Spring Break Special Posting!

Before you head out to Florida or Chile or whereever....

A number of interesting things to share in this posting....which is the first, by the way, from my new MacBook Pro laptop! I highly recommend you go out and buy one!

Video Resources on the Web
Have you checked out the vast amounts of video clips available online now? Check out http://www.youtube.com and http://video.google.com. While most of the clips are entertainment-oriented, there's a surprising amount of educational material as well, from old newsreels to public domain films. I typed in "rockets" for instance and found quite a few videos that I could download for a science lesson. Google seems to be better for teacher use, since you can download videos, while YouTube doesn't want you to (yes, I know you can figure out ways to get past this). I wouldn't want to have to rely on an Internet connection while presenting to a class--you're much safer if you have the file already downloaded on your computer. Since the content on these sites is usually provided by users, the opportunity for inappropriate content and copyright violations is inevitably going to be taken advantage of. I wouldn't send your students to either site, but you might find some useful material yourself.

Higher Ed Podcasting

Several of my Education W505: Using the Internet in the K-12 Classroom students have started blogs. They had the option of doing blogs, podcasts or webquests. About half did blogs, half did webquests. I was disappointed that nobody did a podcast. Maybe no-one had a microphone? You can check them out at
http://www.indiana.edu/~w505a/studwork.html

Academic MP3s >> Is It iTime Yet?
http://campustechnology.com/article.asp?id=18001
"Dorothy Leland, GC&SU president, weighs in on the iPod. “Using a new technology to deliver instruction requires considerable faculty work. This work involves learning about the functionalities of the technology and its academic applications. But it also involves rethinking course objectives and learning outcomes in light of the new pedagogical opportunities that the technology provides.” Leland sees the iPod as a powerful tool in transforming the site of learning from the desk to the pocket: In this new mode, instruction is no longer confined to a limited number of physically stationary sites (e.g., classroom, library, lab, or home office), but can occur almost anywhere a student may be. “This location-independent access to digital multimedia material means that the delivery of instruction is less dependent on time and place,” she says. “The iPod technology also offers the potential to shift the proportion of class time devoted to learning that benefits from face-to-face interactions between faculty and students, and shift preparatory work to outside times and locations.”

This is a really solid, substantial article about podcasting and higher ed. Describes both the opportunities and the challenges of podcasting use in this setting. Describes, in detail, a number of higher ed initiatives utilizing the technology. Probably too focused on the iPod itself. There are other devices that can play mp3s, after all.

New Widget for Mac OSX Dashboard
You can now get a Mac widget from Blogger.com that will allow you to create postings without going to the blogger.com site. This is a test posting using that widget, which can be found at http://www.google.com/macwidgets/

As always, your comments and suggestions welcomed!

Chris