Category Archives: Technology Resources

So Long, Cinch

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http://castabigger.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cinch-logo.png

I was saddened to see that one of my favorite podcasting sites — Cinch.fm — is shutting down. I guess I can’t be too surprised. It was free, and in the end, free sites run the risk of slowly being put out to pasture by companies. Still, Cinch worked nicely for me, as a writer and as a teacher. One of the things I loved is how Cinch could be accessed across multiple platforms, so my students used the Cinch App on our iPod touches to do podcasting while I often shared the audio from the Cinch website onto our classroom blog. I also called into Cinch more than a few times from my cell phone to podcast reflections from conferences.

And it was free.

But this is what they emailed me, and what is posted on their website:

Dear Cinch.FM Users,

We’re sorry to announce that the Cinch.FM web site and iPhone application will be shutting down on August 20, 2012.

After this date, no new content will be accepted, and your iPhone application will cease to function. Also, no new Cinch.FM accounts will be allowed after the 20th.

Those of you with Cinch.FM accounts will be able to download your content by logging into your account. The content will be available for you to download for two months, until October 20, 2012. Any Cinch.FM players you’ve published on your blog or other web site will continue to function during this time, and the RSS feeds will also continue to work.

After October 20, 2012, all Cinch.FM content and services will be terminated. You must download your content before this date, or it will be lost!

– Cinch.FM

I’m now going to have go see what I want to download and save from my personal and classroom Cinch sites, and then begin the research of finding an alternative for my classroom, in particular. Any ideas? I want to find something easy to use, that has an app and web version, and is free. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

So long, Cinch. I really enjoyed you as a platform for getting my voice, and my students’ voices, out into the world.

Peace (in the podcast),
Kevin

Using Mozilla’s Pop-Up Video Tool on Dav Pilkey

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Mozilla Popcorn Popup Videos

I’ve been interested in the various tools that Mozilla has been putting out around hacking the web (with HTML5), and my son was in a video class this summer that used the beta version of Popcorn, the new video tool of Mozilla. One offshoot version of Popcorn is Pop-up, which allows you to layer in pop-up text on online videos in a fun way. I decided to talk back to Dav Pilkey in a short PSA video he did around reading.

View my pop-up video here

You can access the tools via Mozilla’s Webmaker site. Things are still in beta, but all of these tools would be useful for the classroom, particularly around the idea of hacking the web. You can see my post earlier this summer about Thimble, the website creator education tool from Mozilla.
So go on, give it a try. Think of it all as emerging legit hacker tools for kids.
Peace (in the pop),
Kevin

Using Edmodo as a Summer Reading Space

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This summer, I have been experimenting with Edmodo social networking with my incoming sixth grade students. It began with some conversations with a teacher in Texas who was interested in learning more about using technology, and I suggested we join forces and launch Edmodo for a collaborative summer reading project. Our students are reading The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg and responding periodically in our shared Edmodo space to discussion prompts.

I’ve been interested in both the function of Edmodo, which is talked about a lot in teacher circles, and in finding ways to connect summer reading with writing in an online space. The collaborative element with friends in Texas is sort of like icing on the cake.

I have mixed feelings on Edmodo. One one hand, as the video overviews hows, it offers up some great possibilities for collaboration in a networking space that feels comfortable to students. Teachers have flexibility on sharing, moderating and more. And there are various communities for teachers to participate in on Edmodo, which allows extension of learning networks. Parents can be invited to view the work going on in classroom spaces (as observers), and you can even make some or all of the space public (see below). My students seem to have adjusted nicely to using the space with no help from me at all (I visited their classroom for one quick overview in June and handed out a paper with some basic instructions, but other than that, they have been on their own with their book and Edmodo). I think that demonstrates the ease-of-operation of Edmodo in a nice way.

edmodo sample

See some of our discussions around historical fiction and Homer Figg

But I also find Edmodo strangely limiting in its structure, and it may just be that I don’t find my way through its structure all that intuitive. Threaded discussions don’t happen all that naturally, it seems to me, and I am not all that high on the design of the site (which, I know, seeks to mimic Facebook, whose design I absolutely hate). And while Edmodo is free for schools, I worry about all of the funding it is starting to gather from venture capitalists (it just raised another $25 million).

So, we should be paying attention to these developments and wonder how those investments are going to pay off. Is there going to be advertising? Data mining? Corporate partnerships? There has to be something in works beyond philanthropy by the investors when it comes to that much money for a space dedicated to young people. That worries me. (see this nice overview of Edmodo to go deeper into the growth and shifts of the platform)

Peace (in the space),
Kevin

 

Hacking an Image with Tags and Text

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Someone shared this site — ThingLink — as part of a Connected Educator activity (head here to see the activity, which involves adding tags and text to an image of an old classroom), and so, I dove in and added text and links to my Connected Me photo. Now, text and links should pop up when you hover over sections of the image.
I guess you can add links and text even if you are not registered and signed in, so that is interesting to consider for classroom use. My Connected Me image is not open to collaborative tagging. (I am not sure if you can moderate, however.) I’m trying to embed it here, to see if the tags and links work as an embed, too.
BUT: here is one that you can try. I “borrowed the image” from the wonderful Visual Writing Prompts site.

Peace (in the connections),
Kevin

 

Understanding the I Search Idea

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Next week, a colleague and I will continue our work with a group of teachers in a local school district as we explore more integration of writing into the classroom. We had begun our first week by diving into the Common Core, and now we are using the wonderful resource — Content-Area Writing — as the stepping stone into helping teachers understand the power of writing to learn. During our time together, we are going to be helping scaffold an I Search project, which is based around personally inquiry.

I created the overview above with PowToons, just to give an idea of what an I Search is all about. Meanwhile, I, too, am embarking on an I Search project. My topic? What does science have to do with throwing a baseball pitch? It’s one of those things that I was never good at (pitching) but I watch my sons with wonder as they toss a variety of pitches that makes the ball do funny things in the air. I want to know why that happens, and if there are ways for me to throw a oddball pitch.

Peace (in the searching),
Kevin

 

Scoop it: Writing in a Digital Age

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For some time, I’ve noticed folks using a site called Scoop.it to collect/curate information. I finally took the plunge recently during a collective curation suggestion by some friends in an inquiry study group at P2PU, and then branched off to create my own Scoop page around “writing in a digital age.” As I gather and find articles around this topic of how writing may/may not be changing with technology, I am adding them into the Scoop news. (So far, I think I have pretty interesting pieces up there.)
I’ll write more about Scoop another day (I am thinking of how this site compares to paper.li for gathering and distributing news and articles).

See what you think.

Peace (in the scoop),
Kevin

 

Poetry Experiment with PowToons

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I’m a sucker for trying out new tools, just to see the possibilities. Here, I received an invite to a new site called PowToons that might be another alternative to powerpoint and prezi as a presentation tool. It builds a bit off the idea of a comic interface. I used it to create a short poem, as part of a discussion in another online space around writing.
Peace (in the echoes),
Kevin

Embedded Tech in Common Core PD

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One of my goals for working with educators around the Common Core is to showcase how technology and media also fit into ways that we can engage our students as composers and creators. During two full-day sessions this week, I led a group of teachers not only through the layers of Common Core in our state, but also through various technology tools that were part of the learning. In other words, I tried to embed the technology as much as possible, and then made that embedding visible, so that teachers might see some possibilities for doing the same in their classroom.

Here are some of the technology ideas we used:

Feedback at the end of our two days together indicated an appreciation of deeper understanding of the Common Core standards, but also an appreciation of how technology was used in meaningful ways as part of the learning. As I told them, I hoped I was planting some seeds for them for the future, and that by using the technology themselves for learning, they might transfer that to their students.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

 

The Changing/Unchanging Literacies of Our Times

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The creator of this video — Frank Romanelli — shared his work in an online inquiry group I am part of. It’s a fantastic and intriguing video — from content to presentation. Notice how the theme is the ever-increasing importance of teachers even as literacy is undergoing change. The power of writing — in whatever form — still remains a powerful force of expression and understanding.

Peace (in the literacy),
Kevin