Academic Aesthetic

31 is fun, if you don’t mind listening to me rant.

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In this episode I rant about a “news” story I found in Google News, then make a connection to one of the things that David Warlick talks about: It is not enough to teach our kids how to read and write. We need to teach them to read and figure out if it is RIGHT.Hopefully I’ll get to do that in my Art Club.

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

… On an unrelated note, I think I need new background music. Any ideas?

30 is wordy, but I’ve summarized it below.

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In this episode I give tips for how to make a good web site or PowerPoint. I go on for a bit, but it all boils down to this:1. Decide exactly what your website is about. (Example: Mine is about art, education, and technology.)

2. When adding anything, ask if it will support or get in the way of that content.

It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many things you can add to a page that you really shouldn’t add.

WebPagesThatSuck.com – a great site that teaches good web page design through bad design. They also have a book and a sequel.

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

I really like my Gmail account, so when Google introduced Google Talk it did manage to snag my intrest. While they don’t have a Mac client yet they have provided links to several alternative clients that are Google Talk complient. (I’m partial to Adium at the moment, although those default sounds were horrible!)

If you’re trying out Google Talk as well you can send an IM my way – my Gmail addy (Which is of course also my account name for Google Talk) is theartguy [at] gmail.com.

The local news had a story on backpacks being too heavy for students nowadays. When I went to their website to reference the story I couldn’t find it, but I DID find that they had in fact covered it several times before: 8/17/04, 8/23/02, I can go on, but I won’t.

In a society where we stress more and more learning we seem to be putting more than just emotional weight on our students’ shoulders, and apparently we’ve known about it for years. Think about how much an iBook weighs compared to all the books that it could replace. (And when you figure that e-books are cheaper and updated more often, those laptops can be very cost effective.) If there ever was a just reasoning for using digital media over printed texts, this is it!

29 is fine, but I’m sure 30 will be better.

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Show Notes:On this episode I geek out. Sorry.

The Art Club computer lab is shaping up, today I upgraded some systems and installed some drawing / editing programs. Tomorrow: Linux!

Why Linux? Because spyware and viruses scare me.

(I forgot to mention this in the podcast, but…) We’ve got a Flickr group for elementary school art projects! … wanna share?

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

28 is great!

Now I’ve got one show for every year of my life.

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Show Notes:Steve Dembo set up a moodle page for me to play with! Boo-Ya! It’s very nice and I’m sure I’ll be using it in the future, but for now Thingamablog and BlogMeister meet my needs.

Art Club will be starting soon! I’m setting up computers and scrounging/begging for more. I don’t need to beg for software, thanks to programs like FuturePaint. (Scroll down on that page to see FuturePaint. Yes, I know it says “shareware” on the page but the program’s documentation says it’s freeware.)

We’ve got a Flickr group for elementary school art projects! … wanna share?

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

Now almost 50% shorter! I’ve registered academicaesthetic.com and pointed it to my server. Those of you who still see pop-up ads when visiting my site should no longer have that problem.

Ok, so I did get lost on the way home today, but
I finally got my 27th podcast uploaded.

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Show Notes:Steve Dembo set up a moodle page for me to play with! Boo-Ya!

On to the sessions!

Session 1:

Keith Haring

Session 2:

Crayola Dream Makers – Fred the bug says “hi.”

Session 3:

National Museum of the American Indian … I think I got the name wrong for this one when I was recording …

A different session:

I didn’t actually get to attend this session, but I got to see some cool sculptures that were made with clothes hangers, wood, elmer’s glue, and water based paint. (Step 1, Step 2, Step 3)

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

Ok, so I can’t think of a wisecrack for number 26. I owe you one.

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Show Notes:Goals concerning my students:

1) More technology in the classroom

2) More discussion of intellectual property / copyrights / fair use / open source / Creative Commons / etc.

Goals concerning my coworkers:

1) Encourage educators to read and/or write blogs.

2) Encourage educators to listen to and/or record podcasts. (iTunes will really help with this.)

Speaking of podcasts, here are some good ones:

• Teach42
• Connected Learning
• Bud the Teacher
• One Big Head
• Edupodder
• The Educational Mac
• Tips from the top floor
• Paradigm Shift

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – C’mon, you know you want to vote for me … right?

Now that Bud the Teacher has started using Moodle I feel I’m seriously missing a bandwagon here. I mean, there are other educators using it as well and singing plenty of praises.

Alas, I don’t have access to any accounts at the moment that support Moodle or Word Press. Thingamablog is working well enough for me at the moment, but I’d like to have other options open in case I need them.

So … anyone know how to get something like Moodle to work on a .Mac or Verizon account?