. So, move over Hollywood, the World Wide Media Web has arrived! The biggest impact of multimedia on the internet is the ability of ANYBODY to express their opinions to the World. With a camera, microphone, computer and internet connections, we all are the media entertainment for this century. I personally find myself on the computer searching for sites that peak my interest more than I’m watching television lately. If I miss the latest episode of “Lost” I only need to wait for a short while before viewing the update or even a podcast on their website. What impact does this have on education? Overall, the concept is a positive one. Anyone “surfing the web” will find a variety of multimedia information available to answer their every quandary. Of course, the negative impact is that everyone’s opinions may not be the same as yours and not appropriate for the younger viewing audience. The stage is set. Let’s look at some of our prop and set designers.

Podcast Alley has a variety of podcasts available both educational and not-so educational. I found a sufficient number of podcasts to keep this site in my favorites for future use.

iTunes is known to me more for their music than their podcasts. However, there did offer a better choice than Podcast Alley in some subjects. I found they use mp4’s instead of a more common mp3 format for their videos and audio. This makes their music and video exclusive for their equipment. Although Zamzar could probably convert the MP4 format to MP3 (though I admit I didn’t try it)

Pandora offers and internet music experience. Register, type in your favorite music, sit back and listen. The difference with Pandora is they have classified the music. They classify types of music into “stations”, offering a variety of music in those stations, and we have the option of keeping which songs we want to keep in the station. You may receive the exact band you were looking for once or twice then it’s on to another band with a similar sound. How can it relate to education? All music is a reflection of their times. It could be used in a History or Social Studies class to show what the thoughts and opinions were of the year the class was discussing.

Europa Film Treasures a precious reflection of movies-past. Like music; these vintage movies are also a reflection of times gone by and also interesting historical insights into other countries and their viewpoint of the world.

YouTube My original opinion of YouTube was not the greatest. Our school, like many other school districts around the country, has had a low opinion of this site. YouTube’s mantra;“Broadcast Yourself” has invited people to do just that, broadcast themselves in scary detail on occasion. Schools are afraid of offering this site for fear of our young charges coming upon something they shouldn’t be seeing, especially while in a school setting. However, in my search for educational videos, TeacherTube was a safer location; yet YouTube had the most available, by far, then anything else I found this week. It could be because of the sheer number of people using this popular site.

VoiceThread I LOVE voicethread. I made two voicethreads this week. The one you see below and another for my girl scouts. I felt empowered by its easy usability. Voicethread doesn’t have the amount of videos that YouTube had. It didn’t have the educational focus of TeacherTube. What Voicethread does have is the ability of others to be an active participant in the learning process. VoiceThread give us the ability to comment, respond to that comment and edit what was originally entered. I like the way it goes beyond the “listen and learn” mentality of a basic video; entering into the “react and interact” mindset of the Read/Write Web’s future.

The Future; it brings up a good point; what does the future hold for us and the Read/Write Web? Ahh… that’s what we will be delving into in next week’s class… See you soon!

Podcast or video? What's the difference?

In class, our assignment was to find video and podcasts which will help to teach something required from Massachusetts Frameworks. For days I searched YouTube, TeacherTube, Podcast Alley, iTunes, and VoiceThread for a good selection of information. The more I searched, the vaguer the difference between videos and podcasts became. Wikipedia describes a podcast “ like a radio program except people can download a podcast to a portable media player (such as an iPod or other mp3 player) and listen to it at their convenience. Podcasts can have only sound or sound and video. A video podcast is sometimes called a vidcast. A podcast with sound and pictures (but not moving) is called an enhanced podcast. (Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast)” and for videos they use this description “The term video (from Latin: "I see") commonly refers to several storage formats for moving eye pictures). These definitions confused me further until I received clarification from our instructor. “If the images are stationary and the audio is informational and it calls itself a podcast than count it as a podcast. If the images are moving, it is a video. Video podcasts sometimes straddle the line - if the criteria above don't work - you can just pick!” Armed with that clarification I embarked on reacquainted myself with what is available on the World Wide Web.

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