Slideshare + Podcast = Slidecast

Slideshare is the equivalent of youtube to slideshow presentations. You can search them, comment on them, download them and even embed the slideshows in to you blog (like so). There are groups that you can join and you can upload your own. If you put up your own you can control what happens to it... download for all, download for some, even the option that people contact you to ask for permission to use it. To top that all off, you can even upload a podcast with your slideshow to make a slidecast. I love web 2.0 mash-ups!
This is an example of a great slideshow.

| View | Upload your own

Conference exposition.

On Wednesday 28th of May I will be running a workshop at the ASMS
to teachers about using web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Amongst other things the particpants will be creating their own podcasts on a science topic, and the results will be posted here.

Showcasing student work

Satisfying some of the most important features of web 2.0 (filter, share, connect, collaborate & generate) my year 10 students work is shown at this blog.

I used a blog instead of a wiki as I am familiar with the format and i know that being able to embed the html tags for the movies was easy. It would have saved me time of the students could have posted them, however not all can access their emails from school, so this wasn't practical, especially with the time constraints.

They had to make a simple flash movie using www.dvolver.com illustrating a genetics concept. The task sheet was only in electronic form (saving the planet) and this made it easier for the kids to click on the link or cut and paste the email address. You can view the task sheet here.

This task was done last lesson on a Friday, and we will view some of the highest scoring ones during the double lesson next week.

Create blogs for the whole class

Edublogs is a free service for educators, it allows you to make blogs for an entire class by sending a text file. Great idea! Read more at here.

Podcast player

Feel free to listen to my experiment, made with audacity, the microphone that is integrated into my laptop and some sound effects care of soundsnap.com, and hosted on podbean, a podcast hosting site. Yay!

Now I have found a second site: gcast.com. If I lived in the states I could have podcast by phone. Whoa.


Powered by Podbean.com

Wikis abound

I have been knocking myself out trying to find a wiki that is easy to use, easy to customise. The search may get easier with wikimatrix. The same people also do a podcatcher comparision and blog comparisions. They are the regular choice magazine of web tools!

Gimp

This is a picture my son made with the free program Gimp. Unleash your creativity!

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

Purdy.

Free sound effects

Soundsnap is a website has a kagillion free sound effects, catalogued ready to listen to and download, sometimes in multiple sound format. Embellish your podcasts... unleash your creativity.

Make a movie!

This would have to be the EASIEST and most FUN way for students to generate content. As you can see a short movie can be designed to convey an idea - concept or content.

It is a website called dvolver which makes a flash movie in a flash - dead easy.

Anyone can make their own mini movies in minutes. My 6 year old made this movie, he got me to type the text in, but apart from that he did it all himself.

I can see an assignment to generate a quick movie which illustrates a science concept.

What's more i tested it and they can be embeded into places like web pages, wikis, eportfolios and blogs as you can see from the movie above.

Unleash the power of Google

For those of you have gone way past googling the word google, or a vanity search (putting your own name into a search engine) you probably know these tricks, but for those of you who haven't...

Google define function. VERY HANDY. Type "define:rhubarb" you will get a list of definitions to choose from eg
The rhubarb is a very tart member of the buckwheat family. It is generally eaten as a fruit but is actually a vegetable. ...

Then there is the filetype search. Say you wanted to snag a powerpoint off the web, you type
"filetype:ppt rhubarb" and low and behold 354 powerpoint files containing the word rhubarb.

Lets say you remember the site you forgot to bookmark had the word rhubarb in the url. Then you can use "allinurl:rhubarb"

Web 2.0, you have to love it!

Sketchcasting!

Students podcasting

The raw materials you will need for this lesson is

students (stirred lightly)
mp3/ipod OR microphone that plugs into a computer
audacity with mp3 encoder (free software)
enthusiasm

There are teachers out there right now, facilitating students that are generating their own content. Teachers that have trialled podcasting with their students are amazed at the added level of engagement the students have as oposed to traditional book learning.

Audacity download. Audacity enables students to edit their audio into a finished product.
Then get the mp3 encoder to enable you to save as an mp3...

To get you started, here are some resources I found...
Student podcast planner.
Podcast assessment rubric.
Get the students to peer evaluate!

Students can Scratch!

Scratch is free software that students can use to make animations, it is being used worldwide in various schools and educational organizations.

The Scratch slogan is "Imagine · Program · Share". The emphasis on sharing is an important part of the pedagogy for Scratch. Programs are not seen as black boxes, but as objects for remixing to make new projects. One of the forums on the Scratch website is dedicated to discussions among educators.

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Check out some science scratch projects!


You download the program and you can also download the projects shared by the scratch community. This is one a student did on circuits. This is a classic example of enhanced learning when students generate the content.

Easiest way to save Youtubes

Hopefully you have been checking out youtube content that is available in easy to digest portions that is the same size as the average teenagers attention span. Saving them can be a pain... but hurt no more!
The first thing you need to do is to download a free browser Mozilla Firefox. Personally i have ditched Internet Explorer altogether. IE is not the best browser, it just comes bundled with Windows and Bill Gates has already got into big trouble for his anticompetitive strategies of not making IE separate from Windows. I was having problems with IE accepting my cookies (no cookie monster) and so I downloaded Mozilla Firefox, a free, open source browser. Firefox looks not unlike IE, so it is no real change, although you may notice that Firefox crashes less often. (I haven't had one crash so far) It is perfectly ok to run both browsers if you wish, they don't conflict with each other in any way.

Then download a Firefox add on, Downloadhelper.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
It puts a button on your tool bar that becomes animated when video content is on the screen.

Then you visit whatever site with embedded video content. You click the drop down menu next to the pretty button and choose which video you wish and voila! Firefox's download manager starts downloading the file! Nicely named whatever youtube called it! I would choose to download the mp4 file, and use VLC to play it.

Make sure you place it on your school server for all staff to access.

What is Screencasting???

Many of the youtube links you see in this blog link to videos that utilise screencasts. Screencasting software records what you are doing on your computer, while at the same time you can provide commentary to what is happening on the screen.. It is easy to make your own screencasts, and there is free software to help you to do it - Camstudio and Wink.

However your school may have a licence for Camtasia (mine did!) and lickity split it was on my machine and I was playing around with it.

Screencasts are very useful as tutorials, as students (or other teachers) can refer to them at any time, it frees you as an educator as the viewer can learn at their own pace and go back if they missed a step. If you want to make a screencast for a class to
I have already made a suggestion that some screencasts could be useful to show staff how to download their Markbook files, I forget and have to be shown every assessment cycle!

ABC presence in Second Life

I have already posted about San Francisco's Exploratorium science museum buying an island in the virtual reality world Second Life. Well Aunty has also established a presence in this VR world. At some stage I may need to download and sign up to find out what the buzz is about... perhaps when my First (real) Life has a spare several days!

http://www.abc.net.au/services/secondlife/

they have a slide show so you can get a feel of the island. Aunty is being very proactive in the digital age, I heard from Ian Mannix (ABC radio) that they are one of the largest providers of podcasts in the world. The younger generation would be familiar with their vodcast of popular programs such as The Chaser and Summer Heights High, but you can also snag shows like Catalyst, Can We Help and First Tuesday Book Club. Hooray! My reception for ABC is pathetic making it impossible for me to watch Catalyst.

Now to set my podcatcher to catch these programs while I sleep....

Del.icio.us and Year 10 Genetics

Now I have discovered the power of bundling and tagging, there is a lot of content on the web that (sadly) I can't download, various streamed windows media player content and interactive flash videos. Here is where del.icio.us jumps in to the rescue.
Sitting in front of the box with my kids, they can watch the latest mental laxative (i.e reality TV show) and I can search for tomorrows lesson. My current topic is genetics for year10 science, so I tag everything I find with year10genetics. Along the way I found some useful stuff for year10cells and I tagged that too. Then I bundled my year 10 topics in a bundle called Year10science. So next year i can use the same stuff providing the websites haven't been removed, all neatly categorised into year levels and topics.

I am still in an early stage with tagging and bundling, but if you want to see what I mean you can look at my delicious bookmarks...

http://del.icio.us/cyberspaced

I have installed by del.icio.us buttons on the school computer (it may be that at some schools you will have to get your techies to do this... a note in their pigeon hole should do the trick) and at the start of the lesson I log in, click on del.icio.us, go to year10genetics in the bundles to the right of the screen and there is my menu for the lesson. Instant student engagement!

If you aren't confident at saving youtubes you could tag them instead with del.icio.us.

Happy websploration!

Making your own youtubes

So I hope by now you have checked out the dearth of educational clips on youtube that can stimulate students interest, understanding, discussion and generate an unquenchable desire for science! I have just finished saving youtubes for my year 11 physics sound unit including

jets breaking the sound barrier (wow!)
reasonance in a 2D metal plate (pretty!)
rubens tubes (reasonance in a tube + fire)
tacoma bridge collapse (mechanical reasonance)
standing waves in strings
speed of sound in sulfur hexachloride
wine glass shattered by reasonance
vocal chords vibrating

Phew!

So do you feel ready to make your own contribution to the youtube community? Check out http://www.youtube.com/video_toolbox - it has tips and tricks for sucessfully making great youtubes. Get your students involved in making their mark on science education and upload to the world!!