K-6 Tech Talk

It has been a long time since I’ve posted here mostly because of other responsibilities that I have taken since April when I discovered that my position as a technology curriculum coordinator was eliminated from the school’s budget.  Fortunately, I’ll be back in the classroom rather than out of a job, so I can’t complain, but unfortunately, I will not be available for help integrating technology any longer.

For teachers in the district, I hope that you will continue to check the First Class K-6 Technology area in District Conferences for some helpful documents such as the SMART Notebook key code and website subscription information.  Also, our in-house video server (the NJN Content Server icon on your computer desktop) gives you access to many how-to videos in the “Digital How-To” section.

For any visitors, you are able to search this blog easily for content related to technology in education, and don’t forget about how-to videos on my YouTube page.  Also open to the public is our Tech Talk how-to video site.

Thank you for your kind words and all your help over the past three years.  Hopefully, I will return to this position when the district has enough money to support it.  With so many elementary students being exposed to great technology, I hope I can return to help them further develop their skills at the middle school level.

It’s NJECC Friday for April, and it’s a short meeting, so there may not be much to discuss today, but here are some highlights.

The conference in March was great, and next year’s conference will continue the focus on content-related workshops.  For example, there are a lot of SMART Board courses specific to science, math, language arts, etc.  Some classes will be added to highlight the many apps for the iPod Touch and iPad for education, and Flash animation will make a return.

Apple representative Dave Marra gave us a tour of the iPad. Yes, it’s cool, but do you need to carry another device?  Where’s the camera?  How about just adding the phone and a camera to it?

Julie M. Goldberg came to talk about 21st century learning from the librarian’s perspective.  What, really are the 21st century skills?  Partnership for 21st Century Skills is highlighted.  She likes Alfie Kohn who says 21st Century Schooling Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal.  Hey, the 21st century is 10% over!  Let’s start preparing students for the 22nd century!

POW!  No, it’s not Adam West fighting with the Joker’s henchmen.  It’s a Problem of the Week at Math Forum.

Drexel University has an amazing collection of math resources for teachers, and the Forum is your place to discuss math topics and find resources such as the Problem of the Week for any level of ability.

Windows Media Player is probably the application you use the most to watch videos, and it’s a good player, but what if you want to make some notes about a video while you watch it with your class?

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could annotate and diagram images from a video clip right on the SMART Board AND keep the still image with your notes?  You CAN if you use the SMART Video Player right on your desktop!

Look in the “system tray,” or “Windows notification area,” or “near the time in the lower-right corner of your screen” to see the SMART Board Tools icon (a white circle in a light blue box).  When you click on it (one time), you’ll see Video Player as the third item from the top.  Click it!

A video player window opens and you can open any video clip or any online video (just copy and paste the URL of the video) in the viewer.  Next, pick up a pen while the video is playing on the SMART Board, and the video freezes!  Write what you want, then use the capture button to save it to a Notebook page!  Fabulous!  Stay tuned for a video demonstration!

Today K-6 Tech Talk is coming to you from the 24th Annual NJECC  conference.  There will probably be many tips and tricks to pick up today (and the next two days as the conference continues), but we’re starting off with a keynote address from Will Richardson.  Keep checking today for news from the conference.

Will is talking now (his wiki is http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com) , and he’s all about the need for kids (and adults) to know HOW to learn.  With the capabilities of technology, learning can happen nearly anytime nearly anywhere, but how can kids possibly know what to do with that information?  What is valid and what is not?  Who are their models?

One thing adults can do is learn social networking skills.  This is considered a “tectonic” (or “techtonic”?) shift in how people relate to each other.  Consider the way gamers came to the aid of a blind person who wanted to learn how to play a video game.  This video on YouTube may help.  How are we, as teachers, preparing students to engage in this type of exchange?

Click image for full-size view

The sounds of silence–or not!  So your students have been using Audacity to record news events, interesting science facts, or stories they created, but getting the recording just right is a bit troublesome, and no one wants to try 15 takes.  Can the audio be edited?

Absolutely!  Audacity has some pretty advanced features, but removing unwanted bits is extremely easy.  Let’s take the simplest case: A student begins recording but doesn’t start talking for a few seconds.  Those seconds can seem like an eternity to a web-raised fourth grader, so she may think something is wrong when no sound is coming out of the speakers.

Step 1.  A recording has been made, and you can see the “vibrations” of the recording.

Step 2. Looking at the recording “vibrations” you’ll see that the line is quite flat where there is no talking.

Step 3. Simply highlight (just like you were selecting a word to change its font) the flat area where there is no talking in the recording.

Step 4. Hit the Delete key on your keyboard one time.  The silence was eliminated!

Step 5. Play the recording to make sure no part of the good content was eliminated.  If it was, just click Ctrl+Z to undo the deletion and try again.

These steps are particularly useful when a student is far into a recording and stumbles a bit but finally gets the speaking correct.  You (or the student actually) can simply edit the recording by deleting the bad segment!

Tip: If a recording is completely bad, and the student wants to delete it, then he needs to look for the little X in the upper-left of the recording bar.  That takes away that track, and allows the student to start anew.