The Academic Aesthetic

Hello?

2006-08-03T21:34:00.000-04:00

What are you still doing here? I moved the whole site over to AcademicAesthetic.com yesterday!

If this post is showing up in your RSS reader, then please point it to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheAcademicAesthetic to make sure you don't miss out on anything. You shouldn't need to change anything in iTunes.

And if you're subscribed to my Feedburner feed in Bloglines and you're still seeing this ... well, Bloglines is the only RSS reader that's doing that. I reported the problem but they haven't gotten around to fixing it.

UPDATE:
For those of you using Bloglines, subscribe to this feed instead: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AcademicAestheticLite

It has fewer frills, but it works.

Changing Servers (again!)

2006-08-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

After a few hours of mad panic, I've switched servers. (I told you I was bitten by the DIY bug, didn't I?)

I'll be leaving all of the old blogger.com stuff up because so many of you have linked to it, but from now on please visit academicaesthetic.com instead of academicaesthetic.blogspot.com. The RSS feed will remain the same, so you don't need to worry about adjusting any aggregators.

And yes, I know the site looks plain now. I'll get working on that almost immediately.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 89

2006-07-31T10:58:00.000-04:00

Lately I seem to have been bitten by the DIY bug.
DIY, for the uninitiated, stands for "Do It Yourself" - mostly because DIY enthusiasts would much rather put their own embellishments on everything they touch.

And with the internet it's easy to find plans for hundreds of DIY projects - from using a soda bottle and some kitchen supplies to make an effective mosquito trap to attaching some remote control servos and a digital camera to a kite for some sweet arial photography.

The great thing about DIY is the wide variety of projects. You can pick something to do that's as easy or as difficult as you want, and if you're unhappy with the plans you're given you can always modify them to see what happens.

I've been making my own t-shirts and web sites for over a decade now, but recently I've started branching out by creating handmade business cards, and most recently a wallet out of duct tape. (My next project will be a camera bag.)

Of course the spirit of DIY can be taken to school as well. For example:

After a Language Arts project where you have the students form groups to write their own stories, you can have them type them into PowerPoint to illustrate them and even record themselves narrating the tales. Instant zero-cost publishing!

Have the students use PowerPoint or any one of a number of programs that allows for visual design, and print the finished product on a t-shirt. Admittedly there is a bit of a cost for this, but if you shop around at office supply stores you should be able to get iron-on transfers for around $1 a sheet.

How about an analog example: Want to make a quick and easy seating chart? Use a sheet of posterboard and some post-it notes. Any time you move the desks around you can just move the notes. (And if you leave these babies on your desk you won't have to deal with substitutes saying "Well I couldn't find your seating chart!")

There are also a few online enterprises that are more than happy to make your DIY experience a little easier:

Makezine.com - more DIY ideas than you can shake a stick at.
Instructables.com - from the makers of Makezine.com, these are user submitted DIY tutorials.
Google Pages or WikiSpaces - make your own website for free.
Lulu.com - publish your own book, for school or yourself.
OriginalWorks.com - Students can have their artworks placed on a variety of products and have them made to order as a school fundraiser.

Hear yourself on my upcoming 100th podcast spectacular! Just click here and your web browser will use your computer's microphone to send me an audio comment.

I'll accept just about anything, including simple greetings or congratulations, shout-outs, reviews of products or services, commentary on recent events, or even plugs for other podcasts.

This is, of course, provided everything is kid-safe.

Think of it as free advertising that will reach an exclusive listener base. And yes, by "exclusive" I mean "small."

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 88

2006-07-28T12:56:00.000-04:00

Today I'd like to talk about a little thing the art community calls "Form vs. Function," and relate it to education in general.

An item's function, as we all know, is what it does - what it's purpose is. Form, on the other hand, is what it looks like. Both can be equally important, but not always.

Take the chairs in a classroom, for example. Sure, they were designed by someone, but at the end of the day their main purpose is to lift the students high enough off of the floor so they can use their desks. Their color was most likely determined by whatever was cheapest or easiest.

On the other hand, a painting puts much more weight on it's form. In fact, it's form is so important that looking nice is also it's function. (This is, of course, assuming it's not there to cover the spaghetti stain your three year old managed to put on the wall.)

Think that since you're not an artist this doesn't apply to you? Think again. When's the last time you sat through a workshop filled with pertinent information, but was still so dry in it's presentation that you remembered nothing afterwards? Or maybe the PowerPoint slides looked nice but added nothing to what the speaker was saying?

As a traveling art teacher I've seen a lot of classrooms, and I've seen far too many teachers who put the function of teaching so far ahead of the form of teaching that student retention is almost nil.

I could just tell the students what they need to know, give them a test, and move on, but how many of them would really learn?

No, like a well designed car I need to both get the students there and ... well ... look good doing it.

As those of you who are teachers get ready for the new school year, I want you to think about how you can balance form and function in your lessons. Will your desks be arranged in the same boring grid, or will you break it up a bit? What posters will you have on your walls? (If you don't have enough posters, have your students make some that tie in with your curriculum.)

What will your class website look like?

And there's more to it than just how your room appears. When you're presenting your lesson, will you be hiding behind a podium or moving about the room as if it was your own personal stage? More activity shows you have more interest in the subject, and while that doesn't necessarily make sure the students will learn, just try to teach them the same thing if they think that even you aren't interested in long division.

In other news, I'm thinking about playing some audio clips on my 100th podcast which I should reach sometime in late August, provided I don't get sidetracked somehow. I've decided to accept just about anything, including simple greetings or congratulations, shout-outs, reviews of products or services, commentary on recent events, or even plugs for other podcasts.

This is, of course, provided everything is kid-safe.

Think of it as free advertising that will reach an exclusive listener base. And yes, by "exclusive" I mean "small."

If you want something played during my 100th podcast, record it and send it to me. I'd prefer it to be in MP3 format, but I'll accept other file formats if they're not too large.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 87

2006-07-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I talk about my "Don't L.A.F." policy and come up with an idea for my 100th podcast.

Yesterday I was browsing my Furl links when I noticed a blog I had bookmarked but hadn't subscribed to in over a year. Wondering how things had changed, I clicked away ...

And immediately hit the back button and deleted the link.

Apparently some time in the past year a blog about a teacher's experiences in school had been replaced by something a little less kid friendly. I was shocked and appalled, partially because an educational blog had been corrupted like that, but more so because since all of my Furl links are public I had been linking to that garbage for I don't know how long.

Of course there's a moral to this upsetting story - a lot of us tend to L.A.F. (that's short for Link And Forget), thinking that those sites will stay the same forever. They don't. Sites get redesigned, repurposed, redirected, or simply disappear. If you use a social networking service like Furl or del.icio.us it's your responsibility to go through your archive every now and then and separate the good apples from the ones that have long since turned to compost.

It might take a while, but it's worth it and you might just rediscover a site or two that you'd forgotten.

In other news, I'm thinking about playing some audio clips on my 100th podcast which I should reach sometime in late August, provided I don't get sidetracked somehow. I've decided to accept just about anything, including simple greetings or congratulations, shout-outs, reviews of products or services, commentary on recent events, or even plugs for other podcasts.

This is, of course, provided everything is kid-safe.

Think of it as free advertising that will reach an exclusive listener base. And yes, by "exclusive" I mean "small."

If you want something played during my 100th podcast, record it and send it to me. I'd prefer it to be in MP3 format, but I'll accept other file formats if they're not too large.

DOPA Alert!

2006-07-25T22:10:00.000-04:00

Swiped from Will Richardson, who in turn swiped it from David Warlick:

ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline

Volume 15, Number 73

July 25, 2006

In This Issue: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Call Representatives TODAY and ask them to oppose DOPA

URGENT Action Needed:

The Washington Office has learned that the House may try to expedite
passage of H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA),
TOMORROW, July 26th.

PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TODAY and ask that they oppose HR 5319. Capitol Switchboard number is: 202-224-3121.

Background:

DOPA is sponsored by Rep. Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and supported by the
House Republican Suburban Caucus. It would require that, as a condition
of receiving E-Rate support, all schools and libraries block access to
social networking websites and chat rooms.

The bill raises a number of issues:

1) Local school districts and libraries should determine what
content should flow into schools and libraries. Federal mandate over
content control is very problematic.

2) Districts and libraries already have the power to block access to
social networking sites and chat rooms and a number of them have
already done so.

3) DOPA imposes yet another burden on schools and libraries
participating in the E-rate and may deter many from continuing to
participate.

4) This bill paints an unflattering and distorted view of the Internet
as a whole, serving to scare away parents, students, teachers and
librarians from making use of all its resources.
Last week, YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke testified on DOPA
before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on
DOPA. You can read her testimony here:http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/techinttele/DOPA_testimony.pdf.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 86

2006-07-24T07:41:00.000-04:00

Steve, this is all your fault.

Back when I was interviewing Steve Dembo he mentioned that they had finally come out with a microphone for the video iPod. I thought I could just file that information away, but no.

Instead, knowledge of the Belkin TuneTalk Stereo nagged at me for over a week. On Friday when I went to the Apple Store to buy a new laptop battery I was greeted by multiple rows of the shiny black marvels, and as I'm easily distracted by shiny things I really had no choice but to get the battery AND the microphone.

Rather than keep this just another story about an expensive impulse purchase, I've decided to turn it into a review of the very same device. You may have noticed a difference in the sound quality for this podcast. That's because while I recorded the introduction with my tried and true USB mic, the rest of this is being done with the TuneTalk. You know how it is when you get a new toy - you use any excuse to try it out!

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was that there was a USB cord in there. The TuneTalk has a standard sized USB port on the bottom of it, so I can sync and charge my iPod without removing the TuneTalk. That'll come in handy if I ever loose one or both of my iPod cables, but more importantly it lets me charge the iPod while I'm recording. If you've ever watched video on an iPod you know how fast that battery can drain when it's spinning the hard drive at full speed, and recording audio appears to be no different in terms of energy consumption.

It's possible to open the case without lacerating myself, and with my precious TuneTalk in my hand I noticed that it felt ... well ... cheap.

An iPod itself is a marvel of molded plastic and metal, and despite it's size it has a weight to it that lets you know Apple didn't skimp on the components. The $70 TuneTalk (less, with the education discount) is as light as a feather, making me wonder just how thick that plastic really is. Still, I guess if you keep in mind that it has to hold onto the iPod by the very connection that sends all of the data and power you don't want it to be too heavy.

I did a couple test recordings immediately, with and without the gain switch turned on. (The gain switch, by the way, can be adjusted depending on if you're in a noisy or quiet environment so that it can pick up your voice better.) It's possible to go through the menu features of the iPod to turn recording on and off, but this seems like a waste of time since there's a convenient button on the left side of the TuneTalk that takes you to the record screen right away. I love that feature.

I also noticed that it had a line in jack for recording audio from an external microphone or other device, although the manual said that using the line in jack turns the internal mic off. Visions of splicing my laptop's audio output with an external mic to do real time mixing came to mind, but as I'd have to buy more stuff to see if that would work I'll save that experiment for another day.

Test recordings done, I synced up using the included USB cable rather than unplugging the TuneTalk. I was surprised to see that iSync didn't load when I plugged it in, but everything else synchronized just fine. The recordings I made showed up in a playlist labeled "Voice Memos," but they were also grabbed by some of my Smart Playlists. I'll have to adjust them later so the next time I'm playing Civilization I won't have to stop conquering Europe to fast forward past a grocery list when all I wanted was some mood music.

I took a look at the test files and noticed that they were in fact quite large. I've recorded on portable devices before, but they always saved the audio as 4 bit WAV files - not exactly the most space demanding of formats. Belkin wasn't kidding when they said it recorded CD quality audio. A twelve second recording at high quality was over 2 MB! Sure, I can go through my iPod's menu and switch to low quality, but right now I've got 10 GB of free space on that little hard drive so I'm not too worried about it at the moment. I can always compress everything in GarageBand afterwards.

The last thing I'd like to bring up is that the TuneTalk does in fact record stereo. I've heard more than one podcaster get ahold of a stereo microphone and rave about it, but as I usually compress my podcasts into mono to save space I'm ambivalent about it. I suppose it could come in handy if I was trying to record multiple people, as the listeners would be able to tell the speakers apart by their locations. I want to do more interviews this school year, so this might actually come in handy.

Ok, let's wrap this up here. Believe it or not I'm actually happy with the TuneTalk, mostly because in spite of it's aforementioned flaws it's very convenient and makes a very nice quality recording. That said, it's not for everyone.

If you want a portable recording device and you're on a tight budget, just set up a free account through audioblogger.com or one of the other services that allows you to record through a phone conversation.

If you've got $40-$100 to spend but don't have a video iPod, check out Creative's line of MP3 players. I used to use a 1 GB Creative MuVo to record most of my podcasts, and it worked just fine. (You can also get it in other sizes.) I've also heard some very good things about the Creative Nano, which is more or less the same device with a different case design.

But if you DO have a video iPod and you want to turn it into a portable recording device, get your hands on a TuneTalk. The boost in recording quality alone is worth it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 85

2006-07-21T08:09:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast I review eyespot, a web based video editor.

Sometimes I plan a podcast topic for days before I record it, other times I throw out that hard work in favor of an idea that strikes me at the last minute. Take yesterday, for example...

A member of last year's Art Club has been planning on starting his own podcast, and over the past couple of weeks we've been trading emails and IMs on the subject. Yesterday he was very interested in video editing, but unfortunately he doesn't own a Mac so my favorite program (iMovie) won't run on his system. I suppose he could use MovieMaker, but I've never been a big fan of the Windows Media format.

Fortunately there are a few editing programs out there that are totally free. One of them is jahshaka, an open source cross platform program that claims to be "Powering the New Holywood." Oddly enough I've never tried it out, but if anyone out there has then please let me know how well it works.

There are also a couple web based solutions. That's right, you can edit video with a web site. Thank you, Flash and Ajax.

Eyespot and Jumpcut are both sites that cater to the video editing community, and I've heard good things about both, although yesterday I only had time to play around with eyespot.

Eyespot has in my opinion only three drawbacks. The first is that they display the most recent videos on their frontpage. For most of us that doesn't matter, but if I want to show it off to my students I'll have to do some explaining if a certain genre of video appears for all to see. This is in fact the only issue that will keep me from using it with my students.

The other two problems are more technical in nature. While there doesn't seem to be a limit to the number of clips you can upload, you can't upload anything larger than 50 MB. That's a huge file if you're talking about .mp3s or .JPGs (both of which can also be uploaded), but I have a 10 minute .AVI I made with my camera that ended up over 140 MB. I actually had to use a free program called MoviesForMyPod to compress it into a more uploadable file format.

The last problem I encountered was a lack of features. There are few transitions to choose from, and while you can create a title screen the default text is small and uninspiring.

Still, one has to remember this is a free service. In spite of all of these issues I had fun using eyespot. It edited my video faster than I could have done on my own computer, I was able to download the finished product to my hard drive, and it was even iPod compatible.

If you want to hear an interview with one of the big wigs at eyespot you can check out this podcast by Amber MacArthur.

Mini Lesson 7: Origami Water Bomb

2006-07-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

I love origami, so whenever I need an idea for one of my mini lesson videos I tend to lean towards that first. Lucky for me I know a lot of designs that are public domain!

I tried something new with this episode. Instead of using iMovie I tried out eyespot.com. It's not as feature rich as iMovie, but it does a decent job and even allows you to export video for video iPods. Nice.

This is the second of two lessons that I recorded at the DEN North East Regional Institute. It has nothing to do with the DEN other than that.

Download it here.

Mini Lesson 6: Artist Trading Cards

2006-07-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

I've had Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs, on the brain for a while now. Is it any wonder that I would do a Mini Lesson on them?

This is one of two lessons that I recorded at the DEN North East Regional Institute. It has nothing to do with the DEN other than that.

Open Source Classroom

2006-07-19T20:09:00.000-04:00

A while back I decided that I didn't have enough websites, so I made a blog that's more or less pointless. Chris Craft had the same problem, but unlike me he decided to make a useful site.

Open Source Classroom is a blog and podcast about ... well ... open source software in the classroom. Chris chose the name for his project well.

Me, I just picked long words that were hard to spell. ;)

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 84

2006-07-19T08:06:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I talk about being famous for fifteen people.

In addition to silkscreened soup cans and pop culture icons, Andy Warhol gave us the quote "Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."

This statement has often been rehashed as people earned their own 15 minutes of fame (American Idol rejects, anyone?), but nowadays it's more likely that everyone will be famous for fifteen people (according to people like Steve Dembo).

Don't believe me? Well, you're already famous ... relatively. (I've talked about this before, although this time I'm going in a slightly different direction.)

Look at your students. Have you ever run into them outside of school? Did the older ones call out to you, smile and wave? Did the younger ones eagerly point out to their parents that YOU were their teacher?

I thought so.

To your students you ARE famous, more so than most politicians or heads of state. Granted this can make many of us uncomfortable, but I think that's a good thing. If we're uncomfortable with fame, then we know our ego isn't totally out of control.

I'll admit I'm a bit of a ham when I get up in front of a class, but at the DEN National Leadership Conference I was still genuinely surprised every time someone said "Oh, YOU'RE the Art Guy!" I know my students think I'm famous, but I didn't expect to be so well known by other teachers.

I wasn't alone in that. Josh Wolff, the Discovery Educator Abroad, is a teacher from New York that had the opportunity to tour the Pacific Rim while taking photographs and creating video webisodes. He knew they were going to be used for educational purposes, but nevertheless he seemed quite shocked when I told him my Kindergarten kids loved his webisode on visiting a tropical zoo.

He was reaching a wider audience than he had expected, and seemed visibly taken aback by that.

Naturally, I then did what any self respecting educator would do at that point - I got my picture taken with Josh, so this year I could show off to my students just how famous I am.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 83

2006-07-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

In this episode I touch on the highlights of the DEN National Leadership Conference.

It's been over 72 hours since the National Leadership Conference ended, but I've still brought a lot of the event home with me. Most noticeable are the aches and pains from being more active than I'm used to, but also a perpetually running nose that forces me to sniffle at odd times. I guess my body's trying to prove to my mind that it's not young anymore, but don't worry - my mind is still thoroughly unconvinced.

We all had so much fun last week that I doubt I could fit all the details into one of the short podcasts I enjoy doing, so let's see if I can just touch on the highlights. I'll go into more depth in future podcasts if the mood strikes me.

On Monday night we had a reception where we met old friends and made new ones.

On Tuesday we were reminded that (Dem)Bo knows podcasting, barbecue on the roof is fun, and moonlight tours of DC are awesome.

On Wednesday we hung out with Josh Wolff (the Discovery Educator Abroad) and got to see the first episode of Discovery Atlas before anyone else, not including the producers.

On Thursday Alan November gave us a presentation, then we ran around DC to work on our projects and then returned to learn about Discovery's Global Education Partnership. At the end of the day we went bowling, and one of us wore the rental shoes back to the hotel.

On Friday we showed off our group projects, bid each other fond farewells, and headed home.

Overall the conference was awesome, and while I wasn't sure if I myself would learn anything new, I'm pleased to say that I did.

If you want to learn more about what happened at the National Leadership Conference I'd check out Flickr.com and the many DEN staff blogs.

Oh yeah - I also did a guest blogging spot on the Maryland DEN blog, so if you have the time you might want to read that as well. Trust me, it's not redundant.

Technorati Tags: NLC06 DEN conference

America Revealed: A Foreign Perspective

2006-07-16T00:35:00.000-04:00

At the DEN National Leadership Conference my team made an awesome video with the help of Josh Wolff from Discovery Educator Abroad.

Don't forget to watch the outtakes at the end. They were too funny to not add. (It's not that I'm self-centered, it's just that I screwed up more than anyone else so I'm in most of the outtakes.)

Why Podcast?

2006-07-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

While at the DEN National Leadership Conference I was interviewed by some first time podcasters. They did a great job, so I thought I'd share the show with you.

Want to hear more DEN members getting their feet wet with podcasting? Check out the conference's Gcast page.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 82

2006-07-13T13:43:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast I interview Josh Wolff from Discovery Educator Abroad ... and I call him Jeff. :P

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 81b

2006-07-12T19:51:00.000-04:00

Mark this date on your calendars - Steve Dembo has now appeared in an Academic Aesthetic podcast!

Links of interest:
Teach42.com (Steve's awesome website.)
DEN website (What Steve does for a living, besides other things.)
DEN National Leadership Conference Wiki

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 81a

2006-07-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

Today's first 'cast is a "Dinnercast" I guess, as you can hear in the low audio quality. I didn't want to interrupt any conversations or come up to someone with their mouth full, so this one's kind of short.

Recorded on location at the DEN National Leadership Conference.

NLC 06 Day 1 AM

2006-07-11T13:35:00.000-04:00

Wow.

I'm at the 2006 Discovery Educator Network National Leadership Conference, and it's already awesome.

I got here last night, and within 5 minutes of my arrival at the hotel I had shaken hands with 6 people I knew from other conferences, three of them telling me that they were going to show my last video at this conference.

The strangest thing is when people I've never met recognize me. I'm used to students calling out "Hey, it's the Art Guy," but there's still something odd about having one of my peers see my hat and exclaim "Oh, you're the Art Guy!

Oh well. I'll post more as it happens, along with any and all photographs.

Technorati Tags: NLC06

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 80

2006-07-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast I try out Google SketchUp, a cool program available for Windows and, yes, now for Macs as well.

A while back another DEN member (whose name I forget - sorry!) blogged about Google SketchUp, a free program that makes it very easy to design in 3D and export your creations into different formats including Google Earth. My initial response was that it looked like a cool program, but I was disappointed that they didn't have a version that would run on a Mac.

(Remember, I'm one of those crazy people who don't do Windows.)

Well, they finally developed their Mac version, so I decided to see what the fuss was about.

Google SketchUp required me to log in as an administrator in order to install it, which was annoying but not too much so. Still, that does mean that if you want to put this on the computers in your classroom you'll either need administrative privileges or a method of asking your Technology Coordinator nicely.

With that unpleasantness aside, I opened the program and was greeted with a window offering to teach me all the basics using three self-paced tutorials. I won't go through all the steps here, but let's just say it was very intuitive and user-friendly.

The only problem I really encountered once I got SketchUp running was the absence of hot keys. Many programs have key combinations that act as shortcuts for certain repetitive steps. The different tools in Photoshop, for example, each have a key assigned to them so that you can switch between, oh, say, the pencil tool and the eraser tool without having to move the mouse around too much.

When you get used to hot keys, you really get used to hot keys. However if you're the type that always goes to the top of the screen to pull down a menu, you won't even notice that problem and my whole rant's been for nothing.

There is something I noticed that I think is infinitely cool, though: SketchUp uses three point perspective. For those of you who haven't had an art class in a while, artists figured out that if you take parallel lines (like the sides of a road) and stretch them off into the distance they appear to get closer together the further back they went. This illusion, when copied in their paintings, helped create a feeling of depth that hadn't existed before. Simple examples would have all of their parallel lines meant to move back in space meeting at a single point, or vanishing point. The lines didn't have to go all the way to those points, mind you - they just needed to be angled so that if they were longer they'd touch the vanishing point.

More complex artworks can include two vanishing points, and the photorealistic ones include three points. Three vanishing points, three dimensions, that's not a coincidence, by the way.

Now where was I? Oh, yes. SketchUp uses three vanishing points, so if you draw a large box you'll notice that none of the lines are in fact parallel - but it'll still look realistic. I think that makes SketchUp a great program for art lessons on perspective. It takes an abstract concept like three dimensions on a two dimensional surface and does the difficult stuff for the student, so they can get a better idea of what drawing with a vanishing point should look like.

I don't think SketchUp should replace handing the students paper, pencils, and rulers for a perspective unit, but I do think it would be a nice way to warm them up before they start the hard work.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 79

2006-07-07T13:07:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast I show just how easy it is to create a new blog.

Yesterday I decided to make a new website.

Don't fret, I'm not getting rid of AcademicAesthetic.com any time soon, but I enjoy making Artist Trading Cards so much that I decided to make a site for sharing my favorite ones.

Of course I could just post them on my Flickr account, but their pesky 200 picture limit, along with their "Focus on photos, not anything else!" policy left me thinking I should pick another resource.

So once again I turned to Blogger.com. One of the neat things about Blogger is that you can have more than one blog on the same account, so after I logged in I just clicked on the little button that said "Create A Blog."

Then came the hardest part - figuring out a name for the new blog. I felt "Artist Trading Cards" was self explanatory enough, but wouldn't you know it, someone had already registered a blogger blog as artisttradingcards.blogspot.com. After playing around with a few other names I registered artistcards.blogspot.com and I was ready to go!

Sorta.

You see, there's nothing wrong with the default templates for Blogger - I recommend them, in fact, but I wanted something a little different. I also didn't want to spend as much time customizing this new blog as I did my Academic Aesthetic one. For the solution, I turned to Google.

A quick search using the words "Blogger templates" found a site conveniently titled Blogger templates. They didn't have millions of looks to choose from, but they had one I liked and that was enough. I copied the code and went to my new blog's settings page. A quick click on the "Template" tab later I was pasting the new code in, and after clicking on the big button that said "Republish," my blog had a brand new look.

Now granted, I did a little more after that: I tweaked the RSS feed using Feedburner, added a web counter to see how many visitors I get, and slapped a Creative Commons license on the whole thing. I also changed the default links listed in the sidebar to ones in which I was more interested, but that's content for another podcast.

The moral of this story is that if you're holding back on blogging because you think it's too hard, don't. I may do a little more modifications to my site than the average person, but the majority of my work yesterday was nothing more than copying and pasting. If you can use Microsoft Word, you have more than enough skill to fool around with Blogger.

Oh, and if you're interested in that new blog I made, I intend to post a new Artist Trading Card every weekday. I've already got a month's worth ready for posting, so I don't need to worry about running out of content any time soon.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 78

2006-07-05T12:20:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast, I discuss the next best thing to attending NECC - having others attend NECC.

Earlier this year there was a contest where the winners would get to attend the National Educational Computing Conference for free. As the conference is being held in San Diego this year, I was very interested.

I didn't win.

But no matter, for through the power of RSS and tags I'm getting write-ups, interviews, photos, and more delivered to me as they happen.

This is one of the great things about the edu-blogosphere. If at least one of us attends a conference and blogs about it, podcasts about it, or simply takes some pictures and posts them on Flickr, the rest of us can attend that conference THROUGH that perhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifson.

Lucky for me, there's more than one blogger hanging out at NECC this year.

David Warlick, Steve Dembo, and Will Richardson are all there, along with others. The first full day of the conference isn't even over yet, and already I had to pull myself away from my Bloglines account just so I could do today's podcast.

Of particular note is David Warlick's latest creation, HitchHikr. Like most websites that have vowels conspicuously absent from their names, this thing is really cool. It makes use of tags to collect postings related to the conference of your choice, and feeds them to you in a quick, easy to scan through summary. It even includes a column of the most recent Flickr photos from that conference, so this morning when I checked it I was greeted with a boatload of fireworks photos courtesy of Steve Dembo.

(To all of my readers in the US: hope you had a great 4th of July.)

Now it's worth noting that without tags Hitchhikr is useless, so the more bloggers who start tagging their postings and podcasts, the more robust Hitchhikr will be. This is something that can only get better.

...I just have to get up off of my butt and figure out how to add tags to my own posts.

Technorati Tags: necc necc06 Hitchhikr Flickr David Warlick podcast

Today's podcast

2006-07-05T10:55:00.000-04:00

Good news: Today's podcast is ready to go.

Bad News: Both Big in Japan and Ourmedia won't let me upload the .mp3. Is anyone else who uses these services having problems?

This is what I get for using sites that are still in alpha testing.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 77

2006-07-03T12:49:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast I discuss the pros and cons of BubbleShare.com.

Yes, I'm still wrapping up my experiences from last week's conference, but don't worry - today I'm only going to mention it a little.

It seems that every time I go to an event sponsored by the Discovery Educator Network they teach me how to use PhotoStory. Now PhotoStory IS a nifty program that lets you combine photos and audio to create slideshows, but since it's distributed freely by Microsoft, it's Windows only.

If you know anything about me, you know I'm a Mac guy. Rants on security and reliability aside, I can't run PhotoStory on my pre-Intel PowerBook. So you can understand that I would get a little annoyed when PhotoStory is shoved down my throat on a regular basis.

What's a MacAddict to do? Why, find a free alternative, of course!

BubbleShare.com has made a name for itself by allowing anyone to share photos and add tags to them. Sounds a lot like Flickr, doesn't it?

Well, the similarities end there. BubbleShare only stores smaller versions of your pictures, and even then only for a year - although you can renew at the end of that year for free. That being said, I couldn't find anything about hitting a size quota - something that definitely gives BubbleShare a one up on Flickr.

BubbleShare's key feature is the slide show. It uses a flash based system to run through the photos in a particular album, as you might expect, but there's more to it than just that.

It lets you record audio. That's right, just like PhotoStory, but through a web based interface. Office 2.0, eat your heart out. The down side to this is that since it's over the internet you might get that stutter commonly attributed to VOIP (Voice over IP, or internet phone calls) conversations. When I was working on my sample album for this podcast I had to rerecord more t han one segment because of that.

Once your album's set up the way you like it, you have a variety of ways to share it. You can email it to people, embed it in your blog or other website of choice, or change your album setting to "public" (the default is private, making it kid safe) and allow it to be added to their searchable database.

DEN NorthEast Regional Institute 2006 Video

2006-07-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

With much ado, here is the (50.1 MB) video summary for the Discovery Educator Network's Northeast Regional Institute - complete with never before seen footage! (I guess you could say this is the director's cut?)

I hope you have as much fun watching this video as I've had making it.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06 video

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 76

2006-06-30T12:34:00.000-04:00

In today's podcast, I talk about Steve Dembo's presentation on "Office 2.0."

Last night I slept in my own bed - something I hadn't done since a week ago, thanks to a trip to Pennsylvania to see my father-in-law and attend the Northeast Regional DEN event.

Yes, I know I've been talking about it a lot, recently, but any time you have 50 educators from 8 different states getting together to learn about technology integration I feel that I can't say enough.

Will Richardson wasn't the only big name presenting at the event this week. We also had Steve Dembo ... more or less.

Steve presented through the use of Vyew.com, a free website that lets you do live presentations over the internet. I'll admit it had some minor bugs, but with us communicating back and forth via Skype (I don't think Vyew supports voice) it still had more than enough bandwidth to work decently.

Mr. Dembo's workshop was all about what he called "Office 2.0," which I thought would refer to OpenOffice.org, a free alternative to Microsoft Office that just recently reached version 2.0.

I was wrong.

Steve did give us free alternatives to Microsoft Office, but also for Photoshop and iMovie. The most notable thing about his alternatives was that they weren't programs - they were all websites!

Having a website with the functionality of a desktop program opens a lot of doors. I've been in many buildings where the computers weren't powerful enough to handle Adobe Photoshop, but did have enough RAM to load an image editing website. Add to that the possibility of remote storage and collaborations with schools across the country and across the world just got a whole lot easier.

Sound interesting? well you're in luck, because Steve put all of his links on the DEN North East Event wiki's Workshops section.

That's all for now, so if you don't mind I'm going to go edit some video.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 75

2006-06-29T00:40:00.000-04:00

More from the Northeast Regional DEN Event ... now with 100% better audio quality!

It's after midnight, so it's a little late in the day for podcasting (or early, depending on your perspective), but here I am. I was tempted to just whip out my phone and do another quick and dirty recording, but instead I decided to belay any fears that I was going to stick to the low quality format from Monday.

It's taken a while for me to make my podcasts sound as good as they do, and while I know they still have room for improvement, I don't really feel like taking a permanent step backward in quality.

Today was the last full day of the Northeast Regional DEN Event, so most of us spent our time working on our team projects. Not me, however. I was a small group co-leader along with Kristin (a great DEN member whose last name I won't try to pronounce), and as such we didn't have teams.

Instead, I gave technical assistance to a few teams while working on my own projects. Monday's podcasts were just one of my activities, as I've also recorded a Mini Lesson or two that will find their way onto my website sooner or later.

My biggest project, however, was to summarize this week using video and still images. I'll save my comments on that for a later date, since this event is about more than just me.

After dinner today, Will Richardson (yes, THE Will Richardson) gave a presentation to the DEN attendees. I was unable to see it due to a personal emergency, but I did manage to snag autographed copies of his book for my wife and myself. (I'm also pleased that he remembered me from MICCA).

I've already started reading Mr. Richardson's book, and I must say that it fails to do what most books on educational technology do. Mainly, it doesn't feel like I'm reading a VCR manual. It's almost as if Will Richardson wrote the book for people to read, rather than just put it on their bookshelves to make themselves feel important. I'll elaborate further once I've read through a few more chapters.

The grand finale of the evening was movie night. The team projects were presented to great and well deserved applause. Even though many of these teachers had never used iMovie or Movie Maker before, they were still able to produce informative and aesthetically pleasing presentations. I can only hope that the teachers that attended this conference are as eager to share their newfound skills with their coworkers in September as they are today. I can't wait for them to show up online so I can link to them.

... I'll have to bug Lance about that.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06

Blogging 101 session

2006-06-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

Hey, we're members of the DEN. You should be, too.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 74c

2006-06-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

The power went out, so I recorded another short podcast. Never fear, we have power once more. I just got a kick out of being able to podcast when nothing else on the campus was working.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 74b

2006-06-26T13:16:00.000-04:00

Today the participants in the DEN Northeast Regional Conference took a field trip into Valley Forge with video and still cameras to work on their projects.

As for myself, I brought my camera and an audioblogger.com account. This is "part b" of my podcast.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 74a

2006-06-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

Today the participants in the DEN Northeast Regional Conference took a field trip into Valley Forge with video and still cameras to work on their projects.

As for myself, I brought my camera, phone, and an audioblogger.com account. This is "part a" of my podcast.

Technorati Tags: denri denri06

Audioblogger test

2006-06-24T20:58:00.000-04:00

Audioblogger.com offers a way to record podcasts using nothing more than a phone - any phone. I thought I'd try it out to see if I could use it at the Northeast Regional Discovery Educator Network Event.

I don't think it turned out half bad. What do you think?

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 73

2006-06-23T12:29:00.000-04:00

Today I talk about the third and final part of my summer listening list: "Radio Leo."

Hello to everyone, and congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Steve Dembo . For more details, head over to Teach42.com.

Next week I plan to be podcasting from the Northeast Regional DEN Event at Valley Forge, but today I'd like to continue with my summer listening list.

The first true podcast (as in audio distributed via an RSS feed) I ever listened to was Leo Laporte's weekend radio show, "The Tech Guy on KFI." Far from limiting himself, Mr. Laporte has expanded his domain to a variety of podcasts that usually update on a weekly basis. All of them are centered on technology, but each has a different cohost and covers a different aspect of it.

My favorites include:

This Week in Tech (the flagship podcast, where Leo and others discuss the tech news from the past week)
Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur (Amber interviews people from different web based companies)
Security Now with Steve Gibson (guess what this one's about)
The Daily Giz Wiz with Dick DeBartolo (this one has little educational value, but it's so darn fun so I still like it)

Mr. Laporte does maintain a website where you can subscribe to his podcasts individually, along with one RSS feed called "Radio Leo." That one's my choice, because it includes all of his podcasts in a single RSS feed.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 72

2006-06-21T12:22:00.000-04:00

In my 72nd podcast I continue talking about my "Summer Listening List," focusing on Chris Marquardt's "Tips From the Top Floor."

I'm beginning to get psyched for the Northeast Regional DEN Event in Valley Forge. I won't say too much about it now, but I will post a link to the event's wiki.

Instead, I'd like to talk about part two of my summer listening list. Last time I plugged History According to Bob, which is a great resource for anyone interested in history. Today, let's talk digital photography.

With the proliferation of camera phones and photo sharing sites like Flickr, it's obvious that there are many more people getting interested in the digital side of photography. Alas, like in all things, having the ability to do something is not the same as knowing how to do it well. (Have you ever seen a PowerPoint presentation that was so bad it hurt your eyes to look at it, in spite of the useful information it contained? I have.)

Enter Chris Marquardt, master of both sound and photography. First from his home in southern Germany and now from his studio in ... southern Germany, Chris produces his Tips From the Top Floor three times a week.

Rather than focus on just the high end professional stuff, Tips From the Top Floor covers the gamut from point and click camera phones to 8 megapixel Nikon DSLRs, with some image manipulation tips using Photoshop and GIMP for good measure.

Rather than stop there, you can also find a thriving forum on his site that discusses photography news, tips, tricks, and is more than willing to offer constructive criticism for your own photos.

If you have any interest in the medium of digital photography, you should really check this one out.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 71

2006-06-19T14:09:00.000-04:00

In my 71st podcast I begin going over my summer listening list.

Teachers (at least the good ones) give it their all during the school year. For 180 days, not including weekends and holidays, we grade tests, write lesson plans, and brave rooms full of thirty screaming children armed with only a collection of mismatched paintbrushes, watercolors, and enough blank paper for every kid to have one sheet.

Then summer hits, and we crawl into our dens to hibernate through the warm summer months until the first cries of back to school sales wake us from our slumber.

Ok, maybe we don't spend the whole time sleeping, but I would be lying if I said I missed getting up before the sun every day. As someone who gets most of his work done in the morning, this means that my productivity has taken a huge downturn of late.

I'm not alone in this - my usual edu-blogs and edu-podcasts have had a marked decline in postings. I'm not shocked by this - after all, it's summer. We're on vacation, aren't we?

Lucky for me, there are still plenty of podcasts out there that are educational, yet aren't done by teachers who have chosen to hibernate. (That's one way of saying that they still update regularly.)

So, for my next few podcasts I think I'll share some of my other favorites with you. Think of this as my summer listening list.

First up is one of my all time favorite podcasts: History According to Bob is the brain child of a history teacher named ... Bob. Six days a week (sometimes seven, if he has something special like a video) Bob graces the internet with a 5-20 minute segment on a history topic, from Austria to the Zoroastrians.

I've been a history buff since I was little, and I just love learning new things about all kinds of topics. You'd also be surprised at how many times I've used the things he's podcasted in an art lesson.

My only complaint is that he doesn't leave his podcasts up forever. Once he has a bunch of them on his site, he takes them down and combines them into a CD that you can purchase. This is a neat way to earn revenue, I'm sure, but when I decide on the spur of the moment that I want to hear is podcast on the life of Benjamin Franklin I really don't want to have to wait for it to be shipped.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 70

2006-06-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

Today's podcast's subject was changed at the last moment, as I thought this was a good time to remind everyone to think about who their audience is - that task is more important than you might realize.

Remember a podcast or two ago when I talked about Flickr blocking some pictures? Looks like I actually scooped Wired News, as today they posted an article on the exact same thing. Granted, they had the clout to interview some of the big names out there, but at least I actually mentioned it before them.

Nowadays there appears to be a switch so far as content providing web sites are concerned. In the past, most site administrators picked their content carefully, selecting images or words that fit with their own vision of what they wanted. Users still had the ability to upload their own content, but for the most part that was limited to Usenet and certain sections of AOL.

Now, it seems content management is doing a flip-flop. Taking a page out of Wikipedia's book (so to speak), many websites now let you upload or select your own content. Digg, del.icio.us, and YouTube aren't big hits because they have great editors, but because everything on them has been user selected.

But this change of events is not a full 180 degree turn, as evidenced by Flickr's practice of censoring. Wikipedia has some editors as well, which go through and weed out the entries that just don't belong in an encyclopedia.

It's as if these content collecting sites are parents caring for their children - they're willing to let their kids run all over the place, but little Billy and Tammy are still going to get a scolding the next time they follow a ball out into the street.

This makes sense to me. As an art teacher I often try to find ways for my students to express themselves creatively. It often comes as a shock to them when I tell them they're free to choose what to draw, although I do stipulate that "pictures of the art teacher getting beat up aren't allowed."

Whenever content creators do the thing they do, they should always remember their audience. Since I always hang up finished projects, the audience for my lessons is the entire building. Students drawing pictures of guns or other students getting hurt get at the very least a lecture and at most ... well, let's not go there.

If you post a picture to Flickr, video to YouTube, or so on, your audience is the entire internet - including the people who own those servers. If you put something there that they don't like, don't be surprised if it disappears.

And of course, the same is true for the world of blogging. Unless you have some way of password protecting your postings, your blog's audience is everyone with an internet connection - including that administrator and/or coworker you just satirized in a rather catchy limerick. Believe me, people have been fired for less.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 69

2006-06-13T05:32:00.000-04:00

I've been putting some thought into my mini lessons.

If you've been subscribed to my site for a while then you've seen the five short videos I did to teach different projects that I thought were neat and / or unique.

You've also noticed that I haven't done any for quite some time.

I could tell you that it's because I haven't had the time. After all, it takes a lot longer to process video than it does to process audio. I could also say that some computer problems a while back caused a long delay, as I had to install a new hard drive and do a reinstall or three this year.

These are all partially true reasons, but none of them is the real one.

The truth is, I've been lazy and uninspired.

But I have an idea. I want to do some more mini lessons next year, but instead of my own ideas I think I'll get the Art Club involved.

Students have a lot of cool ideas, and I'd love to give them a format to share them. I already tried it this year with a podcast, but if I start early enough next year I should be able to get several episodes out each marking period.

I think I'll stick with the same format, however - and by that I mean with the camera focussed on the art project and the student sitting out of sight. I think they'll feel much more comfortable if they know that they don't have to be in front of the camera, and with my concerns for student safety, I'll feel much more comfortable then them because of the same thing.

Who knows? At the end I might even be able to hand out CDs with all of that year's mini lessons burned onto them as a keepsake. We'll see how that turns out.

Podcasting hassles

2006-06-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

Today's podcast is ready to go, but both Big in Japan and Ourmedia are giving me problems. I'll have it up as soon as one of the two services is feeling better.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 68

2006-06-09T08:32:00.000-04:00

Many of you are already familiar with that great photo sharing site known as Flickr, but have you ever heard of NIPSA?

NIPSA came to my attention when I was searching Flickr for photos tagged with "Second Life." I'll admit it, that game is very addictive, and one of the ways I find neat places to explore is to look at photos placed online on various sites.

Well, I started to run into some discussion about photos and whole accounts being marked as NIPSA. NIPSA? What was that? Naturally I did what anyone would do in that situation.

I Googled it.

Figuring that the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance was not the NIPSA I was looking for, I looked a little harder.

It turns out that as it relates to Flickr, NIPSA stands for "Not In Public Site Areas." In a nutshell, it's Flickr's way of censoring without deleting.

Out of a nutshell (it was cramped in there anyway), a Flickr photo that's marked as NIPSA is still viewable, can be submitted to groups, placed on websites, downloaded, and so on. What you can't do is search for it by using tags or paging through the "Everyone's Photos" section.

The key to NIPSA is a little check box labeled "May Offend." If you see a photo that you don't think a 14 year old should be looking at, you check the box. If enough people do that, the photo is NIPSAed. This sort of social police work appeals to me, as it's rather empowering for users to know they can do something about inappropriate material besides whining to a moderator. I have my suspicions that a check from Flickr staff might hold more weight than the average user, but hey, they're getting paid to do that so I don't mind.

You can even mark your own photos as "May Offend," if you feel that while your images are artistic they may not appeal to everyone.

Naturally, I see NIPSA as a good thing. If I'm going to recommend Flickr as an educational resource (which I do...) then I don't want to hear about some unsuspecting 3rd grade teacher generating fodder for 30 phone calls from concerned parents because of a couple mouse clicks.

There is another side to NIPSA, though. You see, Flickr is marketing itself as a photo site. Drawings, paintings, collages, CGI screen captures, and of course works that appear to be copyrighted by others don't fit into this category, so they often will NIPSA those pictures as well. This has a lot of Second Life enthusiasts foaming at the mouth, since any "photo" from the world of Second Life is in reality a screen capture.

Truth be told, Flickr has every right to do this. It's their freely provided service, so they can enforce their terms of use as they see fit.

That being said, I'm a little worried. My own Flickr account is full of artworks created by my students, which I've uploaded to showcase various lesson ideas. The line between a drawing and a photo of a drawing is thin and, at best, merely philosophical. All I need is one Flickr staff member having a bad day to visit my site, and suddenly I'm off the grid.

But I've had my account for over a year and it hasn't happened yet, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 67

2006-06-06T08:40:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I address one of the most feared questions ever.

As I'm typing this I'm just finishing part 2 of the Edupodder Pizzacast. (Part 1's here, FYI.) Edupodder is a blog/podcast focussing mostly on topics that would be of interest to journalism majors in college, but naturally there's plenty of overlap since blogging is itself a form of journalism. (It's role in journalism is still being debated, but there it is.)

Their "pizzacast" was a meeting of teachers, students, and even at least one member of the community. While chowing down on the official food of higher education they discussed the curriculum for a new course that would be starting in the fall.

This conversation got me thinking. You see, a lot of the conversation was on what the students would need to know after they graduated. This hit home for me, since that is in fact what every teacher should think about daily. If you have a student who asks you "When will we need to know this?" and you don't have an answer, then maybe you really are wasting their time.

Now granted there are plenty of exceptions to this. I knew early on that I wanted to be an art teacher and never strayed from that path, but many of my friends had drastic career changes that forced them to draw on otherwise unused talents or learn new skills altogether. Their laments of "When will we need to know THIS?" became "Oh, I'm glad I knew THAT!"

My point is that as teachers we need to look ahead to "life after school" and come up with answers not only for WHAT the students need to know, but WHY they need to know it. Our curriculum guides that are provided by our school, county, or state often take care of that first part for us, but we still need to know why what we're teaching is so important. Not just the subject, but each lesson.

If you use a standardized lesson plan format like my county does, there probably isn't a place for the "why" in there. Still, I recommend finding a spot somewhere and answering that question anyway. It's one more thing to keep us from teaching for teaching's sake, and instead prepare our students for life in the real world. (Or at the very least, for their next step in education.)

As an added bonus, the next time you have a student ask "Why?" you'll have a snappier comeback than just "Because."

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 66

2006-06-05T13:13:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I play with RSS feeds.

A while back I ran into a problem. I'm sure you've had it too, but I'll tell you about it anyway.

I came to the conclusion that I didn't have enough RSS feeds in my aggregator.

(Ok, I'm assuming that most of you know what an aggregator is since there's a good chance you're using one right now to see this. An RSS aggregator checks blogs for you so you don't have to. Check out Bloglines - that one's my favorite.)

I came to the decision that I wasn't subscribed to enough stuff because I had gone a whole hour without something new being posted. This was a travesty, so I had to do something about it.

Lucky for me, blogs aren't the only things with RSS feeds. News sites will often include them as well. The best sites are ones like Yahoo! News and Google News, which collect stories from a variety of sources for you. Since they're run by search engines, you can also customize your news to fit your own tastes.

The first thing I did was head to Google News and do a search for "education." Tada! Every recent story that mentioned education was now there in my browser window.

But I didn't stop there. Looking over on the left hand side I found a little link that said "RSS." I copied that link into my Bloglines account, and I instantly had more things to read every day than I had time to check out.

Perhaps I should have narrowed it with some other key words? Oh well, I'm too lazy to change it.

My laziness was in this case a good thing, because now I'm getting a much larger view of education. Just a quick glance at the datelines right now is showing me education stories out of Singapore, Moscow, Santiago, Dubai, and more.

Looks like Google News knows the world is flat when it comes to tech.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 65

2006-06-02T08:25:00.000-04:00

In this podcast I lament the possible upcoming drought of educational blogs/podcasts, then review my plans for next year's Art Club.

This is the time of year when educators (at least in this hemisphere) start talking about the fast approaching summer vacation. Last year there was a trend among the edubloggers and edupodcasters - one that involved paying more attention to the real world than the blogosphere.

I understand this perfectly. Frankly, when I'm visiting my father-in-law in Pennsylvania and using a dial-up connection because where he lives even my cell phone works only half the time, I really don't want to be uploading (or downloading) any large mp3 files.

Still, this concerns me. Yes, summer vacation is a time for teachers to recharge and relax after having braved 180 days with screaming, crying, and papers not handed in on time (and that's just their coworkers!), but it should also be a time for looking ahead to the next year.

So that's what I'll hopefully be podcasting on this summer. Well, that and the couple of conferences I'll be attending.

Case in point: Art Club this year was a lot of fun, but I think I can make it better. I've already teamed up with my base school's music teacher, and next year the club will be half visual arts and half music/drama. We'll each get 15 kids for an hour, then swap.

I'll try to handle the blogging differently as well. I was so hung up about trying to schedule days where all the kids could blog at once that I didn't even think about having a couple of kids on the computers at a time until the year was almost over. With me running the blogging time like a station I should be able to do a more analog lesson at the same time the students are showing off the fact that they're digital natives.

I may still schedule a computer lab day next year, but only one day. We normally meet in the media canter, and the three computers in there should do just fine for the rest of the year.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 64

2006-06-01T08:23:00.000-04:00

Today's podcast is one of those stories where a problem leads to a better solution.

A couple days ago Ourmedia had a rather interesting glitch. Ourmedia.org, as you may or may not know, is a free, snazzy interface that allows you to upload almost any media file you wish to Archive.org's servers. Archive.org provides everyone with lots of space, but their method of uploading files is a little more ... involved.

In any case, after recording my Podcast # 62 I tried to upload it to Ourmedia, but instead was greeted with an error message telling me that my Archive.org password and user name weren't correct. This could be a problem, since without those you can't upload ANYTHING through Ourmedia.

A quick trip to Archive.org confirmed that my password was indeed correct, so I tried retyping it in Ourmedia.org.

I still had the same error message.

Well, I was a bit annoyed at all of this. I had my new podcast ready to be listened to by the world (or at least the 20 or so of you that actually put up with me), and I had no way of getting the mp3 file out there. Sure, I had a friend with some server space that could hook me up, but I felt I'd leaned on him enough for now so I needed some other kind of solution.

Enter "Big in Japan."

Big In Japan is not, in fact, a website that's big in Japan. Rather, it's a collection of free tools that, to quote their site, "can make you Big in Japan. And Jersey City. And Genoa. And Jakarta." In a nutshell, they do some of the back end work so you don't have to.

Now Big In Japan has a bunch of tools that you may or may not find useful, and may in fact find in other places. elfURL, for example, provides the same URL shortening feature that TinyURL provides. (I want to expiriment with SocialMail, though. Email converted into an RSS feed sounds intriguing.)

But I digress. The feature I was looking for that day was PodServe. PodServe is a podcast hosting service. You bring the mp3, and they'll give you a gigabyte of space, serve up an RSS feed for you, and even list you on iTunes & Odeo.

It's in Alpha testing still, but the only bug I've seen so far is a page that didn't load well the first time I tried it. I found the interface to be slick and more or less intuitive. The best part is they provide you with direct links to your uploaded files, so you can plug them in just about anywhere. (Like, say, this blog.)

So, that's Big In Japan, for you. Ourmedia.org is working again as of this morning, but I think I'm going to stick with Big In Japan for now. I'll still upload files to Ourmedia, but mostly for backup purposes.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 63

2006-05-31T16:21:00.000-04:00

I'd like to make a clarification on my last podcast.

When I talked about Second Life not being the best place for education, I was referring specifically to the standard model that most administrators would probably try out. Mainly: "Hey, let's make a virtual classroom and have all of the students hang out in the same room while the teacher teaches."

You can do meetings like this, but really they would be little more than bandwidth heavy chat rooms.

There is, however, another way. Imagine an area filled with interactive tools and toys, where students could interface with a variety of media at their leisure. Teachers would select the curriculum (or most of it), as always, but students would choose the order and the pace. That, I think, would work much better in Second Life.

But still, I could build a web quest that does the same thing for a fraction of the bandwidth and without the chance of it being blocked by my school's firewall.

Second Life CAN be a tool for educators, and it may even be a good one. Unfortunately, other than it's user interface I don't see too much that I can't get elsewhere.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 62

2006-05-31T09:48:00.000-04:00

My 62nd podcast is mostly my opinion of Second Life.

Second life is a fun, addictive game that can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be. Since users are encouraged to create modifications/additions/etc. there is a growing movement striving to see how Second Life could help educators. I'm not convinced, but that's just my opinion.

That being said, it's still addictive.

Here's some sites that have dissenting opinions:

Pathfinder Linden is a Second Life employee who focusses on working with educators.
The Second Life Education Community isn't too shabby, either.
They even have an education wiki.
Art and Language Arts teacher Bre Pettis is having a grand old time meeting movers, shakers, & makers.
Ed Tech Talk # 45 toured Second Life about a month after I joined.

Adventures in Wordpress

2006-05-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

I still want to move this site over to a more dynamic host than Blogger, but I don't want to dive in head first without checking how deep the water is.

I've heard very nice things about WordPress, but not every host will support it. Lucky for me it only took a quick search on del.icio.us to find something that would suit my needs ... for now.

You see, right now all I need is a sandbox to flesh things out. I've had others offer space on their own servers, but I don't like to impose when I don't have to.

My experiments will not stay on that server for long. Once I'm comfortable enough with everything I'll be moving it over to a paid server.

EDIT: I should specify that my wordpress blog right now is JUST an expiriment. This will continue to be my main site and when I'm ready to move it I'll be sure to let you know.

Inventory Progress

2006-05-26T14:58:00.000-04:00

Days so far: 2
Days until inventory is due: 3 school days
# of items on inventory: @300 (so far)
# of trips to the dumpster: 4, plus a computer monitor box full of garbage that I haven't taken out yet.
% completed: 40
Weirdest item found: rubber snake, complete with plastic rattling tail
Weirdest thought while working: I can see the foot wide stain on the carpet for the first time in months, and I'm oddly satisfied by that.
Number of bugs seen scurrying for cover: 1
Glad I'm done counting: acrylic paints
Not looking forward to counting: 50-100 books, each of which is unique. (I may end up donating some of the more damaged books, as they were for the most part all donated to me in the first place.)
I didn't know I had so much: white paper (That's not a complaint.)
Sanity maintained by: podcasts, educational and otherwise.

...I needed a break, so I took stock of my accomplishments so far.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 61

2006-05-25T09:07:00.000-04:00

In my 61st podcast I'm starting my end-of-year inventory and talking about the difference between message boards and blogs.

Not much in the way of show notes for this one, I was just talking while I worked on organizing the things in my office.

Flickr Updated!

2006-05-17T08:55:00.000-04:00

Looks like my favorite photo sharing website has made some recent changes, replacing the "beta" in their logo with "gamma" to show just how far they've come.

The first thing I said to myself when loading up Flickr this morning was "Holy cow, I've got a LOT of photos on each page here!" Yep, by abandoning the Yahoo! ads (Which I never paid attention to, anyway) and doing some other adjustments, they've managed to give me two columns of photos on the first page of my photostream. (So now it looks like all of the other pages in my photostream.)

I'm curious as to why they abandoned the ads altogether, though. I mean, sure, I didn't use them ... but Yahoo! isn't exactly making money off of Flickr as it is.

In any case, they're also posting more TOS notices, in particular the reminder I see after clicking on "all sizes." You're not supposed to put Flickr hosted images on your website/blog/etc. unless they link back to that image's Flickr page. This could mean trouble for a lot of Google Earth enthusiasts, including myself, who like to embed images in their maps.

I'll be renting server space from a 3rd party soon, so hopefully it won't bother me so much.

Soon.

Baltimore's WTC

2006-05-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

Did you know Baltimore has its own World Trade Center? Well it does, and here it is.

Learn what Wikipedia has to say about this building.

Steve Dembo knows your permanent record!

2006-05-12T21:43:00.000-04:00

Do you?

Seriously though, I was hoping to record a podcast tonight but my voice just isn't into it right now. Instead, how about you listen to Steve's latest endeavor? He even has his PowerPoint online for you.

During his presentation he makes a good point about starting off with a strictly controlled environment, then opening it up slowly as the students become more responsible. I've been thinking for a while now about moving this blog to a server capable of handling WordPress this summer, and depending on the server space I rent I could probably host just such an environment for my students using Moodle or another fun tool.

If not, there's still Class Blogmeister, Gaggle.net, and Think.com. Anyone out there have good/bad experiences with those last two?

Save the Edu-Blogosphere

2006-05-12T06:38:00.000-04:00

Blogs in education are endagered. Why? Read what Weblogg-ed has to say about it. Then get ahold of your representatives in Congress and tell them how you feel.

Yes, I know they're mainly targeting MySpace. Unfortunately, the bill is so broadly written that most if not all blogs will have to be banned at school.

I'll have more to say about this later, when I've had time to collect my thoughts.

EDIT: A wiki has been set up to create a collaborative letter to our congresspeople. I've already added my (minor) contributions and sent one to my Representative. A link is included near the top to allow you to contact your Representative quickly and easily.

You're online. No, really!

2006-05-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

"I don't like it when people read what I write."
That's a direct quote from one of my Art Club kids. I've met many students (and adults) who had that same opinion, but this particular student had just finished posting to her Art Club blog.

And she was very surprised when she walked over to me and saw her words on my screen. (I was in the process of approving it for publication on the web.)

We had a nice little conversation about how we should always assume everything we write will be read by somebody, and I think it's finally sinking in that her actions on a web site make her part of a larger community. Not only that, but now she also knows things she wants to be private should not be placed in a public forum. (No, she didn't put private stuff in her blog.)

At least, it's a start.

Baltimore Inner Harbor's Power Plant

2006-05-07T18:16:00.000-04:00

The "Power Plant" was once just that, but now it has the best looking storefronts in the Inner Harbor.

Learn more here.

The Mildred Belle

2006-05-07T17:21:00.000-04:00

Watch this video to learn about this floating classroom that used to be a Buy Boat.

This is more footage from the Discovery Educator Network's "Capture the Inner Harbor" event. I'm slowly going through everything and placing it online.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 60 - Baffled By Blogging

2006-05-04T21:37:00.000-04:00

My 60th podcast is a recording of my session at MICCA. (I talked about blogging, as you can see in the title.) I promised to have it up on the same day, so here you go.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Links:
discoveryeducatornetwork.com
Blogging 101 (My Wiki about blogging)
Room132.com (The class blog maintained by Bre Pettis)
Weblogg-ed (The website of Will Richardson, a pioneer in edu-blogging)
Technorati.com (Google for blogs)
OpenOffice.org (Just like Microsoft Office ... but FREE)
Blogger.com (My blog host)
Bloglines.com (The site I use to check other blogs)
Think.com, Class Blogmeister, & Gaggle.net (These three are all free services that offer a "closed" blogging environment.)

Other MICCA Attendees

2006-05-04T15:07:00.000-04:00

Wondering who else has been mentioning MICCA in their blogs? A quick search on Technorati.com brought up the following results:

Will Richardson did a workshop here, and even graced my own session with his presence.
Cristina Runkles had a session on podcasting next door to my blogging session. Being the tech savvy person she is, she's placed her notes online.

If you attended MICCA as well, I encourage you to write up your opinions on the conference. What do you think?

MICCA Day 2 Keynote

2006-05-04T09:05:00.000-04:00

Day 2, and the Keynote speaker is Deneen Frazier Bowen. Her presentation is apparently called "The Natives Are Restless." I can only assume at this point that she'll be talking about the distinction between "digital natives" and "digital immigrants," but from a slightly different angle. (Otherwise, she wouldn't be the Keynote.)

HA! She's really doing a nice take on this, assuming a personality and presenting as someone else. There won't be many people walking out early for this one.

I won't be typing much, because with this I've already missed several good parts.

UPDATE: Oh wow, that Keynote speaker had some acting skills! She assumed multiple personalities, most of them of different digital natives. I don't know if I should be happy or upset that I was able to follow along with 99% of what those personas were talking about.

The personalities were real kids. Apparently she spent months interviewing and working with kids, and today she shared their stories.

I need to see this person present again.

Waiting for Day 2 of MICCA

2006-05-04T08:20:00.000-04:00

It's the start of day 2 of MICCA, and the students are starting to roll in.

That's right, I said students.

Yesterday they handed out some awards to teachers and administrators, but today the pre-keynote award ceremony is for students doing cool things with technology. In all honesty I think today's awards are much more important than yesterday's.

Why? Because in education the bottom line should always be the student and what he or she is achieving. If I have to explain that then you're not really a teacher.

Session 4: Using NASA's Online Problem-Based Learning Activities

2006-05-03T14:47:00.000-04:00

Last session of the day, and believe it or not I'm not attending the one on unitedstreaming. It's worth seeing, but I experienced the same session at the PETE&C conference a while back.

With unitedstreaming out of the picture, it was almost a toss up as to which session I should see, but I finally picked one.

NASA's got a bunch of projects at their NASA Quest website. Some of it's a little dinky on the content (coloring pages), but other parts are a little more robust (design an aircraft). They even have Spanish and Chinese language versions - which I didn't expect from a government site.

At this point the presenter (Valerie Hawkins) is continuing with a walkthrough. She's shown us that the NASA Quest page is diverse in features, but the back row was crowded when she started and now I'm the only one in it. (I would be sitting closer to the front with the rest of the remaining 25 or so teachers, but I'm making use of the power outlet back here.)

My guess is that there's nothing wrong with the presentation, but as the last session of the day it's cursed to have a large percentage of walk-outs. The same thing's probably happening in all the sessions, and it will most likely be even worse tomorrow.

Session 3: Let's Make Literacy Accessible for All!

2006-05-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

I promised myself this morning that I wouldn't attend any sessions that mentioned the words "PowerPoint, "Office," or "Inspiration." Not because the programs are bad, but because conferences like this are often beyond saturated with sessions that show how to use those programs. I want something more.

So now I'm sitting here waiting for this session about PowerPoint (Presented by Jeanne Noorisa and Marsye Kaplan) to start. Why? Because it's about making books. Now that's just cool.

Hm, this is the first session I've been to all day that actually has a handout. Using three sessions isn't much of a sample size, but it seems like we're moving from dead tree handouts to digital ones - a welcome change.

This session's al about "talking books," which are more or less digital presentations that include text, images, and audio components. They're created to help students that have mental, physical, or motivational reasons why they can't always enjoy paper books.

With those requirements in place, the rest is totally up to you. You don't even have to make the book yourself, since your students can create their own books to enjoy. I'm imagining my students creating a story, then having each kid illustrate a different page which they will then read into a microphone.

Hm, she's focussing mostly on Windows. I'm not surprised, since that's what most people use. This stuff will all work with Mac anyway.

Ah, she's touching on copyright - there's a copyright law amendment that allows teachers to make multimedia copies of books for students with disabilities. If your students fit into that category then remixing an existing book is fair game.

Tricks to make the books better:

Time delays to prevent "happy clickers" from fast forwarding to the end of the book.
A back button so students can read previous pages.
Include pictures to go with the words to help beginning readers. (She used a program called "Boardmaker Plus," but I found a website called Phrasr that does something similar.

More Talking Books:
(I'll add these later)

Resources:

... what, no Flickr: Creative Commons or YoToPhoto?

Lunch Musings

2006-05-03T13:17:00.000-04:00

The last time I attended this conference was two years ago, and things have changed a lot since then. Most notable is the fact that MICCA is taking up a lot less real estate.

Back then they took up three floors, with the sessions on the 2nd floor, administration, registration, souvenirs, etc. on the 1st floor, and the vendors all regulated to the basement. Now, except for registration and a small art exhibit, we're all on the 2nd floor.

If I hadn't been here two years ago when the building was so crowded it was hard to find a seat, I wouldn't have noticed. I have a good idea why MICCA shrank, but I won't get into that right now.

The good news is I got to see all the vendors during lunch, and I didn't even have to skip a session to do it. This bodes well for me tomorrow, as it means people will be less likely to skip out of my session to play with the Macs that Apple has set up.

Session 2: The 21st Century Art Room

2006-05-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

Woohoo! The next session doesn't hae any outlets, but it's about art, education, and technology. This is right up my alley. :)

It's being presented by Aileen Pugliese-Castro, who is forward thinking enough to not have a handout, but rather put things online.

She used a company called Original Works to do some fund raising and buy all kinds of tech goodies for her art classroom. I'll have to check that company out when I have the time. I've used Cafe Press in the past to put my own artwork on t-shirts and the like, but they have a high overhead that makes fundraisers much less productive.

This is great - she has enough computers in her room to have students frequently use them for worksheets, poster making, research (World Book Online, mostly), and even self portraits using drawing programs. She also keeps hard copies around just in case there was a bad 'net day.

I would love to do things like this in my classroom, but as I don't have one I need to find ways to modify these plans. Perhaps for some classes I'll have the kids meet me in the computer lab rather than have them wait for me to push my cart into their classroom. That'll take more time to plan and set up, but I know it'll be worth it.

I'll have to ask her about blogging...

Session 1: Making Better Readers with Digital Photography

2006-05-03T10:40:00.000-04:00

Sally DeVincentis is a vendor, but she was a Special Education teacher for 25 years. With a background like that she's got my interest. (This is why I love this WiFi connection. In less than a minute I looked up her business and linked in her website.)

The key to this session seems to be "Visual Literacy," a skill that begins to develop before verbal literacy.

Ok, we're 12 minutes in and she's still talking about theory. I know a lot about this already, but I'm not faulting her for this - I'm sure most of the people in this room are learning this for the first time.

"TV is a student's FIRST professional teacher." As much cash as we spend on learning how students think and learn, advertising companies spend much, much more. What can we learn from them?

Tell a story.
Bombard with visuals.
Make it relevant to the viewer's life. (Personalize it!)
Limit the words.
Provide multi-sensory cues.
Go from the concrete to the abstract.

The theories are done, now she's showing the products. While she says she'd like us to like her products, she does mention that we can do similar activities on our own without their software.

The first program has a library of digital pictures that can be organized so that every student has their own gallery, but you can add your own. It has a section that will let students edit photos in your gallery, but the coolest part is where students can create a book using their gallery.

The result is a digital product that has the page turns animated as it speaks to students in a distorted computer voice. You can also print the book so students can take it home.

Aaaaah! She's showing off all of the transitions it can put into a slide show. I know she's deliberately showing the variety, but how many people who use this product will do the same thing? Bad, bad, bad design.

The session's winding down. I think I got a few ideas out of this, but I'm still hoping the other sessions speak to me more.

Before the 1st session

2006-05-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

I'm at what will be my first session of the day: "Making Better Readers with Digital Photography." Once again I'm in range of a strong WiFi signal, but this time it's password protected so I'll have to save this summary for later. As an added bonus I'm even close to a wall outlet! (No more putting my laptop to sleep between each burst of writing. Curse you, old battery!)

I hope the network isn't encrypted when I present tomorrow, or at the very least I hope they share the password with me. I have a "Plan B" worked into my presentation just in case, but I'd much prefer to do everything live.

UPDATE: The password protection's been dropped. Boo-ya!

I'm hoping to get a few good things out of this one although they'll have to close the giant picture window behind the projector screen. Even if we could see the visual aides with this much light in the room, we'd all be looking out the window instead. (You can see the National Aquarium from here.)

MICCA Day 1 Keynote

2006-05-03T09:54:00.000-04:00

Today's Keynote is unusual for me. Rather than having just one person standing in front of a PowerPoint presentation we have several individuals (Linda Roberts, Senator Patrick J. Hogan, Dr. Karen B. Salmon, Jim Potter, and Sterlind S. Burke, Sr.) discussing "21st century skills."

They're having some microphone problems, but it's not too bad.

Jim Potter has a few good sound bits, including "We need a balance between perspiration and inspiration," and "We don't know what we don't know."

Dr. Salmon started a 1:1 laptop program where the students could take their computers home at the end of the day. The 1:1 initiative is seeping into Maryland, and so far it's working.

Sterlind Burke says we need to focus on ethics and how the technology can be used IN the curriculum, not just AS a curriculum. I'm on board with both points.

Senator Hogan makes a point about how most U.S. Senators know very little about how technology works and thus how it can affect education.

"Technology in service of curriculum"

Four key elements for the 21st century schools, according to Potter:
1. Administrative Support (including the community)
2. Facilities Planning (help students access anything, any time.)
3. Professional Development
4. Students! (Oh yeah, did we forget that part?)

Burke again - "All of these bells and whistles will be scary for County Commissioners. We need to answer the question of 'What's in it for me?'"

Potter answers - Better tech ed. will lead to better jobs, which lead to better salaries, which lead to a better economy. (On the down side, this is not an overnight change.)

On my way to MICCA

2006-05-03T06:26:00.000-04:00

I'm about to head over to the Baltimore Convention Center or day 1 of MICCA. I'm presenting on blogging, but not until tomorrow. Today I'm just going to see what I can see and blog about it.

If they have wireless access I'll post from there. If not, I'll post when I get home.

UPDATE: I'm sitting in the room for the Keynote speaker. Obviously, MICCA has WiFi. Life is good, or at least it will be until my battery dies.

American Visionary Art Museum

2006-05-01T23:28:00.000-04:00

This 2.4 MB video is more or less an ad for the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

DEN Event: Capture the Inner Harbor

2006-04-30T21:11:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Discovery Educator Network sponsored an event where educators converged on Baltimore's Inner Harbor to capture it. ... on film, of course! (I must warn you - this file's 21.8 MB)

Half of us learned how to make virtual tours with Google Earth, while others did the same using MovieMaker. A good time was had by all, and I collected enough photographs and movies for me to do several projects.

Sadly, the limits on a free Flickr account prevent me from posting everything there, but keep an eye right here and you'll see everything soon enough.

Capture the Harbor - First Impressions

2006-04-30T11:27:00.000-04:00

Wow! Yesterday I joined roughly 50 other educators in the DEN challenge to Capture the Inner Harbor.

Kudos go out to Rachel for organizing this spiffy event, although so many others helped that I really don't remember all the names I would have to list. If you head over to Rachel's blog in the next few days I'm sure you'll encounter more details.

As for myself, I took a bunch of pictures and videos. Some are uploaded already (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8), but I'm still working through the rest. One of our afternoon activities was to create a Google Earth sightseeing tour with our photos, and that's exactly what I'm going to finish up before I try to wow you with anything.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 59 - DEN on the brain

2006-04-26T08:47:00.000-04:00

My 59th podcast has me thinking about all the different conferences and events I'll be going to over the next three months.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Show Notes:

April 29 - Den Challenge: Capture the Inner Harbor
May 3-4 - MICCA!
May 20 - DEN event & Orioles game
June 25-29 - Summer Regional DEN Event
July 11-15 - DEN Leadership Conference

Great Quote

2006-04-24T13:34:00.000-04:00

Yanked from Presentation Zen:

“A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.”
(Herbie-Hancock)

(I also have a podcast that's been brewing since Spring Break. No, really! I'll have it recorded soon.)

RSS Shuffling

2006-04-09T13:51:00.000-04:00

Due to reasons apparently beyond my control, those of you using Bloglines to subscribe to my feed have been getting the "plain vanilla" version. This is because I asked the good people at Bloglines to fix an unrelated bug, and in doing so they created this problem.

Since then they've proved less than helpful, but I do have a workaround. If you're using Bloglines and you'd still like to see the extra things I throw into my feed (pictures and links), then simply subscribe to the goodies below. If you're using a different RSS aggregator then don't worry about it - you're already seeing these things.

*Flickr Photos (RSS)
*Furl Links (RSS)

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 58 - Bubblr

2006-03-31T08:14:00.000-05:00

My 58th podcast is brought to you by some oatmeal, spring weather, and a glorious sunrise.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Show Notes:

Don't always assume that younger kids "won't get it." They can and will surprise you.
Bubblr is now my favorite Flickr mash-up. Wow, this program is fun. You can see my sample comic here.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 57 - Disruptive Laptops

2006-03-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

My 57th podcast touches on a theory about technology that is gaining strength among educators.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My school is handing out laptops to teachers, but not everyone's excited. Why? Some say it'll increase our workload.

First things the laptops will most likely be used for:

Grade Books
Lesson Planning
Presentations (PowerPoint) (I hint a bit about good design ideas and free alternatives here, but don't get into it.

So where does this extra work come from? Is it because these teachers see "disruptive" technology heading their way? Maybe, but remember: Disruptive technology isn't always a bad thing. Podcasts and blogs are disruptive, after all. (For more info, see what Wikipedia has to say about disruptive technology.)

It's not the job of those preferring sustaining technology to change. It is our job as educators who prefer the disruptive technology to prove that the change is worth the effort.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 56 - Surveys

2006-03-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

Today my 56th podcast is all about two different survey tools, Zoomerang and Survey Monkey.

I'll go over things in more detail in the podcast, but here's some notes I wrote down when creating my surveys as well as an image of what the survey results look like side by side (click for a larger view):

Zoomerang
Free!
zEducation package for $350/year
login with email account
Free service allows shorter surveys
100 survey responses
see results for 10 days
Sorts templates ... differently. (Business, Community, Social, Education)
Add images by uploading gif or jpg format

SurveyMonkey
Free!
Pro subscription for $19.95/month OR $200/year
login with email account
100 survey responses
Have multiple pages
A variety of themes.
Add images if they're already hosted by someone.
Taunts you with premium features.
Lists competitors

Would you like to take a survey?

2006-03-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

I'm looking at different survey services for an upcoming podcast, and I could use some help. I've created two short surveys (less than 10 questions) that are more or less identical, and would appreciate it if you took one or both of them.

Please?

Pretty please?

I'll be your friend...

SurveyMonkey Survey
Zoomerang Survey

GES Podcast 1

2006-03-11T18:25:00.000-05:00

My Art Club kids got together and made a podcast! Not all of them were into it for the first episode, but my 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students wrote their own scripts and recorded them using an old iMac (so old it can't run OS X) and Audacity.

The blog service is Class Blogmeister, a wonderful free service provided by David Warlick. To my knowledge Class Blogmeister doesn't host files, but that's what Ourmedia.org and Archive.org are for.

My turn to learn.

2006-03-09T07:51:00.000-05:00

I'm getting ready for a really fun day tomorrow.

I know, I know, as an art teacher most of my days are fun, but this one's extra special.

Tomorrow is an inservice day, so to make up for the lack of students the teachers in the Interrelated Arts program are getting together to swap lesson ideas. I'm sure most of them will be bringing in student work, but I don't have the heart to take those things down.

Instead, I'm taking digital pictures. I'f I'm lucky and can get an internet connection in that building I'll show them a Flickr slide show, since I really want to get more art teachers turned on to that service. If not, I'll use my Mac's built in screen saver to do the job.

When we're done there I'll be hopping in my car and driving to Rockville (Mental note: I still need to print directions) for a Maryland DEN event were we'll be learning how to use MovieMaker. I may already know how to use iMovie, but unfortunately most of my buildings are using Windows so I guess I might as well learn Movie Maker also and get some cool lesson ideas while I'm at it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 55 - PETEandC 7 of 7

2006-03-04T08:29:00.000-05:00

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 54 - PETEandC 6 of 7

2006-03-03T05:22:00.000-05:00

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

-=-=-

My last session of the day was with Hall Davidson again, and he showed how to do multimedia. I already know how to edit video, but like most of the big names in education out there he had a different way of doing it.

Not every school has enough cameras for everyone to make their own movie, but computers today often come with MovieMaker or iMovie installed. Why not make a "pack" of media - pictures, video, and music - on a given topic and have students combine some or all of it to make a movie. There's a lot that can be done using media that are either copyright-free or at the very least under Creative Commons licenses. (My favorite sources for such content are Flickr Creative Commons, YoToPhoto, and Archive.org, but there are plenty of others.

I wish Mr. Davidson had spent more time on Creative Commons rather than just discussing fair use, but then he did a presentation during session 1 on copyrights so he probably talked about it then. He DID show how easy it is to cite references, which is of course something we should al be doing.

The notes for this session were provided as handouts, but he also had them saved as Word documents. Anyone with a thumb drive was able to come up and get a digital copy if they wanted it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 53 - PETEandC 5 of 7

2006-03-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

-=-=-

For the 2nd breakout session I went to see a presentation on Google Earth and unitedstreaming, run by none other than Lance Rougeux (the guy who planned the whole PETE&C DEN event). I went into this with a bit of skepticism since I wasn't sure if Google Earth had a Mac version, but a teacher at another table downloaded and installed the Mac app during the presentation so I really perked up after that.

Google Earth has some great visuals and looks at the altitude above sea level to make the maps 3D - honestly, the Grand Canyon looks awesome. You can also insert images on top of the map to turn them into great social studies lessons. Lance used unitedstreaming pictures of course, but an image is an image.

I think the best feature is Google Earth's support of html code. I can insert pictures hosted on Flickr by using the codes they provide, and then everyone who loads my map file will see the same image.

When I had Art Club later on that week I showed Google Earth to some of my kids and they didn't want to stop playing with it.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 52 - PETEandC 4 of 7

2006-03-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 51 - PETEandC 3 of 7

2006-02-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Again, this is also a podcast.

-=-=-

The first breakout session I attended was run by the DEN's own Scott Kinney, who only had to drive down the road to attend the conference. (The lucky guy lives in Hershey.) His presentation was all about the diversity in our classrooms and how unitedstreaming could help us meet the needs of today's classrooms.

If I wasn't already sold on unitedstreaming.com I would have reacted to this like so many other vendor presentations, but since they had me at multimedia downloads I paid attention to find out what else unitedstreaming could do.

We started with a quiz, and the answers were a bit surprising to us. I'd list them here, but I forgot his source so I can't properly cite his statistics.

The main point of this warm-up was that our schools are a lot more diverse than we thought.

Since unitedstreaming has lots of features from subtitles to online quizzes to encyclopedia articles, It really does help people who have a variety of learning styles.

Self Realization

2006-02-27T23:00:00.000-05:00

This morning I left two things on the counter that were meant to go to school with me:

My Lunch. I had no cash on me, so my lunch was in fact irreplaceable. I would just have to wait until after school to get a bite to eat.
My Camera. I didn't have any lessons planned for today that required the use of a camera, digital or otherwise. Even if something came up in a spur of the moment, I still had my standby camera and a 256 MB card.

So guess which item I missed more today?

That's right, the replaceable digital camera I didn't even need.

Hello, my name is Aaron, and I'm a digital junkie.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 50 - PETEandC 2 of 7

2006-02-27T07:35:00.000-05:00

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 49 - PETEandC 1 of 7

2006-02-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I'll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.

Oh yeah, this is also a podcast. Enjoy.

-=-=-

The first keynote speaker was Kathy Schrock, and she did a great job going over tips for visual presentations. Now granted, I knew most of her tips due to my training as an art teacher, but I've sat through far too many presentations (done by adults who should have known better) that included sounds, transitions, pictures, fonts, and even colors that just did not belong.

And of course the whole thing was made even better because she put examples and notes from her presentation online for us. This took a lot of pressure off of the people who were taking notes, and it also meant one less handout for us to file and forget. (I myself intend to use wikis for my presentations, since my last wiki is still the number one downloaded resource on the new DEN site. ... how did THAT happen?!)

Link Reciprocation

2006-02-23T08:03:00.000-05:00

I'm working on write-ups and/or podcasts for the PETE&C DEN event, really! But until then, I have something else to share.

I was going through my site statistics to find out what kinds of websites are leading people here. Some of them are obviously just from people clicking on that "Next Blog" link at the top to see another Blogger blog (is that too redundant?), but others are nice to know or, at the very least ... interesting. In a lot of these searches I'm finding myself in very nice company.

academic podcast (Google Search)
aesthetic art education (MSN Search)
aesthetic drawing (Google Search)
art (Google Blog Search) (I'm not on that page any more - it updates too often)
Acting to Improve
Edu-Blogging 101: Teacher Blogs (Yes this is a shameless plug, but it's also a way that somebody found this site.)
flickr+limit (Google Search)
"Helen South" books (Google Search)
"new literacy" vs. "old literacy" (Google Search)

Ok, enough ego boosting for one day. My next post SHOULD contain a podcast, one way or another.

PETE and C DEN Event Vidcast

2006-02-21T20:36:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry to say the quality of this video is below what I wanted, but I still got to talk to a lot of people at the PETE & C preconference that was sponsored by the Discovery Educator Network.

Title: PETE and C DEN Event

File size: 6.4 MB

Length: 2:14

Format: mp4

Show Notes:
PETE & C
Teach42.com
DEN National
DEN Maryland
DEN Pennsylvania
KathySchrock.com

Collaborative Lessons Wiki and Frappr Map

2006-02-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

Are you interested in having your K-12 class work with another class in another school for a lesson, project, or other activity? That's why the Collaborative Lessons group is here!

Just place a pin in our Frappr map, including the subject to which you'd like your lesson to relate. Include an email address in your "shoutout" message, along with any other specifics you'd like to add, and then other teachers will be able to see where you are and what you'd like to do.

Sometimes teachers want to do a collaboration with another class but just can't think of a good lesson idea. That's what this wiki is for! If you've got a cool concept for a collaborative lesson just go to the appropriate page (or make your own if the page doesn't exist) and add in your idea.

Don't worry about mistakes or immature people going in to change the pages in a bad way, every change is saved so we can always go back to the way the site used to be.

Sue's Journey Thru Wikis

2006-02-20T09:17:00.000-05:00

As someone who loves education, technology, and art, I always enjoy when I see someone putting all three together. Usually this means some sort of digital artwork is the end result, but not always.

Take Sue, for example. She's doing a unit on Monet and wants some advice, tips, tricks, and so on. Rather than just limit herself to asking a handful of teachers, she's set up a wiki where lesson ideas can be exchanged.

I've already given her my two cents, but if you'd like to join in and help the password is "lessonideas" without the quotes.

Among Giants

2006-02-19T20:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I arrived at the Hershey Lodge for the PETE & C Preconference sponsored by DEN. (Wow, what a name!) I couldn't go to the full conference, but this one day event was too good to pass up.

To be honest, it wasn't truly a one day fling - last night a bunch of DEN members got together to have dinner and socialize for a few hours. While we were still in the lobby waiting to go I had the opportunity to meet David Warlick.

It was quite convenient that I was talking to DEN managers Michelle Adams and Jannita Demian, or I would have never had such a chance encounter. They got hugs and hearty greetings while I got a wave and a handshake.

Dave had no idea who I was, but why should he?

At dinner my wife and I got to sit across from Kathy Schrock and discuss everything from family to educational podcasting.

Kathy had no idea who I was, either.

The next day I had the great honor of meeting Steve Dembo himself, who only recognized me because my hat had "Art Guy" written on it. (He mentioned at the time that I didn't look anything like he imagined.)

This is the part of the story where I'm supposed to say that after shaking hands with all of these powerhouses in educational technology I'm never going to wash my hand again, but that's just gross, isn't it?

There's a point to this beyond incessant name dropping. You see, I was getting a little worried that I might be getting a little too full of myself. I mean, let's face it - I've got over 2,000 kids that freak out every time I walk into one of their classrooms.

Now, having met these icons of ed tech that are doing so much more than me to further the cause, I think I have a much better sense of self.

After all, I'm way too much of a fanboy to be all that famous, right?

(PS: More info on the conference, including a podcast or two, will be forthcoming as soon as my Powerbook is up and running again.)

Evicted from my laptop.

2006-02-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week my hard drive began to make a very unsettling noise. Seeing this as the beginning of the end I immediately backed up all of my files. I would have replaced the hard drive, and in fact I've done just that on several occasions, but with this particular laptop I think it would be too risky for me to do so.

So it's at a repair center and will be returned next week with a new (and larger) drive. I'm getting by thanks to school computers (even if most of them are running Windows...) and my spare home computer, which just happens to be an old Compaq running Linux. I really like this Linux install, too - I don't think this thing was this fast when it was new!

It's also quite fortunate that I transfered my blog over to Blogger and my rss feeds over to Bloglines before the fateful day, even if I still have no way to put podcasts onto my iPod until I get my laptop back.

Unfortunately this means I won't have my laptop when I head up to the PETE&C preconference sponsored by DEN. I've got to find another way to blog about it.

Feh.

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 48: Polls

2006-02-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

My 48th podcast is brought to you by the letters "S," "N," "O," "W," "D," "A," and "Y." The snow wasn't the problem today, but the trees and power lines that the snow took down were a bit of a hinderance.

Show Notes:

I'm going to the PETE&C DEN Event! Look for me there!
Free Wikispaces for Teachers!
Add a free poll to your blog with Quimble.com or dPolls.com! (I like dPolls.com more, but both are usable.)

dpolls.com poll

2006-02-13T08:46:00.000-05:00

Still playing with things. Explanation will come soon.

Quimble Quiz

2006-02-13T00:35:00.000-05:00

Humor me here - I'm trying something new.

Flickr Limit

2006-02-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

I had a great post written on Flickr's 200 image limit and my debate over whether or not I should switch to a pro account. I reasoned that by switching I would get rid of that limit and my need to resize my images (that 20 MB/month limit can be a killer...), but that I'm so much of a cheapskate that it might not be worth it.

Then I noticed that I could see all 309 of my pictures, even if I wasn't logged in.

So much for my rant!

... I think Flickr needs to update it's FAQ.

-= UPDATE! =-

And now I can only see 200 pictures again. Why is Flickr turning the limit on and off? In light of this I've added my original post below.

-=-=-=-=-

As I'm sure you may have noticed, I've integrated my Flickr account into my blog and my RSS feed. Flickr is a great way to share photos, and it even has a Creative Commons section where you can find pictures that you're allowed to use for other projects.

They offer free and paid accounts, and therein lies my problem.

You see, while the free account offers many useful services it will only display 200 pictures for you at a time. It won't delete the old pictures, and if you're already showing them on a blog they'll still be visible there, but you won't be able to get to those pictures from the Flickr site unless you pony up for a pro account.

As I'm typing this I've already uploaded 200+ pictures this school year. That means I can't reference any of the artworks I uploaded last year.

Unless I get a pro account.

Which I wouldn't mind having.

The question I need to answer is: "Is the pro account worth it?"

The geek in me wants to say yes, because the removal of an upload quota would let me post larger images and I hate resizing. The cheapskate in me is happy with the free service.

This is something I need to work out. I'll keep you posted.

Two years later...

2006-02-08T01:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday nbc4.com posted this story on their website. I recommend that you go and read the whole article before you continue with my own ramblings. Go ahead, I'll wait.

All done? Good.

I'm sure the author of that article wanted his or her thesis to be that there's a growing problem among today's youth where they think that the rules in the digital realm are different from the rules in the analog realm. The solution of course is to more thoroughly educate students about plagiarism and to also know how to look for it.

At least that's what I think the author's take was on it, and two years ago I would have agreed with it completely.

Let me first preface my own thesis with the following statements:

Yes, I think plagiarism is wrong.
Yes, I think students who knowingly commit plagiarism should be punished.
Yes, I think that we should both educate our students on the perils of intellectual theft and keep a watchful eye for signs of the same.

I don't have any problem acknowledging any of those points. My contention is with the point of view.

Allow me to elaborate by quoting two sentences from the story itself.

"Part of the problem is that students now have easy access to a number of Web sites that offer papers on just about every novel, topic and theme taught in schools. Many students said the Internet is an easy way to get free information."

I would propose that the solution would be to look at that part of the problem in a new light. Remember, when the Industrial Revolution put many farmers out of work they saw the change as catastrophic, but at the same time those unemployed workers were hired in droves to work in the factories. (Thanks for the history lesson, Bob!)

At the risk of sounding too much like Mr. Warlick, we're in the thick of a digital revolution. The farmers who couldn't bear change suffered, starved, and in the worst of it started riots and rebellions. Those that changed had a chance.

It's sad that all that free information out there is seen as a disadvantage for students. With our current teaching methods (at least in most schools) we're still pretending we're in the 1900s or even 1800s. "Memorize this, quiz on Thursday" might have worked well when we were kids, but let's be honest here.

How often do you encounter problems where you cannot check a reference if necessary. They make those teachers' editions for a reason, after all!

I currently do not have textbooks that I can use in my classrooms, and frankly I don't want them. I have a few reference materials I can use in and out of the classroom, but it's so much easier to use the internet that sometimes O don't even crack a book open to plan a lesson. As someone who is required to use his art lessons to teach all the other subjects, I think that's really saying something.

If we're supposed to prepare students to survive in the "real world," (That is our job, right? Right?!) then we should show them how to use references the same way we do.

Don't just copy that page from Wikipedia, check some of it's facts to see if they're accurate!
Don't just take an essay off the internet, use it as a reference in a blog post!
Don't spend all your time memorizing the periodic table, find out what you can do with all those cool elements! (Don't forget your safety goggles!)

What if a teacher assigned a project where the report wasn't even graded, but the responses to other students' reports were?

I've rambled on long enough, so how about one of you wrap this up for me?

Academic Aesthetic Podcast 47: Lifelong Learners

2006-02-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

My 47th podcast is tale of how some special needs students are showing lifelong learner skills. Yes, beleive it or not we're not failing all our students!
Show Notes:

Today's background music: "TechnaDistor SoulEater TranceThingy" by Koiu Lpoi - Another fine song procured from Podsafeaudio.com.
Mark Harden's Artchive - A well stocked art history website.
Like the podcast? then please Vote for it at PodcastAlley.com and put a pin in my Frappr map!

Why aren't we doing this?

2006-01-31T10:28:00.000-05:00

David Warlick had a great quote on his blog today:

Stop talking about integrating technology into the curriculum, and start talking about integrating the curriculum into an information-driven, technology-rich, rapidly changing world.

I'm sure most of us when reading that quote see it as the great, timely idea that it is. Unfortunately there are two roadblocks.

How exactly do we do that?
How many teachers, when told how to integrate the curriculum into "real world" experiences, acknowledge that it's nice and then continue with business as usual?

Obviously #1 is the first snag that must be addressed, especially for those of us with mandatory state, county, or local curriculums. I would propose that we look at our planning backwards - like teaching to the test, but in this case the "test" is surviving after graduation.

What skills will students need when job descriptions are constantly changing? (I won't list those here, if you're reading this you probably already have a good idea.) Those are the parts of the curriculum that need to be reinforced the most. Even if you have a rigid curriculum you should still have some wriggle room to get the ball rolling.

The 2nd roadblock is much more difficult. Inertia is a horrible thing to overcome, and teachers who were innovative ten, twenty, and thirty years ago have eroded away a nice rut. They're comfortable, the students are learning (albeit not what they need to learn...), and they're tenured, so why change?

We need to show those teachers how much better the change can be.

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