I started this website as a young, optimistic, visual arts teacher. Now, I'm an old man yelling at cloud computing.
About Education
It’s been far too long since my last episode – Here’s the video version of some news that’s happened in the interim.
Here’s the audio version of episode 127. The video file will follow shortly.
My MICCA presentation this year is all about free sources for multimedia, something I know a bit about since I use visual aides so much in the classroom to help with my lessons. Hey, as a visual art teacher I pretty much have to, right?
Well, as I was writing down all of the sites I go to on a regular basis I had an idea. What if I listed my favorite resources on a wiki? Then my handouts would be online (thus saving a tree or two), and others would be able to add their own favorites to the list as well! (I’ve had good luck with this strategy in the past as well.)
To make a long story short(er), that’s exactly what I did. Why not browse around and add some things that I forgot?
I might have a snow day tomorrow, but I don’t want one. Why? Because I enjoy what I do too much to stay home!
What do YOU do to make your classes fun?
I’m still playing with my digital video camera, but I’m including the audio for those of you who like to listen in the car.
This time around I lament that I have too many books (yeah, you heard me), and why. It’s because the nature of the media has changed, but there are a lot of things that have changed along with it.
I’m sitting in Will Richardson’s breakout session and we’re asking him all kinds of questions. I’ll fill this out more later, but why not check out his presentations’ wiki while you wait?
After much badgering on my part, Rachel now has a new blog. Why don’t you check it out and say hi?
… well, actually a bit more than that. Today I brought my new toy into work, and just had to show it off to the media specialist. She liked what she saw, and liked the price tag (only $220!) even more.
Just then, our Principal walked in with a smile on her face. She was in a good mood.
Long story short, the Media Specialist and myself convinced our Principal to buy a digital video camera and a digital still camera for each grade level. (I also agreed to help the Principal out with her own personal digital camera provided she brings it in. Should I be worried about what I’ve gotten myself into? … nah!)
This is all really good news. (Even the helping the Principal bit – I’m looking forward to the opportunity.) One of the biggest hurdles I’ve encountered with tech is finding room for it in the budget, and we have it. Now, we’ll have to move onto the next big problem.
Convincing the staff that the cameras should not only be used, but that it’s easy to use them.
I’ve a few ideas concerning what I could do, but I’d like to hear your ideas. If you had only 15 minutes to show other teachers a cool digital camcorder activity, what would you do?
This time around I play with a new toy (a digital video camera), lament (sort of) on spending so much on tech, and talk about redefining education.
Don’t like the video? I have an audio only version if you prefer.
I’ve recently fallen in love with the podcasts that National Geographic is rolling out on a regular basis.
In one of them they’ve posted an interview with John Wood, an ex-Microsoft employee who got the idea of collecting books for impoverished schools in Nepal and Vietnam (and more countries?) after a vacation to the Himalayas.
He founded an organization called Room to Read and has started over 3,000 libraries already, saying he wants to set up more libraries than Starbucks has coffee shops.
But enough from me. Why not listen to this National Geographic episode yourself?