Currituck Technology Academy

The Phillips GoGear you received is a multi-function device.  The instruction manual is very complete so I will not recreate the instructions here.  There is also a FAQ page on the web to help you if you are having problems. 

Let’s walk through the basic functions.  Follow along in the instruction manual.

Controls – This device has relatively few buttons to control the many functions.  That makes it more complicated than it would be if there was a separate button for every function.  With a little practice you will learn to move through all the menus. 

Software Install – This is optional.  All the software does is verify the firmware is updated. 

Flash Drive Operation – This device can be used as a standard flash drive to store files and transfer them between computers.

Music Player – The device will play mp3 music files and files stored in Windows Media Format.  You use the same procedures to play back voice recordings that you use to play music.

Radio – The built in FM radio uses the earphones as the antenna.  The reception was pretty good when I tried it.

Recording – This is the exciting part for the classroom.  There is a microphone built into the top of the unit.  If you hold the device like a microphone it picks up voice very well.    I can imagine students recording a book talk, explaining how to solve a math problem, or reciting poems they have written.    The voice recordings are stored on the device and can be transferred to a computer just like any other file.  Then the recordings can played for the whole class to hear.  If you keep the file size small you can even post the recordings to the school web page.

Have fun with it and let everyone know your experiences by commenting on this post.

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Do you know what a podcast is? Have you ever listened to a podcast? Are you subscribed to any podcasts? Have you ever created a podcast? Do you have a digital media player?

I know the answer to the last question because you should have all received your Phillips audio player by now. We will get back to that later.

First, let’s listen to a sample podcast made with the Phillips audio player. Click here.

Atomic learning has a great workshop on podcasting. First go to Atomic Learning and login. Next, click on this link. I encourage you to watch as many of the tutorials as you find helpful.Start with this one first. Do I need an IPod?.

Let’s try to find some podcasts that you may find interesting.

NPR, National Public Radio, has a great collection of podcasts.

I particularly like APM Future Tense. “Future Tense is a daily program that chronicles the social impact of computers, the Internet, and technology in general. Future Tense is produced by American Public Media.”

To get started go here. Scroll down until you see the button “Download MP3/MP4”. Click on the button. If you select “Open” the file will begin playing in the default MP3 player on your computer. This could be Windows Media Player, ITunes, or some other program. If you select “Save” you can save the file to your computer. Then you can transfer the file to a media player or to a flash drive. This might be helpful if you’ve found something you want to use at school and don’t want to risk not being able to access the file through the firewall.

Now view this Atomic Learning tutorial. Next go to EdTechTalk and listen to one or more of the podcasts there.

To explore further try Podcast.com. They have lots of podcasts categorized by subject. You can listen without setting up an account, but registering for a free account gives you extra benefits.

Post a comment and let everyone know if you found something particularly interesting.

Suggested completion date, 4/4/08.

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It has been a while since our last assignment.  I’ve been swamped with NCWISE training and preparation.  We will wrap up Unit 3 with a quick look at some online resources you may not be familiar with.  A great feature of each of these sites is your bookmarks/photos/videos are made available from any Internet connected computer.  Now, when you are at school, you don’t have to worry about trying to remember the address of that great website you found and bookmarked on your home computer.

a.       Photo Sharing – I use Flickr to upload and store photos.  In fact, the pictures that you see on this blog are hosted on Flickr.  Flickr lets you “tag” photos with labels or descriptive words.  For more information about Flickr click here. 

b.      Social Bookmarking – I use Del.icio.us to store and share all my bookmarks online.  This service lets you tag your bookmarks to easily put them into different categories.  One of my commonly used tags is EdTech for sites that deal with educational technology.  Another is TechAcademy for sites we are using for this Technology Academy.  Another popular bookmark sharing site is I Keep Bookmarks.  Deborah Goodman has shared this site in many of her training sessions.

c.       Video Sharing – The most popular video sharing site is YouTube.  For now, this site is blocked at school.  There are a lot of great videos on YouTube but there is also a lot of garbage.  Perhaps someday we will be able to open limited access to YouTube for teachers.  For now, you can check out Teacher Tube for some great educational videos. 

d.      Charts – In the last unit we explored Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations.  This next site goes one step further.  If need to collaborate on development of a flowchart or diagram Gliffy may be what you are looking for.

Please post a comment by 2/28 and let us know if you saw something in this list that you think might be useful.  There are thousands of Web 2.0 sites out there so if I’ve missed one that you want to share, please let us know by posting a comment.

The next unit will be on podcasting.  I have Voice Recorder/MP3 players for everyone who will be participating in that unit.  Let me know if you plan to participate and I’ll send one out to you.

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Google Presentations

Looking for an online PowerPoint alternative? Try Google Presentations. As with Google Docs and Spreadsheets you can invite collaborators, and publish to the web. You can even embed them in a blog or web page. See my first presentation here and click on “start presentation”.  I have not worked with this program much so I am eager to see what you guys can do with it. You guys are much more creative than I am. Atomic Learning does not have tutorials on Google Presentations yet so you will have to stick with the Google help.

Post a comment to this post and give us the link to a presentation you’ve created. Due 1/31/08.

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Have you heard of Google Docs and Spreadsheets?  This is an online application that lets you create, edit, publish, and collaborate on documents and spreadsheets.  You can even publish your documents to the web.  For an example, see this assignment posted here using Google Docs.  For a very quick introduction, start here.  Many of us have experienced problems with transporting documents between school and home.  Sometimes the floppy drive gets corrupted, the computer won’t recognize the flash drive, or the software is a different version at home than we have at school.  Google Docs and Spreadsheets solves all these problems. 

 Atomic Learning has a detailed series of tutorials on Google Docs and Spreadsheets.  Google has some good quick start guides.  See which of these fits your needs and get started.

 Google tutorial on Docs

Google tutorial on Spreadsheets

Atomic Learning tutorial on Docs

Atomic Learning tutorial on Spreadsheets

Your assignment is to create a Google Doc and a Google Spreadsheet and post a comment telling us about your experience and how you think this could be used.  Due date 1/31/08.

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More Cool Google Stuff! – Target due date 1/18

Google Pages – Now anyone can create web pages. Google has provided a free web page editor and free hosting. All you need is a free Google account. Go to the help page here to get started. You can have your own web page produced and published in less than 30 minutes. Create a page and post a comment to this post with the link to your page.

Google Scholar – Have you ever been working on a research paper and were looking for academic and scholarly sources but found you have to sift through the thousands of hits you get from a normal search? Try Google Scholar. View this tutorial (tutorial #20083) on Atomic Learning for an introduction. Then go here to get started. Do you see an application for this, either in your classroom or personally? Post a comment and let us know.

Google Translate – Are you a little rusty from your high school Spanish class? Google can help. Google Translate is an easy to use tool. Use Google Translate to translate a couple of sentences into a non-English language and post the translation as a comment to this post. We can all have fun deciphering the comments. Let’s see what gets lost in translation!  Please name the language you used for your translation.

Google Calendar – One of the shortcomings of the Novus software we use for the school websites is the lack of an easy to use calendar. Take a look at Google’s solution. You may find a use for this. You can create public, private, or shared calendars. Go here to get started. Comment on this post and share your impressions of Google Calendar.

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Unit 3 – Google and other online resources

Assignment 1 – The Wonderful World of Google and other online resources

Do you Google? If so, you are in good company. Recent data suggests more than half of the online searches are Google searches. Did you know there is much more to Google than simple Internet searches? In this assignment you will explore many of the other products and services Google has to offer. A couple of the products may be good for home use but are not for use on school computers. Please do not install Google Desktop or Google Toolbar on any school computers. These programs cause conflicts with network software operation. You are free to use all the remaining products in school, and best of all, they are free. You should already have a Google account from when you setup Google Reader in Unit 1. That is all you need to get started.

Google Search – This is the Google we are most familiar with, however there are lots of options that will help you find the results you need. For example, let’s say you want to search for “bass”. A search will return millions of results. Let’s narrow it down. You are interested in bass guitar, not the fish. Change your search to “bass –fish.” This cuts the results in half. Are you interested in finding a PowerPoint presentation on US History? Search for “united states history filetype:ppt” This search returns over 90,000 PowerPoint presentations. For more helpful tips go to the Google help page at http://www.google.com/help/basics.html. Atomic learning also has a tutorial series on Internet searching. It can be found at http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/searchweb. This may be a good series to use with students to teach Internet search skills.

Post a comment to this post describing a helpful tip you learned about Google searching. Target completion date is 1/8/08.

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Our Technology Academy participants have been very busy putting their new knowledge to work. Below I’ve highlighted a few of the blogs and wikis our folks have put together. Maybe these will spark some new ideas! Did I miss some? Post a comment and let me know.

Sandy (CO) created a wiki to advertise the Timberlake prints for sale at KIES.

Candy (Griggs) created at wiki to help coordinate the Elementary Battle of the Books.

She also plans to introduce this blog to the students participating in Battle of the Books to give them a place to discuss the books.

Candy’s WannaGottaHafta Read It! blog will be for Griggs students and teachers. She will promote it during library class time or will schedule time to introduce it to 3-5 graders.Beth (CCHS) has created her English Knights wiki to share resources associated with supplemental reading texts.

Judy (MES) has created a blog for the Moyock Author’s Club. Check out all the comments! There is some great student writing here.

Becky (Central) has created a wiki to use with the 5th grade classes when they learn about the Big 6 research method.
Donna (Knotts Island) is using a wiki with her 6th grade students in science.

Congratulations to all who have taken the plunge and are experimenting with these new technologies. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect to get started. Hopefully we are all lifelong learners and will continuously refine our practices to best meet the needs of the students.

(This entry is cross-posted on the Currituck Technology Department blog.)

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Since Unit 2 is all about wikis we will use a wiki for the assignments and responses.  I am using PBWiki.  Another good free site is WikiSpaces.com

Go to http://techacademy07.pbwiki.com/ to get started.

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I’ve been very impressed with everyone’s participation in the Technology Academy thus far. If you have not been reading the comments to the posts I encourage you to go back and do so now. Your cohorts found some great blogs and made interesting comments.

Did anyone create a new blog? If so, please let me know so I can share it with others.

For those of you who got started late, I admire your persistence. Keep at it! We will be moving on but you can catch up.

Need a good laugh. Check this out. Could be a good resource for a lesson on evaluating the reliability of websites.

Finally, go here for a closing message.  (I’m not sure how long this link will be good.)

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