Category Archives: Technology Resources

The DAOW of Digital Literacy

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I am always curious about various models that help situate digital media and composition. A friend shared this diagram at our National Writing Project iAnthology site where we have been continuing a discussion around digital writing and I thought it was interesting. It comes from Jason Ohler, who has written some very instructive pieces and books on digital storytelling that are well worth your time. I love Ohler’s  emphasis on the artistic process coming in line with the writing process, and also the delivery of the writing through oral tradition.

You can find more about this at his website.

Peace (in the DAOW),
Kevin

Using UJam to write Songs

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I heard about UJam from a blog post from my friend, Gail D. (aka Blogwalker) and decided to give it a try. I’m always interested in music applications and this one is designed to create songs with your voice. The program analyzes your vocals, and then adds backing music (on a genre that you choose). Or you can make your voice the instrumental track. It’s not perfect, but of course, I didn’t spend hours on it, either.

I quickly wrote this song and recorded it.

Hey Education Man

Hey, Education Man, you really have no clue
My kids have sharpened pencils and they do the best they can do
But all you want is data points – a graph to share online
If you come into my classroom, you’ll see creative minds

I could not get the rhythm of the singing in complete sync with the music, but there is a step where you can do some of that. (I ran out of time). You can also tweak the chords, tinker with the effects, and do a host of things to your music before publishing. When you publish, you can share it at UJam or download it to your desktop.

For students, UJam might be a nice experimental place to try to create cool soundtracks for projects.
Peace (in the songwriting),
Kevin

Using Fakewall for Webcomic Character Facebook

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Booleans Fakewall Page
A participant in our Western Massachusetts Writing Project Summer Institute asked me to help her find some resources for a project that she hopes to do this year, using fake Facebook sites with her students to create posts for characters from various novels. She also wondered if there was a place to do this where kids (as literary characters) could interact (in character). That gives the idea a little wrinkle.

After a little research, this what I wrote to her:

First of all, here are some possibilities for creating your own “social network” concept in your classroom:

  • Edmodo is a free networking system for schools. I have not used it but plenty of teachers swear by it and love it. http://www.edmodo.com/ It is closed system, and designed to at least resemble the idea of Facebook within a teacher-monitored framework
  • Edublogs — You could set up blogs for your students, or a single classroom blog (which is what I do) where students contribute to the site. (now ad-free, by the way). http://edublogs.org/
  • Kidblogs — Another free site that popped up last year. I have not used it but other teachers have said they like it. It’s for elementary and middle school students, so there are some limits to what they can do as bloggers. That may not matter, though. http://kidblog.org/home.php
  • Ning — here, you create a real social network, and you can make it private or public. They do have a free service for teachers, sponsored by Pearson (which makes me wary), or paid services. The lowest is about $20 a year, I think. I believe users need to be 13 or older to use it. https://www.ning.com/
  • WordPress — another free blogging platform.

But, if you are looking to replicate Facebook for literary characters, you need to check out:

I hope that all helps. I’d be interested in knowing how it goes for you. If you are at the University level, the Ning platform would be the way to go, if you want my opinion. You could also use some of the Fake Facebook Templates and then embed them into Ning, where conversations could take place.

But I knew I needed to show her, too, and since I had no experiences with this, I decided to use Fakewall to set up a fake Facebook page for my webcomic character, Boolean from Boolean Squared. To be honest, he is not the sort who would stay long on Facebook — too mainstream for a hacker like him. But still …

I found Fakewall very easy to use, and it seems like a simple way for a teacher to bring the concept of social networking around literary characters into the classroom setting. The only downside is that others cannot comment on a page, so the entire fake page is really the work of one person.

See Boolean’s Fakewall Page

Peace (on the fake page),
Kevin

Ad-Free Edublogs

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home

This is good news. Edublogs — which is where my blog and my blogs for my classroom are hosted — has announced that is now advertising-free. In the past few years, you had to pay for the premium service to remove ads (and get a host of other cool tools but it was the advertising that generated criticism) and to be honest, I have gladly paid for it for this blog and will continue to do so. I have been a huge fan of Edublogs through the years, even during its various growing pains, glitches and more. I have stood with it because I have valued the service and sort of feel like Edublogs is part of my virtual home.

And now I can recommend Edublogs more highly ever to other teachers.

I always warned folks of the advertising because if you are using sites with kids, you should avoid shoving ads into their eyeballs. And not all teachers want or have the resources to pay the $40 a year to get a premium service. With the announcement, that roadblock is gone. In reading the press announcement, it seems like the company has finally reached a critical mass to become profitable enough to go without ads (they are seeking their one millionth blog — wow).

Thank you, Edublogs.

Peace (in the ad-free world),
Kevin

Simple Diagrams is Simple

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DayinSentence
I saw a few folks talking about Simple Diagrams, a software platform that runs on Adobe Air. It can be used to make, well, simple diagrams and it works quite nicely. The diagram gets outputted as an image file. There’s a playful essence to it, I think, which might come in hand with kids in the classroom. There is a free version and a paid version of Simple Diagrams, but the free version gives you quite a large toolbox to work from, although one limitation is the inability to save a diagram in progress. I created this one for Day in a Sentence in a short bit of time.

Peace (in the play),
Kevin

From Digital Ethnography: A Video Collage

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You need to check this project out from Prof. Wesch and his students as they continue to explore the impact of technology on students. (Did one student say that 75 percent of what he knows he learned from Youtube?)

Here is what Prof. Wesch says at their blog:

Today the Digital Ethnography Research Team of 2011 is proud to announce the release of the Visions of Students Today: a “video collage” about student life created by students themselves and presented using the wonders of HTML5, allowing us to “cite” books and videos that are being presented in the remix as they are being shown.

Since the call for submissions went out in January we have received hundreds of submissions. The remix in the middle of the screen is in many ways a video of my own experience viewing these videos, shot from my own point of view. You see me sifting through videos, putting them in piles, checking resources, reading and re-reading the lines that have informed and inspired me. It took me 3 months to sift through these materials; you get to race through them in 5 minutes.

But just as important, check out all of the other various strands that come alive with this project, as students take the videos and ideas in different directions. You will have to read the blog post there to get a better sense of what I am talking about, or click inside the video collage itself to follow other strands (wow — html5 does open up some new possibilities, doesn’t it?).

What comes through loud and clear is a growing transformation of the daily lives of young people, and the question of whether traditional education is meeting their needs for learning, exploring and making a difference on the world. And we get to hear that story directly from the students.

Peace (in the collage),
Kevin

Speaking out the Essay on the iPod

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I walked into a room the other day, thinking my son was talking to me. He wasn’t. He was talking to his iPod.

Using the free Dragon Dictate app, he was doing his “final version” of an essay about Sparta for class, moving from a rough draft on paper to a final version on his iPod. I watched as he read his piece, and then edited the text on Dragon (for Greek towns and words that it didn’t know), and when done, he emailed it to me to print off for him. I have to admit: the final product looked pretty decent.

I had to ask him — why use Dragon instead of typing?

His reply? “It’s easier this way. I can get it done faster.” Of course, I would have preferred something along the lines of “This captures my voice in ways writing can’t!” or “My writing improves when I use this device!” or something that teachers want to hear. But the 13 year old boy is seeking the quickest path to completing the project.

I know of one of my own students who has some writing difficulties who also uses Dragon at home for some projects. So, I asked him if he had used the app to create any final versions of projects for me this year. He told me he had done his entire environmental essay on it, moving from his rough draft outline and notes to a final version.

I would never have known, and I guess that is the point. The app and device — and others like it — are available for students with and/or without learning difficulties and if the final product looks good and reads well, does it matter how it came? It might for some teachers and I am unsure about it, too.

It raises the question: Is it writing if an entire piece of writing has done orally?

Peace (in the impact of the app),
Kevin

Using SugarSync to Collaborate with Myself

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sugarsync-main

I was stuck the other day (again) with a file on my home computer — dutifully  in my “school work folder” — and for the last time, I realized that I needed to figure out a better system for sharing work with myself. As it happened, that afternoon, a technology magazine that I subscribe to did a whole spread comparing Dropbox (which I know many people use) and SugarSync (which I had never heard of before).

The magazine review came clearly down on the side of SugarSync on a range of variables, including size of free account (5 gig), using multiple media files, and backing up revisions of work.They also liked the “magic briefcase” where you can store a file and edit and revise, and it will be save the revisions on whatever computer it originates from. (Here is another comparison between the two services; again, it recommends SugarSync)

What the heck? I installed it, and wow, it is nice now to be connected to my files here at home and there at school. I know this is no revolutionary idea for many of you and it reminds me how so often things like Dropbox are on my radar for months and months, but I just need the opportunity, need and time to put it to use.

I thought I might try out the “public sharing” with SugarSync. Here is an old file from my school computer (I am at home right now). It’s an MP3 of an old Poem for Two Voices (which we are working on right now in class)

Listen to the Poem

What kind of syncing program do you use?

Peace (in the sync),
Kevin

Using iPod Touch for Cell Mitosis Project

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I won’t take credit for this, other than I helped figure out how to bring all of the student projects together with LiveBinders. But my science teacher colleague has been one of a group of teachers piloting the use of our new iPod Touches, and she learned how to use an app called “Storykit” so that our sixth graders could collaborate on a story about cell mitosis. She has traditionally done these on poster papers, but moved to the mobile devices this year.

I like that you can add images and audio with Storykit, and that it publishes the story online with a link. I don’t like that you can’t embed the story from the Storykit site and the layout is sort of boring (but it is much more interesting on the Touch itself — more fluid and interesting). The kids didn’t care, though. And the use of the Livebinder brings them all under one “roof” to share with families and with the other classes.

And the world.
mitosis book pic

Peace (in the touch),
Kevin