Categories
Education Netcast Technology

19th Podcast

Click to play or download.19th podcast – one more and it’ll no longer be a teenager.

Show Notes:Congratulations to Steve Dembo of teach42.com fame, he recently got hired as a kindergarten teacher for a charter school. Steve, does that mean you’ll change your podcast description to “musings of a kindergarten teacher?”

iKnowThat.com – I’ve only just barely scratched the surface of this site, and I already like it. They have plenty of “games,” but they all have an educational nature too them. Registration is free and VERY fast, activities are organized by subject, and a “Teacher Guide” is included to let you know the grade appropriate objectives for each activity.

Art Club – We’ve hit some snags, but we’re working on it.

Categories
Art Education Netcast Technology

18th Podcast: Making Stuff and Strange Angels

Click to play or download.18th podcast … does that mean it can vote? … most likely not.

Show Notes:School ends on Friday! So, how many educators will continue to blog/podcast over the summer?

Making Stuff – A great blog that documents one woman making all kinds of cool crafts. Reading her stuff really inspires me.

Artboy – This site has all kinds of content, but I mention it because of it’s podcast: Strange Angels. Think of it as the internet version of NPR’s Art & Culture segments.

Education Podcast Network – Another wonderful education resource by David Warlick. This site organizes educational podcasts by category.

Categories
Netcast Technology

17th Podcast: 5 Security Tips

Click to play or download. Can you believe this is my 17th podcast? … yeah, so can I.

Show Notes:Of course the best way to be secure online is to buy a Mac, but that’s not an option for everyone so I’ve compiled some tips to help out those of us still using Windows.

By the way, if you’re already a Technology Coordinator or fan of Leo Laporte‘s you can probably just skip over this. The whole podcast is really for the less technical members of my listener base.

  1. Explorer (as well as AOL’s web browser, which is essentially the same as Explorer) is inherently flawed. Use them for System Updates because you have to, but for everything else you should switch to Firefox as your web browser of choice. It’s less vulnerable to spyware and virus attacks and even has a built in pop-up blocker! Mac users get a lot of the same features with Safari, although I must admit I really like the beta version of Camino.
  2. Get yourself a good firewall. There are a number of software options that are quite good (Microsoft XP’s built in firewall software isn’t so hot, Macintosh’s is a little more decent), but nothing beats a good old fashioned router. If you’re using a router, whether wireless or otherwise, you’ve already got a hardware firewall.
  3. Firewalls don’t block everything, (if they did, you wouldn’t be able to get online!) so you also need a decent antivirus. Some people swear by Norton, others like McAffe (I think AOL has this built in now), Leo Laporte swears by NOD32, and still others prefer the free version of AVG since it’s … well … free. Two things to remember though: A) An antivirus that isn’t updated regularly might as well not even be there. and B) Antivirus programs don’t play well together, so only have one on your system at a time.
  4. Ok, so now we have a decent browser, a firewall, and an antivirus. You should be secure, right? So why do you still have all those pop-up windows?!?! The problem is that you could still have spyware on your computer. Using Firefox may protect you from some of these, but they can still get in and antivirus programs don’t usually check for them. THe purpose of most spyware programs (their creators will insist that they be called “adware,” not “spyware”) is to saturate you with advertisements, from which they make a pretty penny. Besides being annoying they can also mess up your bookmarks or in many cases really screw up your system. Luckily there are three decent anti-spyware programs you can get for free that (unlike antiviruses) really do play nice with each other. If you don’t have them already, you should go and download the free versions of AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Microsoft’s own anti-spyware program. Each one will catch spyware programs that the others won’t catch, so you should install at least two of them if not all three.
  5. By the way, are you keeping your system updated? Security holes are being discovered and patched every month, so you really have no excuse not to make sure you have all the patches installed. I even have to do this with my Mac, and Firefox had some problems recently. You see, as soon as a patch comes out hackers around the world look at it and discover flaws they didn’t know were there. If you don’t install the patch then you’re vulnerable to whatever flaws the update was made to fix. Bottom line: updates are good.

Well that covers most of the basics right there. If you want more information you can always go to Leo Laporte’s Tips Section. That’s where I learned most of the stuff I spouted off just now. Until next time, fare thee well!

Categories
Netcast Technology

16th Podcast: Comments and Podcast Sites

Click to play or download.Sweet 16, Boo-YA!

Show Notes:Like the background music? It’s mine.

In this podcast I also respond to comments by Flint and Deb.

I have several podcast directories to reccomend:

And I wrapped things up by plugging these podcasts:

  • Tips from the Top Floor – A must listen for anyone interested in improving their skill with a digital camera.
  • Teach42.com – The home of Steve Dembo: The man, the myth, the legend.
  • Connect Learning – Another great project by David Warlick. This man’s really got his hands full!
  • History According to Bob – All the cool history that we didn’t learn in school … but should have.
Categories
Site News

New background music!

No podcast this time (perhaps tomorrow, I do have some things to talk
about…), but I just took some time to play around with GarageBand to
make some
new background music.

Now I’m not saying that I dislike the
background music I’ve been using recently, but I felt it was time for a
change for two reasons: 1) I could do it and 2) I like being
able to depend less on the efforts of others.

The time may very
well come soon where I begin to show case musicians in my podcasts again,
but for now I’d like to just toot my own horn (figuratively speaking,
since there aren’t any horns in
this song).

I hope you like it.

Categories
Uncategorized

Viral Game Thingie

Don’t blame me for this little foray into random listing of things, blame Steve Dembo for emailing me. I promise to return to the usual topics of conversation after this.

Well, there’s another meme going around. I participated and have picked you five to pass it along to. So if you want to participate in a schoolyard game of tag, please feel free to answer the following questions on your blog. If you hate this sort of thing and find it childish and lame, feel free to delete the email and never think about it again!

Here’s what you need to list –

First 5 Songs in Shuffle of Entire Music Library

Toccata et Fugue (D minus Mix) – KRYPTONIC

The Remedy (I Won’t Worry) – Jason Mraz

Appalachian Spring-Variations on a Shaker Hymn – Aaron Copland (Detroit Symphony Orchestra)

My Girlfriend – Reliant K

Warp – Yuki Kajiura (.Hack soundtrack)

Current Book You are Reading (or lightly leafing through)

Digital Photography Hacks – Not everything in this book is really a “hack” per se, but it’s still a good book for anyone interested in being serious with a digital camera (even a cheaper digital).

Last Movie Seen in a Theater and Where

Hoo boy, that was a while ago …. I think it was “Master of Disguise” and it was in a theater just outside of Reading, PA.

Five People To Whom You’ll Pass This

I’d rather not write all their names here (I’m not sure how they would feel about me doing so), but It’ll mostly be family and friends outside of the school setting.
Categories
Art Netcast

15th Podcast: DSL and Creative Commons

Click to play or download.Beware the ides of … podcasting

Show Notes:

A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).

Thanks for the listener mail, Steve! Comments are always appreciated.

CreativeCommons.org – A nice site for anyone who wants to share their works without making it public domain.Yahoo! Creative Commons Search – use Yahoo’s search engine to look for things licensed under Creative Commons.

Lawrence Lessig – an author, blogger, and supporter of Creative Commons licensing.

Categories
Education Technology

Ender’s Game and Education

I recently revisited Ender’s Game, a very decent sci-fi story, if somewhat unbelievable when it comes to child psychology.

I’d already read the book once, but that was back before I was a teacher. Back then, it just struck me as an enthralling story with plenty of plot twists. (I was once told that the art of writing a good story involves creating a character you like and then visiting hardships upon that character. Ender’s Game does just that.)

But now I’ve been teaching for a few years and I have a lot more tech experience under my belt. When I went back to read the story one of the first things that struck me was that everyone had a computer.

Everyone.

Sure, the students called them “desks,” but really they were tricked out wireless laptops. Even before Ender left Earth to learn in the high tech battle school it was obvious that the 1:1 student to computer ratio wasn’t just present, it was expected. There were no books, save for the electronic files the students could access. The internet was still in it’s infancy when the book was written, but Orson Scott Card had gotten a fleeting taste of it and imagined a world where students could find ways to communicate with the world over the ‘nets. The “anonymity” of the internet was present as well, and in fact played a key role in the story along with self-paced life long learning.

So why am I talking with this? No reason, I suppose. I just thought it was cool that even in 1977 (the book’s earliest copyright date) there were pioneers who were thinking about what computers could do for education.

Categories
Education Netcast Technology

14th Podcast: Risks and Email

Click to play or download.It’s the 14th! Valentine’s day!

… no, wait, it’s the 14th podcast. Sorry about that.


Take a survey, win a pro account for Flickr.

Show Notes:

A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).

If you don’t push the students you’ll always have good results, but if you push the students then they will LEARN.

When sending email about the art schedule, some messages aren’t finding their way to my gmail account. Chalk it up to computer glitch or user error, but art sign-ups were up 100 percent so I still think my system works.

Podcast Alley: Education Podcasts – Lots of good podcasts here, many of them much better than my own. I recommend casting your vote for Connect Learning (ranked 13th place), or the one for which I cast my vote: Teach42 (ranked 4th place). Either of these is worth a spot at number 1.

Categories
Education Netcast Technology

13th Podcast: Ratings and Performance

Click to play or download.Lucky 13!


Take a survey, win a pro account for Flickr.

Show Notes:

A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).

Egad! How the heck did I make 10th place in Podcast Alley’s education section? I mean, I appreciate it and all, but how did that happen? To those of you who are listening / reading this, some comments on why you keep coming back would be greatly appreciated.

I think the biggest hurdle we must overcome if we want teachers to catch on to podcasts is the fact that it’s still a little too technical. If we try to throw everything we know at someone all at once they won’t get any of it. People digest things better with small bites.

Teachers need to stop lecturing and start performing. Walk around the classroom, tell jokes, make silly voices, and so on. It may sound goofy, but if get your students’ attention then they’re more likely to learn.