Academic Aesthetic 149

That's right, I'm podcasting again! And how about that, this isn't even a horrible recorded-in-the-car-using-a-cell-phone-cast, either!

I won't speak for everyone, but for me December is a time to look back on the past year and ask "Where did the time go?" Of course it's also a time to look forward and ask "Wait, I have to do all that again?" Then you get to sit down, eat a Christmas cookie, and say "I'm getting too old for this!"

...ok, I added that last one this year, since I turned 30. And now everyone who's older than me can laugh at how the young guy thinks he's old. Go ahead, it'll relieve some stress.

But seriously, as I look back on this past year I really slacked off on being a content creator. Compared to the year before I barely podcasted or blogged at all, and my Flickr photo postings have been sporadic, at best. This new year, my resolution is to fix that.

You could say this episode is an early start on just that, but I need to set up a regular schedule again - and this time, I need to stick to it. Maybe even record shows early so I have a backlog in case of emergencies. We'll see.

I've also tweaked the Teachers 2.0 Twitter account to make it, in my opinion, more usable. I used twitterfeed.com to set it up so that any time someone saves a link in del.icio.us and tags it "teachers20," it'll show up as a Teachers 2.0 tweet. The only glitch is that it has to be a NEW link - going back and adding the "teachers20" tag to old links won't make them show up on Twitter. Of course you can still write something a little more in depth and post it on the Teachers 2.0 Ning site, and that'll show up in the feed as well. I'm hoping that since we now have well over a hundred members we'll start to see these services used a little more often.

I have a lot more to say, but I still like the format of a short and sweet podcast, netcast, or whatever you want to call it, so I'll just hold that over until next time. Hey, now I won't have to brainstorm a new topic!

Until next time, stay subscribed, fare thee well, merry Christmas, and happy holidays, everyone.

DVD Sub Plans

I know what you're thinking: DVD sub plans? What am I, nuts?!

Well what if the DVD isn't some Disney movie you got from Blockbuster the day before? (This happened to me more than once when I was a sub years ago.) What if the DVD relates directly to the curriculum the students are covering in class?

What if the DVD was created by you?
If I was in a position where I would actually have a sub when I took a day off, I would definitely do this. (I'm more of a resource person than a classroom teacher. If I have a day off I just reschedule my classes)

I think the best part about Mr. Meyer's aforementioned (aforelinked?) blog entry is that he doesn't make it too fancy. Yeah, yeah, he uses Final Cut Pro, but Lawrence Lessig does the exact same thing with iMovie. That means anyone with an out-of-the-box macbook (or iBook, Powerbook, or Macbook Pro) can do this with very little effort.

This isn't technology that we can think about using years in the future, it's technology that we can use tomorrow. (Or Monday, rather, since tomorrow's Saturday.)

If you want to get your more technophobic teachers to buy into using all these wonderful toys, this is one good way to do it.

Follow Up On My Rant

Now I'm not saying that they read my little rant about their last newsletter (although who knows?), but this month's Discovery Education Streaming newsletter's survey question involved writing a sentence rather than selecting a single choice.

Oh, the question? It was:

How would you describe in one sentence what Discovery Education provides the education community?

A much better way of doing it, I think.

I think I need to blog more.  Writing reactions to things is OK, but writing more than one post that reacts to a newsletter most people can't read (I looked for a version on their site and couldn't find it in the short time I had to search...) is a little, shall we say, redundant?

More to follow, on different topics, I hope.

Should I be proud of this?

I have mixed thoughts here. On one hand, this is the level I teach. On the other hand, elementary students are not this site's target audience.

What do you think?

As a side note, I think that (assuming this web tool is accurate) this would be a good resource for assessing sites you're thinking of using with your students. I wouldn't rely solely on it, but it's a another tool to add to the toolbox I think.