Student Podcasts!

I have been reflecting lately on my digital destination due to this year's NYSCATE theme of "Discovering Your Digital Destination." I've been thinking about how much my personal learning has evolved and how much my teaching has changed. I've realized I owe it all to podcasting. Yes, podcasting.

I have met some fantastic people through the many podcasts I have produced. My PLN has grown in ways that were impossible only a few short years ago.

We were one of the first to use podcasting in eduaction and have been spreading the word since our first podcast nearly 3 tears ago. We have created a CD that outlined how to use podcasting in the classroom. We no longer have that available.

I have begun to write a book about student podcasts. I was inspired by David Warlick to do this. I do not consider myself a write so it should be interesting. I am going to try to self publish it online. It was through this self reflection and seeing where my journey has gone that gives me the confidence to try my hand at writing this book.

I will begin the process of asking my network for help with this endeavor. So, if you could tell me how you have used podcasting in your classroom or school I would really appreciate it. You can tell me stories of your experiences or even a colleague. I would be very interested in the information.

You can comment here or twitter me at mdionne. Here is a list of podcasts I am involved in.

The TechPodZone
PSUCast
Room 531
Hall Pass

Thanks so much for being part of my PLN.

Access Denied!

I recently gave a presentation at the annual NYSCATE conference. The topic was Personal Learning Networks. My discussion was more about what my PLN has done for me and my teaching and learning than about how to create and use a PLN. You can see my presentation at the NYSCATE Wiki. I used google docs for the slide show. I also tried to backchannel, but the wireless connection was not very good.

My partner could not make it this time. Rob Hansen tried to connect from home via Skype, but again the Internet connection did not work well enough for us to use it. I was disappointed about the lack of a good Internet connection. There were two activities that we could not demonstrate because of it.

During the conversation I realized a couple of things. One was that there are an awful lot of people who are seeing actual web 2.0 activities for the first time. The second thing I observed was that most people there were frustrated with their abilities to use these tools online because they are being blocked at school.

I see this as one of the major roadblocks if not the major roadblock that we face. Why? This is something that we can control. I do believe in some level of filtering, but not excessively. Especially when educational tools are blocked.

I attend several tech meetings during the school year with techies from all levels. So far the reasons that I am hearing for the excessive blocking are."That's my job", and "We need to protect the kids!". Once you get into a discussion with them you can tell that the real reason for this behavior is to protect their job. Why do we let this false sense of security trump our kids education?

There are some people who take this as a challenge. I believe there is more energy spent trying to stay ahead of the kids than there would be educating them. I think it is hypocritical of us as educators to out right ban the use of technology when we can educate the kids to use it appropriately. We believe kids can be taught higher order thinking, math, science, etc., but we can't teach them how to use the Internet appropriately?

Fear should not rule here. I think if you create a culture of trust you can get so much more from your students. Once students are taught how the technology should be used in schools they will for the most part behave accordingly. Yes, you can point to a few every now and then that will cross that line but then deal with it. Way to often we make blanket policies to deal with individual problems.

I believe you should trust, but verify. This actually takes less time than waiting and watching for violators. Some techies are proud to say that they beat the kids at their game. I wonder why you need to play the game at all!

Personal Learning Networks!

When I am asked, "How did you figure that one out?", I answer with "It's the network!" Now I don't have the large group of people to point to like the guy in the phone ad, but they're there.

Personal Learning Networks (PLN) have been around and discussed forever. People have coined many phrases to describe this concept. No matter what you call it, it's the social aspect that makes the network so valuable.

Our networks used to consist of mostly physical tangible resources and people. They consisted of our colleagues who were close at hand. In fact, our network was geographically centric. The closer the resource or person was to you the more you relied upon them. The only time your networked area grew was when you physically moved. Occasionally your network expanded for a brief moment when you used the phone. This was very rare because most classrooms did not have a phone and still do not.

Now your network is not bound by physical location or geographic area. We can work with anyone from anywhere. We just have to reach out. Whenever I do reach out I am astounded with the number of people willing to share.

I am presenting at NYSCATE, NY State's annual tech conference next week. My topic is PLN. I will be discussing the tools I have used and implemented in my classrooms. Here is a link to my presentation. I will post the entire presentation after November 25th.

However I would like to discuss some personal experiences I have had since I've jumped into the "Network".

It's been a Zillion Internet Years Since I Posted Last!

It's been a very busy year at school. I have talked with several colleagues and we all agree that this year seems to be more hectic than ever. It seems that my schedule doesn't allow for any disruptions. If one or more occur than my whole day is in chaos. I haven't had the time to read my blogs and write. Does anyone else feel this way?

As I prepare for my presentation at NYSCATE this year I am reminded to follow some of my own advice. One of the pieces of advice I will be presenting is to keep your blog roll down to a manageable number. Mine has over 40 blogs in it. Now I'm sure that is small compared to some.

So what did I do about it? I found myself with only enough time to actually keep up with 4 or 5 of the blogs. Then, along came Flock. A new web browser that bills itself as a social web browser. I really like Flock. It has a feed reader built in. I now have only 4 or 5 blogs in Flock that I read. The others are in Bloglines and I get to them when I have time.

I hope to keep this blog more up to date. You can also listen to my podcast over at Podcasternews. It's called Hallpass and I discuss technology tools that can be used in the classroom.

Well, got to go and discover what's new out there. Maybe I'll bump into you!

Inspiration

I was just inspired by our 8th grade class to create a post for my blog. Thank you kids!

About a week ago I was invited into our 8th grade English class to teach them how they could use a classroom blog. The teacher was so excited and immediately adapted a project for use with Class Blogmeister. I helped the teacher implement the program and showed the students how to use the blog.

Tonight I thought I would take a look at how they have progressed. Wow, am I impressed and inspired. This was the first time blogging for this teacher. I am impressed with how well they all have done with this tool.

If you haven't started blogging with your students you really need to. Let this serve as an inspiration to you as well.

Where will it all end?

Is this where I'm heading?

Oh my! I am sitting here in my usual spot on the couch, with my feet up, listening to podcasts, and reading my blogs. Oh, it's 6:00 am, Saturday and I'm enjoying the quiet time.

The difference now is that I have 2 laptops I'm using at the same time. Am I going nuts? My regular laptop is tied up uploading my student podcasts to our server. I am also doing grades.

My other laptop is a brand new Eee PC. Wow what a great little device! We will definitely get some of these for our elementary students next year. It would also be great for several teachers as well.

So while my full size laptop chugs away, I have found more things to try. You just never know what treasures await you when you enter the network! Here are a few.

http://openpd.wikispaces.com I am hoping to share and learn from this group.
http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/education-pack Great Twitter resource

We held a class for teachers using our new professional development tool. Moodle. I think this is going to be an exciting tool for our teachers. What a way to teach Web 2.0 concepts.

Check out these links for other resources:

http://www.trailfire.com/mdionne
http://del.cio.us/mdionne
http://www.twitter.com/mdionne

Oh, gotta go, my other laptop is done.............geeeesh!

If you are anything like me you started your tech trek several years ago. Maybe even used a TRS 80 or even a VIC 20/C64.

Back then the major source of computer information was a magazine. There were several to choose from. Believe it or not, I still subscribe to one magazine and it is a computer magazine.

Truthfully, I have been thinking I should not renew it next time. Until today. The most recent issue did a piece on free and open source software. Most of the list I recognized but there were enough nuggets to keep me subscribed for another year.

Besides it is still more comfortable curling up with a magazine than with my laptop. Here's what I found:

Nanoscan
Comodo
Adobebuzzword
YouConvertit
ooVoo
Windows Live Photo Gallery
IE7pro