Last night I spent an interesting time in SL (Second Life). I have been honored by a friend of mine to share a virtual house in the virtual life of SL. This friend, Ferdi Serim, has spent his life developing new ideas for making education more relevant and more exciting. Presently, he is living in New Mexico working with students on a nearby Indian reservation.
Anywho, Ferdi invited me to join him in a house on EduIsland in SL. He rented the land and the landlord suggested that he had a house already built so said that he could have it. I must admit that I have been questioning the sense in having a home in a virtual land. Interestingly enough, it gives me a feeling of belonging. It is a place where I can go and talk with people. In fact, I have been meeting people who have been walking by the house and invited them in for a discussion.
Perhaps the best part of the house is the way that Ferdi and his friends have decorated the house. He has installed a huge speaker system and has figured out how to stream music that he has performed and recorded into the surroundings so that you can enjoy it.
Last night, Ferdi suggested that we go to an SL location called Svarga. It is an incredible fantasy land. Ferdi and I found out castle that a music room. We had a jam session on some percussion instruments. What a groove. Another participant in the jam, Rasmussen, videod the session and you can find it here.
The world of Second Life is just now beginning to grow and the possibilities seem endless.
Tell me what you think.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Teachertube is here!!!!!
I have been looking for this for a long time. It is TeacherTube.com
Teachertube.com appears to be a youtube for educators. You will note the note that notes " Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos"
According to the "About Us" at the bottom of the page, Teachertube opened March 6, 2007 so it isn't even a month old. It was put together by a teacher.
This is where teachers can upload their instructional videos or videos of them instructing. What a WONDERFUL resource for professional development!!!!
Here is a video that shows how technology can help educators dance through the day.
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303
Leigh
Teachertube.com appears to be a youtube for educators. You will note the note that notes " Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos"
According to the "About Us" at the bottom of the page, Teachertube opened March 6, 2007 so it isn't even a month old. It was put together by a teacher.
This is where teachers can upload their instructional videos or videos of them instructing. What a WONDERFUL resource for professional development!!!!
Here is a video that shows how technology can help educators dance through the day.
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303
Leigh
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Getting Into Second Life
We are finally "into Second Life."
I am an associate professor in Instructional Technology at the University of Northern Iowa. I must admit that I have "fiddled" with Second Life for about 6 months. This means that I have ventured onto Second Life and then retreated. Not because I couldn't "do" SL. It was because I saw the incredible attraction of the site and realized that this spot could consume a GREAT DEAL of my time.
Recently, our whole division decided to approach Second Life and explore it as a venue for delivering/exploring/experiencing instruction and learning. On Thursday, all six of us went on-line together and explored various spots. An interesting aspect of this process was that 5 of us were sitting together in a classroom at the university while I sat at home and explored it from a distance spot. I could have gone into school as well, but thought it would be fun to be the "distant explorer." We also integrated Skype so that I was part of the oral discussion that ensued.
We had our Techie guy kind of leading us but each of us had done some previous exploration or had friends who had suggested places to explore.
Presently, we are exploring what it would take to create a learning center in SL. We want to see what it would cost to get "enough" land. We need to find out how to create each of these buildings. We are discussing sharing spots with other institutions.
I have met a number of people/avatars on SL. It is another accessible market for friends/colleagues/potential students that will change our lives. Communication is the main motivator for progress. Consider the evolution of communication. Bell developed the telephone in 1875. This provided individual voice communication. Marconi and a number of other inventors across the globe developed radio broadcasting in the 1880s. This provided a broadcasting of information over large distances. The basics for television also began in the 1880s but the video communicator didn't become common in households until 1950s.
The Internet was made accessible to the public in the early 1980s. It became commercial in 1985. The Internet had a crude interface that Dante himself couldn't have conceived. But it was actively used because it provided a person - to - person seemingly immediate connection that could connect throughout the world. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the basics for the World Wide Web (Wikipedia says that he used a NEXTcube as its first server.) The WWW provided a graphic interface for the Internet as well as a relatively simple way for folks to publish and share their ideas for all of the world to enjoy.
This progression went from 1-to-1 voice (phone), 1-to-many voice (radio - corporate controlled), 1-to-many video (Television - corporate controlled), 1-to-1 text (email), 1-to-many text (listservs), 1-to-many graphic (websites - personally controlled), 1-to-many video (YouTube et al - personally controlled). Now we have the wonderful virtual world (like Second Life) where we can have 1-to-1 connections but I can walk through places that are of interest to me and meet other people who have similar interests. This will expand my personal network and help me build communities that are not geographically limited.
As I wrote this short and simplified history of communication, I realized that there are many aspects that I have left untouched. The evolution of audience can also be followed here. Directed audience as with a phone call. The expanded audience that is only limited by access to a receiver (radio or TV) or channel (cable TV).
The important aspect that I am trying to portray here is that we are social animals. Communication is what will always push a technology into acceptance. Since we can't teleport to other places in the world and universe (ala Star Trek), working within a virtual world can provide close second where we can experience and create desired realities.
I am an associate professor in Instructional Technology at the University of Northern Iowa. I must admit that I have "fiddled" with Second Life for about 6 months. This means that I have ventured onto Second Life and then retreated. Not because I couldn't "do" SL. It was because I saw the incredible attraction of the site and realized that this spot could consume a GREAT DEAL of my time.
Recently, our whole division decided to approach Second Life and explore it as a venue for delivering/exploring/experiencing instruction and learning. On Thursday, all six of us went on-line together and explored various spots. An interesting aspect of this process was that 5 of us were sitting together in a classroom at the university while I sat at home and explored it from a distance spot. I could have gone into school as well, but thought it would be fun to be the "distant explorer." We also integrated Skype so that I was part of the oral discussion that ensued.
We had our Techie guy kind of leading us but each of us had done some previous exploration or had friends who had suggested places to explore.
Presently, we are exploring what it would take to create a learning center in SL. We want to see what it would cost to get "enough" land. We need to find out how to create each of these buildings. We are discussing sharing spots with other institutions.
I have met a number of people/avatars on SL. It is another accessible market for friends/colleagues/potential students that will change our lives. Communication is the main motivator for progress. Consider the evolution of communication. Bell developed the telephone in 1875. This provided individual voice communication. Marconi and a number of other inventors across the globe developed radio broadcasting in the 1880s. This provided a broadcasting of information over large distances. The basics for television also began in the 1880s but the video communicator didn't become common in households until 1950s.
The Internet was made accessible to the public in the early 1980s. It became commercial in 1985. The Internet had a crude interface that Dante himself couldn't have conceived. But it was actively used because it provided a person - to - person seemingly immediate connection that could connect throughout the world. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the basics for the World Wide Web (Wikipedia says that he used a NEXTcube as its first server.) The WWW provided a graphic interface for the Internet as well as a relatively simple way for folks to publish and share their ideas for all of the world to enjoy.
This progression went from 1-to-1 voice (phone), 1-to-many voice (radio - corporate controlled), 1-to-many video (Television - corporate controlled), 1-to-1 text (email), 1-to-many text (listservs), 1-to-many graphic (websites - personally controlled), 1-to-many video (YouTube et al - personally controlled). Now we have the wonderful virtual world (like Second Life) where we can have 1-to-1 connections but I can walk through places that are of interest to me and meet other people who have similar interests. This will expand my personal network and help me build communities that are not geographically limited.
As I wrote this short and simplified history of communication, I realized that there are many aspects that I have left untouched. The evolution of audience can also be followed here. Directed audience as with a phone call. The expanded audience that is only limited by access to a receiver (radio or TV) or channel (cable TV).
The important aspect that I am trying to portray here is that we are social animals. Communication is what will always push a technology into acceptance. Since we can't teleport to other places in the world and universe (ala Star Trek), working within a virtual world can provide close second where we can experience and create desired realities.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
The ITEC Conference is a huge success!! . . . and so was my Interactive Web workshop
Well, the ITEC Conference is over and it was a success.
Over 500 educators attended and they had an opportunity to meet with old friends and make new ones.
The hottest topic of the weekend was podcasting. Podcasting, blogging, and wikis were on everybody's minds. I must admit that part of my perception might have been biased because I did a workshop and a session that involved using these 21st century tools in the classroom.
My workshop, Expanding Classroom Opportunities Using the Interactive Web, was quite successful. Although we had some Internet access problems, I was fortunate to have a room full of techno-veterans who were able to work with the challenges. This workshop was meant to demystify the Interactive Web. Throughout the 2.5 hour span, we explored the wonderful opportunities provided with blogging. We explored a number of examples and each attendee created his/her own blog through Blogger. I must admit that I like the tagging capabilities of Wordpress.com better, but it's a lot faster to make a blog on Blogger.
We followed this by exploring the wiki-world. I had a couple of folks who had never even heard of the word, Wiki. I reminded them of the Wikipedia. We visited Wikipedia and even added a sentence on one of the entries. (Don't worry, it didn't affect the meaning.) I then directed them to the wiki I had created for the conference, ITECconference2006. When you look at this wiki, you will see that I created a page for each of my presentations. This was intended to provide a place where folks could access our resources and add their own. (I was kind of hoping that they would make the changes during the presentation, but that didn't happen.)
Anywho, each of the attendees created an account on wikispaces. There are others, like Peanut Butter Wiki, but this is the easiest one to do in a short period of time.
We finished with podcasts. I had intended to provide each learner with the opportunity to create their own podcasts - even had microphones. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I asked them if they would like to see me make a podcast from start to finish. After their resounding cry of "YES", I began my venture.
I began with Garageband (check out the tutorials) because it is so simple to add background music and edit. I created a quick 30-second audio recording. We then selected music for an intro and an outro (Like that name? I just learned it last week from the Apple website.) We added those musical clips and placed them appropriately (along with the proper "ducking.") We transferred the podcast to iTunes where it immediately started playing. We needed to convert the file to an mp3 format for the podcast, so we used the convert feature on the Advanced menu. Finally, we had to use the "Show File in Finder" command to find the mp3 format of the file so that we could move it to the desktop.
Confusing? It can be. I hope that Apple makes this process MUCH less complicated in iLife '07 or sooner. This is also why I supplied each of the attendees with instructions on How to Make a Podcast Using Garageband. (I will post these soon.)
The most difficult part about giving a workshop on creating a podcast is deciding where to upload the podcast so that it can actually be heard. Usually, we geeks have access to a server where we make special accommodations for them to upload their work.
I found an alternative!!!!! I found Pod-serve.com
This is a site where you can upload your podcast and, belive it or not, it does all of the RSS magic there too. This means that you just need to upload your podcast and then you can immediately subscribe to it. I must admit that I don't know much about this company, so you should check it out before you use if for your workshops or classes.
Elapsed time for making a podcast? 15 minutes from beginning to end. Would you believe that I just checked on the podcast that we made and it already has 51 subscribers? Must be a slow day in pods-ville.
This workshop was my first one covering these 3 tools of the Interactive Web. I hope to do many more. I have applied to NECC 2007 to make a similar presentation. I truly hope that it is accepted.
Over 500 educators attended and they had an opportunity to meet with old friends and make new ones.
The hottest topic of the weekend was podcasting. Podcasting, blogging, and wikis were on everybody's minds. I must admit that part of my perception might have been biased because I did a workshop and a session that involved using these 21st century tools in the classroom.
My workshop, Expanding Classroom Opportunities Using the Interactive Web, was quite successful. Although we had some Internet access problems, I was fortunate to have a room full of techno-veterans who were able to work with the challenges. This workshop was meant to demystify the Interactive Web. Throughout the 2.5 hour span, we explored the wonderful opportunities provided with blogging. We explored a number of examples and each attendee created his/her own blog through Blogger. I must admit that I like the tagging capabilities of Wordpress.com better, but it's a lot faster to make a blog on Blogger.
We followed this by exploring the wiki-world. I had a couple of folks who had never even heard of the word, Wiki. I reminded them of the Wikipedia. We visited Wikipedia and even added a sentence on one of the entries. (Don't worry, it didn't affect the meaning.) I then directed them to the wiki I had created for the conference, ITECconference2006. When you look at this wiki, you will see that I created a page for each of my presentations. This was intended to provide a place where folks could access our resources and add their own. (I was kind of hoping that they would make the changes during the presentation, but that didn't happen.)
Anywho, each of the attendees created an account on wikispaces. There are others, like Peanut Butter Wiki, but this is the easiest one to do in a short period of time.
We finished with podcasts. I had intended to provide each learner with the opportunity to create their own podcasts - even had microphones. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I asked them if they would like to see me make a podcast from start to finish. After their resounding cry of "YES", I began my venture.
I began with Garageband (check out the tutorials) because it is so simple to add background music and edit. I created a quick 30-second audio recording. We then selected music for an intro and an outro (Like that name? I just learned it last week from the Apple website.) We added those musical clips and placed them appropriately (along with the proper "ducking.") We transferred the podcast to iTunes where it immediately started playing. We needed to convert the file to an mp3 format for the podcast, so we used the convert feature on the Advanced menu. Finally, we had to use the "Show File in Finder" command to find the mp3 format of the file so that we could move it to the desktop.
Confusing? It can be. I hope that Apple makes this process MUCH less complicated in iLife '07 or sooner. This is also why I supplied each of the attendees with instructions on How to Make a Podcast Using Garageband. (I will post these soon.)
The most difficult part about giving a workshop on creating a podcast is deciding where to upload the podcast so that it can actually be heard. Usually, we geeks have access to a server where we make special accommodations for them to upload their work.
I found an alternative!!!!! I found Pod-serve.com
This is a site where you can upload your podcast and, belive it or not, it does all of the RSS magic there too. This means that you just need to upload your podcast and then you can immediately subscribe to it. I must admit that I don't know much about this company, so you should check it out before you use if for your workshops or classes.
Elapsed time for making a podcast? 15 minutes from beginning to end. Would you believe that I just checked on the podcast that we made and it already has 51 subscribers? Must be a slow day in pods-ville.
This workshop was my first one covering these 3 tools of the Interactive Web. I hope to do many more. I have applied to NECC 2007 to make a similar presentation. I truly hope that it is accepted.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Interactive Web Workshop at ITEC 2006
On October 8, I will be presenting a 3-hour workshop at the Iowa Technology and Education (ITEC) Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. I am looking forward to this opportunity. I have shared the Interactive Web with others through presentations to colleagues and small discussions with students, but this is my first opportunity to present a workshop at a conference on this topic.
We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.
Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)
Connectivism Website - George Siemens
Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University
Overall Blogging Examples
Boing Boing - A Directory of Wonderful Things
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.
Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.
Create Your Own Blog
Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.
Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .
We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.
Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)
Connectivism Website - George Siemens
Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University
Overall Blogging Examples
Boing Boing - A Directory of Wonderful Things
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.
Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.
Create Your Own Blog
Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.
Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Haven't posted in a while
It is kind of embarassing to be talking about blogs but not have posted on my blog for 3 months. I am giving lectures today in our Ed Media class about Blogging, Wikis, and Podcasting. In fact, I am demonstrating this to a student right now.
Will be giving a workship at the ITEC conference next Sunday. Should be good. I will post the info here.
Z
Will be giving a workship at the ITEC conference next Sunday. Should be good. I will post the info here.
Z
Friday, July 07, 2006
Day 4 - NECC in San Diego
This was a good day.
The main event was the Thinking Graphically presentation that Lynne Anderson-Inman and I gave at 11:30. About 40 people attended.
I am now in the Closing Ceremony with about 1200 of my closest friends. Kathy Schrock is doing a presentation on having students create PSAs (Public Service Announcements) as a language arts activity. She is showing a bunch of PSAs that students have created. They are pretty good.
She is now showing a PSA that was created at the ISTE Leadership Symposium. Apparently the attendees did the audio and she ddid the video. She called it "kinda lame." Who am I to argue?
When she was done, everyone applauded. She said "Applause is soooo 90s." She had us all open our cell phones and hold them up like kids do at concerts now. I feel updated!!!!!!
The main event was the Thinking Graphically presentation that Lynne Anderson-Inman and I gave at 11:30. About 40 people attended.
I am now in the Closing Ceremony with about 1200 of my closest friends. Kathy Schrock is doing a presentation on having students create PSAs (Public Service Announcements) as a language arts activity. She is showing a bunch of PSAs that students have created. They are pretty good.
She is now showing a PSA that was created at the ISTE Leadership Symposium. Apparently the attendees did the audio and she ddid the video. She called it "kinda lame." Who am I to argue?
When she was done, everyone applauded. She said "Applause is soooo 90s." She had us all open our cell phones and hold them up like kids do at concerts now. I feel updated!!!!!!
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