My fave quote: "The biggest enemy to learning is the talking teacher." -- John Holt.
My fave quote: "The biggest enemy to learning is the talking teacher." -- John Holt.
Zowie!
Just ran across this web app this AM. For us PC folks, seems to beat Audacity to pieces.
Just found a great resource for printouts using the GTD system, and for educators! And Creative Commons licensed, no less! I've printed them out and am looking at them sitting in a pile on my desk, trying to figure out how to collate them. You can find them here.
Just fiddling with some possibilities. So far, we're looking at:
1. using small cheap mp3 recorders
2. nanogong.
Language teachers want to have students record work and upload their stuff to Moodle. From a Moodle perspective, it's not too hard to do. However, when you look at hardware, software, internet access, etc. it starts getting complicated.
If we could get Nanogong working, it might solve all that. Nanogong is a FOSS Java applet that can integrate with Moodle. It creates an additional sound icon with the HTML editor, that can be clicked and used to insert an audio file, similar to inserting an image. It then opens a small window that resembles the Windows Sound Recorder, allowing the user to record his/her voice. When the post is submitted, a sound icon appears in the post, and clicking on it plays the audio.
How cool is that? Answer: way cool. If we could get it work. We spent the better part of a couple days with Nanogong 2.0 before finally giving up. I'm not sure if version 3.0 is better in that respect. I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually accomplished this feat. Drop me a line!
Today is the first day of our Lego Robotics club. We are registered in the First Lego League. This program existed at my school under a former teacher, and I'm resurrecting it.
Got to say what a terrific program the FLL puts out. As I've said a zillion times, robotics is so much fun we shouldn't even call it school. 
4.0 version of Shift Happens, focusing more on social networks and media convergence. Nice not to have all those "scary" stats about "foreigners" taking American jobs.
It's that time of year again, and I have a new class of fresh-faced 6th graders in my computer class. We meet 3 times a week for a trimester, then I get the next set of students.
Last week we started Scratch. If you're not familiar with Scratch, it's a programming environment built on Squeak from the Lifelong Kindergarten lab at MIT. Actually, I don't even tell the students that they're programming. All they know is that it's fun!
It's what Seymour Papert calls "hard fun". Like a game, it rewards success quickly and sends you on to the next challenge. We are working towards building our own games, though at this point the students are learning the basics through the excellent resources at www.redware.com/scratch. I usually start with the Dog and Crab "game", since it's pretty simple. It's hardly a game, since there isn't much of an objective, and there's no way to keep score. It's also ridiculously easy to play. After that, we move on to the Fish game, which is several steps harder. Right now most students are building the Fish game.
The excitement in the room is palpable. Some students asked if they could come to class early to work on Scratch. One said that it was the best experience of his life! Yikes. What I love about it is that the learning is intense, but completely engaging. In that way, it reminds me of our other unit: Lego robotics.
You can find out more at scratch.mit.edu.
Just thinking out loud here. On the drive in this morning, I mused about where I am 1) in my career and 2) on the pedagogical scale.
1. I've been a tech coordinator, with a 2-year hiatus for school and possible career switch) since 1996. I love technology and education and the intersection thereof. I love trying new tools (like Drupal) and doing "cool new stuff". But I've noticed that in my reading of blogs, tweets, books, etc., that I'm starting to find a lot of this kind of sameold sameold. Am I getting jaded? I don't think so. We're finally getting some traction in my school with tech initiatives, mostly due, I think, to administrative support. And by support, I mean, mandating stuff. And that's exciting. But I feel like it's not enough for me.
I'm wondering if what I really want is to know more about teaching and learning, while still keeping my tech focus.
2. Which leads me to the pedogogy scale. In some ways I'm very traditional. I've been in independent schools my whole career, and they are traditionally bastions of traditional education. And I do believe in the power of "teacher-centered" learning. At least in some situations. But all the stuff that I read that really jazzes me comes from the progressive end of the spectrum, whether it's the Coalition of Essential Schools, Alfie Kohn, the Constructivist Consotium, Seymour Paper, Alan Kay... the list goes on and on. So I wonder where I fit.
No solutions or conclusions yet, just thinking out loud.
The start of a new year, and all upper and middle school teachers have their classes set up in Moodle. It's amazing how the level of participation rises when tech initiatives are required. 
So far, it's been pretty smooth. Our tech dept did a great job this summer working out a single sign-on solution for the network, email, Moodle, and MyBackPack, our main systems. Not actually SSO, but single password. I've been investigating further uses of Moodle, and we're ordering several of the Moodle books from Packt Publishing to give us some ideas. At this point, middle school teachers are only required to enter assignments and handouts. However, some teachers are already asking for more. Yay!
We'll also have to see what Moodle 2.0 will offer. Even though it's due this winter, I figure we probably won't go with it till next school year. Can't have too much change, you know.
