Podcast

Week 8: Podcasting

Podcasts are audio files that can be downloaded to any computer or MP3 player and listened to anytime, anywhere. They are relatively easy to make and can be about any topic. Many schools in the United States have started using them and they can facilitate contact between people around the world as well. Oftentimes, all you need to do is subscribe to them. You can suscribe to them based on favorite programs, specific creators or even by certain topics. Whenever a new podcast is made, the computer can record it just like a vcr would record specific programs.

Creating podcasts is not very hard, but there are certain factors that peple should keep in mind when creating them. Environment is important. A lot of times, people get used to background noise and forget that it is there when they are making a podcast. It's important to turn cellphones off, make sure fans and air conditioners are not too noisy and tell people when you're recording so that they don't interrupt you. You should also have a script already written, and it's good to keep in mind your tone and who your audience is. After you record something, you can edit and cut things out or change the order of the audio. Another important aspect is to keep in mind copyright laws and make sure that you are taking music or other features legally. Once your podcast is ready you can link it on a blog or website and students or clients can listen to it.

As a future teacher, it is important to know how beneficial podcasts can be in the classroom. They can be extremely useful in ESOL classes and allow students to learn English faster and easier. Kids can listen to them outside of school as well, which is important since foreign students often don't speak English outside of school. Podcasts can also be used to help students review for tests and can help them keep up with work that was done while they were absent.

The advantages are that they are useful for language development, students can access them even when they are absent and they can encourage kids to go more in depth on certain topics that may interest them. Podcasts can allow students to publish their work anywhere and give them a sense of pride, knowing that their work can be used by people around the world. The major issue with podcasts is that they take time to make. Editing programs can be challenging at first and teachers have to learn how to use them so that they can teach their students. Oftentimes, teachers don't have extra time to write scripts, do research and practice before recording. However, those teachers that do take time to create podcasts,can greatly enhance their students' ability to learn.

This is a good video about podcasting. It gave really good examples of the advantages of podcasting in the classroom. It's a little long, but I thought that it was very informative.

Podcasting in the classroom

Week 7: Digital Storytelling

This week we learned about digital technologies and how to make our own digital stories. The difference between analog and digital information is that analog is when information is electronic, magnetic, or vibration sensitive, whereas digital information is converted from its original source to a numerical system. Digital photography for example, captures light onto Charged coupling devices and then converts it to numerical data. The advantages to digital photography are that it allows people to take more pictures, eliminates the processing costs, it's easier to manipulate the pictures and digital pictures can be seen immediately.

Videos are electronic storage of moving images. Images are captured and then converted into numerical data just like digital pictures and then they can be transferred to a computer where they can be edited. Videos can be compressed if needed, but they are noticeable worse quality than in their original format. PDAs are another handy tool. They work like computers, but are much smaller and are handheld, like cellphones, palmpilots, or personal organizers.


All of these technological tools can make a difference in the classroom. Now that digital photography is so easy, teachers can take pictures of field trips, for class books and even show before and after pictures to demonstrate improvement that was made. Videos are also helpful. They enable kids to see real- world examples and understand what they are learning. A lot of times, students are able to apply what they have learned better, if they can visualize it. They also allow multilple classes to work together on projects or discussions. Digital photography and video projects are also great ways to enocurage kids to show their creativity!


This week, we also saw different ways to make digital stories, such as animoto, goanimate and imovie. I chose to use animoto and will be putting pictures together with music to tell the story of my trip to the Galapagos.

I chose this clip because the guy does a really good job of explaining what digital storytelling is and how easy it is to do it. You don't need fancy programs and anyone that has access to a computer can tell a digital story. He also explains how many different forms digital stories can take, such as emails, websites, tv, internet, or even in classroom projects or office meetings.

Second Blog Check Start Week 6: Digital Storytelling and Visual Literacy

This week we learned about visual literacy and digital storytelling. We did a photo shop project as well. To be visually literate means that you understand what symbols mean without necessarily needing words to explain what is going on. Just like in writing, there are certain symbols that are common and pretty much universally understood. In one of the articles, it gave the example that cave paintings from a long time ago had deep meanings to those people that created them. The symbols changed into letters gradually, and now we use the alphabet as a means of communicating. It is not the only way to communicate though. You have to know the basics in order to understand more complex visual materials. Some of the basic elements are dots, lines, color hues, shape, direction, texture, etc.

Digital storytelling is another form of visual literacy. It is a way of telling a story through computer images, music, video clips, and recorded narration. Usually, digital stories range from 2-10 minutes in length and are usually focused on a certain subject. They are normally told from a certain point of view. They can be about anything from personal family stories to historical events. An example that they showed on the website was a report about Martin Luter King that was done through recordings of his speeches and pictures of him. They are a good way of documenting important historical events so that people later on can look back on them and remember where and what they were doing when a certain event took place.

Digital storytelling is a great thing to know how to do as a teacher. Many projects can be done by using technology like this. I find these projects to be much more interesting than simply doing a power point. Digital stories are helpful for students to become more engaged in a certain topic and may help them understand better since they are able to visualize what someone or something looked like.

Here are two clips that I found about digital storytelling. The first one is a simple explanation about what digital storytelling is and the second one tells you the basics of making your own digital story on a Mac!

What is digital storytelling?

How to make a digitial story

Week Five: Visual Literacy

This week we discussed the role that visual literacy has on us every day. It is important to keep in mind that what we see is not always what really happened. In the videos we watched, we were able to see how photographers manipulate pictures to get them to be their idea or society's idea of what is beautiful. Sometimes they will add things in or take them out. Other times, they touch up the faces of the people in the photo. The dove evolution video was shocking. At the end, it didn't really even look like the model from the beginning. It makes me wonder why they use models (who are already beautiful in the first place), and then change the way they look. While it is nice to see perfect, flawless pictures of people or setting, sometimes it is better to see what people or places look like naturally. After seeing these videos, I now understand to what extent photographers and advertisers will go to sell their products.

The other video talked about how we are surrounded by visual literacy everyday. Some visual literacy is country- specific, such as brand names, but others are universal like Coke and Starbucks. You can go almost anywhere in the world and be able to find a MacDonalds even if you don't speak the language of the country, because of the symbol of the golden arches which is universal. Without visual literacy, we would be lost. For one thing, driving would be harder because though we don't always realize it, we rely a lot on symbols and road signs to warn us about sudden stops, yielding and merging.

As a teacher, I will need to be able to inform my students about visual literacy. It is important to let them know that pictures are manipulated to portray a certain idea in your mind about where something took place. In the article, it said that students like to see visuals of things that happened in history becuase it gives them more meaning. I will try to provide them with as many pictures and visual examples as possible, but it is important for them to remember that what they see may not always be true.

This is a video that I thought was interesting because it showed how images change over time and through cultures. It talked about how we are bombarded with images every day and sometimes we don;t understand them. Another good point it showed was that 2 different images can be portraying the same thing, but depending on the materials used to create the images, the meanings may be interpreted differently.

Visual Literacy across the Curriculum

Week Four: Copyright Law, Plagiarism, & Ethical Issues (extra post)

This week we learned about copyright laws and what they entail. They are meant to protect authors of any type of material from having their work changed or reproduced without permission. Basically, you shouldn't use anything that is not your own without written permission from an author or company. This applies to any countries that have signed the copyright treaties. You can be punished for as much as $100,000 per offense!!! Things such as calendars, lists of ingredients and slogans are not covered in the laws, and therefore can be used without having to ask permission from anyone. Another interesting thing that I learned is that things are copyrighted for 70 years after the death of the author. Also, depending on when they were copyrighted, they only last for so long before the author either pays a fee to have them copyrighted again and they can be transferred through contracts. Just because you don't see a copyright symbol anywhere doesn't meant that it hasn't been copyrighted. Unless it's a government document or you know that it is public domain, you need to ask the author's permission to use it. There is something called a Fair Use Act that allows special exemptions for libraries and educational uses. There are four factors that are involved: the purpose of the use, whether it's out of print or published, the amount of work used and the effect of the use of the work on a certain audience. Software is always protected and should only be installed on one computer. The is a company called Creative Commons (CC) that allows people to share and use other people's information as long as some attribution is given. It says "some rights reserved" instead of "all rights reserved" and are most common with online products.

This information is important to know, especially as I am a future teacher. Teachers use many different materials and examples, so they need to be aware of what they are allowed to use and make sure that they give credit to the author that they borrowed the information from. They can also teach their own students what the laws are and explain the seriousness of asking permission before using something that may belong to someone else. The most important thing I learned from the presentation was: "When in doubt, ask." It can't hurt and it's better to be safe than sorry.

I thought that this was an interesting clip showing how hard it is in the music industry with all the copyright laws.

Copyright Criminals

Week Four: Copyright Law, Plagiarism, & Ethical Issues

This week we learned how to design instructional media. The four most important points from it were to keep in mind: contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. For contrast, it's nice to provide wither a dark background with lighter font (like a black background with white font) or a light background with dark text (like a white background and black text). Also, if you are using a background with a picture, be sure to use a font that is dark enough to be read over it. For repetition, it's best to keep the same font type, size and backgrounds so that the slides are not too distracting and so that the readers are able to focus on the information presented. Alignment is another factor to think about because it can be distracting too, if text is scattered all over the slides. With titles, proximity is key because if there is not enough space between lines then the text will look squished together and if there is too much space it will be hard to follow.

I also learned that keeping slides simple is best. Word count per slide should be kept to a minimum and fancy fonts should be avoided or used only briefly. Using key words is best, instead of writing out whole sentences and boxes or borders are a good idea when you are trying to organize your thoughts. Anything below 28 font should be avoided because it is harder to read and when you are using graphics, it's best to use simple ones that are self explanatory. If they aren't essential to the presentation though, they should be avoided because they too can be distracting and sometimes too complicated to read unless explained. Also, they shouldn't be used as decoration which goes along with the idea of keeping slides simple. Animations and transitions are alright, but it's important to not overuse them.

Before giving the presentation, it is good to give a brief overview of the topic to engage the learners. After the presentation, it is important to do follow-up activities and relate the information to real world examples. Choose releveant examples, such as video clips, and be sure that you are informing and teaching and not simply entertaining.

This was good advice for future teachers. You always want to make sure that your students are focused on what is being taught and this presentation gave some good ideas about what I should and shouldn't do if I make a presentation to the class. A good point that stuck with me was that, just because it may look or sound fancy doesn't mean that it should be added to the presentation. Simplicty is oftentimes the best way to go.

I also learned about web resources and multimedia. These can also be helpful in the classroom because teachers can accomodate certain material to particualr students. Using this in the classroom is good because it provides a proactive learning environment and encourages students to be creative. While there are many positives about using multimedia in the classroom, there are some limitations. They tend to take up a lot of space and that is not always available in the classroom. Also, projects tend to take a lot of time and the school day doesn't usually allow that much time for them to get finished.

This video clip is interesting because it talks about incorporating technology into the curriculum from a teacher's point of view. They emphasize the importance of having teachers integrate technology because that is the way of the future. While technology is an important part of learning today, it is expensive and there isn't money available at most schools to implement it on a daily basis.

Technology in the Classroom