Tech Talk 113: Thoughts from Lisa Suhr

This weekend I spent a little time exploring the Podcast app that is part of the iPad interface. I’d like to use this post to explore a little about what a podcast is and how the Podcast app works. Maybe I’ll even add a screencast video before posting!

First let’s start with the basics: what is a podcast, anyway? Podcasts are series of digital media episodes in either audio or video format that can be subscribed to and downloaded to be played back on a computer or mobile device. The word is a mashup of the words “broadcast” and “iPod” since the popularity of the iPod device encouraged the popularity of podcasts in general. The podcast episodes can be added to a mobile device and then accessed later off line. There are podcasts available on nearly every imaginable topic.

So how, exactly, does the Podcast app for iPad work? The basic premise is pretty simple: The app links the user directly to any podcasts hosted in iTunes that you are subscribed to as well as individual episodes of any podcasts you may have downloaded to the iPad. When the iPad has access to wi-if, the podcasts can be downloaded to the iPad. Any time later, whether the iPad has wi-fi or not, the Podcast app can be used to access and play the episodes that have been downloaded. You can remove the episode after listening or viewing so that the storage space on your device can used for something else. The Podcast app will play audio in the background as you use other apps, so multi-tasking is possible! Here is a little video with some screenshots and explanations of what you might see as you use it. (I made this video using the iPad app Educreations which hosts the end result on their website. It is embedded here if you’re reading my blog on a computer, but if you’re reading it on an iPad, it will display as a link with the link to the free app.)

If you noticed the tags that I included for this post, one I chose was professional development. I do see podcasts as having great potential for providing professional development for teachers. Finding and following podcasts in your subject area can enhance professional knowledge. There are also podcasts on educational issues and pedagogy that can increase of professionalism. Do a little searching on the Podcast iTunes Store and see if you can find a podcast or two to follow for pleasure and one for professional reasons!

• Leave a comment... (0)

USD 113 is considering a large-scale deployment of iPads for teachers and students in the future.  No decisions are firm yet, but I’m starting to plan for the associated professional development that might be necessary for the project.  I’ve made a few screen cast and document camera videos that I hope might be useful.  I’m experimenting with both iTunes University for course development and Edmodo for something with a little more interaction.  I think it is important to give teachers lots of options for how they can get their professional development.  So I’m going to include in this blog post a few of my videos that I’ve put together…most definitely not professional, but rather just an attempt to share the little knowledge that I have.  I’ll do a few videos in this post and add others as I develop them later on.

This first video is shot under a simple document camera so that the user can see my fingers as I touch the screen.  This is a basic video for anyone who is just using an iPad for the first time, but it also has a few tips that my more experienced users have told me that they did not know until they viewed it!

This next video demonstrates the basics of grouping apps together sort of like the concept of files and folders on a traditional computer.  This can help keep your iPad organized and makes it easier to find the app you’re looking for.

This next video is shot a little differently.  Still I used Screencast-o-matic to capture and store the video, but I’m also making use of  a piece of software called Reflector which is allowing the iPad to “mirror” onto my PC computer as I capture its screen.  The topic is “Enabling and Using Guided Access.”  This feature on iPads with iOs6 or later allows an adult to “lock” a child into a specific app and put a passcode on so they cannot exit the app without the code.  Pretty handy if you want to allow your toddler to do something on your iPad or if you work with defiant students who automatically exit the app you want them to work on to play their favorite “reward” app instead.

This final video in today’s post is a screencast demo showing how to limit your Google search results to just apps when you’re looking for a way to find specific resources! I think this will be a pretty useful time-saver as our teachers start to review apps they may want to recommend for purchase.

• Leave a comment... (0)

 ”We should teach children to love effort and challenges.”  (Carol Dweck)

I recently ran across a blog post that I read with great interest.  Kevin Washburn’s blog “SmartBlog on Education” often has summaries of great educational research or readings.  A recent post here:

http://smartblogs.com/education/2012/11/21/inscribed-upon-my-wrist-emphasizing-effort-empower-learning-kevin-washburn/

led me to reading about Carol Dweck, a researcher in the field of psychology.  She takes the position that children should be praised for persistence and hard work instead of talent or intelligence since the latter may result in a “fixed mindset” instead of a “growth mindset.”   Reading about this difference in fixed as opposed to growth mindsets in children led me to ponder it in relation to my own professional development:  Do I have a fixed or a growth mindset?  I love to learn new skills, have new experiences, even take more and more college courses and professional development opportunities.  I think I operate mostly from a mindset that fosters growth, and  I hope I always will!   I came away from the Dweck’s article, being more intent on what I say to students I encounter, though.  I hope I can help them embrace those things that are difficult and find value in the growth they have when they tackle them!

Dweck had a nice article for parents when she was interviewed for Highlights Magazine.  You can read it here:

http://www.highlightsparents.com/parenting_perspectives/interview_with_dr_carol_dweck_developing_a_growth_mindset

Reflect:  Do YOU love effort and challenges?  Identify the places in your own life, both personal and professional, that are you identify as challenges right now.  What things require much effort.  In what ways do you LOVE these things?  How can approaching these things with a “growth-mindset” result in positive outcomes?

• Leave a comment... (1)

Wizcom Reading Pen

Step One: Scan the word or line of text you'd like to hear read aloud.

I recently had the opportunity to “borrow” a ReadingPen from WizCom to see how it might be helpful to students in our district who need read aloud support.  I’ve only had it for a little over 12 hours, but I’m excited to think about the ways it could offer some students a higher level of independence!  This post has a series of three photos showing the basic functions of the way the pen works.

The concept is a simple one:  the pen is a hand-held scanner with built in text to speech capabilities and a built-in dictionary and thesaurus.  In this first picture you see the pen being used to scan a line of text out of a book.  The pen can be used to scan a single word or a complete line of text.  Settings make it able to be used by both left and right-handed users.  It can scan left to right or right to left.  (Don’t ask me how this works, but I tried it and I was impressed.  I scanned a whole line from right to left and the pen read it back to me right to left!)

Any single word from the scanned text can be selected so that it can be looked up in the built-in dictionary.

After a short “processing” time of a few seconds, the pen will begin to read aloud to the user the word or entire line that it scanned.  The text to speech quality, while not perfect, is comparable to most computer-generated voices.  The pronunciations are generally accurate, though the inflections of words for reading of whole lines of text is sometimes not accurate.  This would mean that the tool is probably NOT going to be useful to help demonstrate fluency to readers who need this emphasis.  The user can go further into the tool if the word is not a familiar one, by selecting the dictionary definition of the word to display on screen and having it read aloud as well.

The on-screen dictionary displays the definition of the selected word and can read it aloud!

The pen also is equipped with ports to receive earbuds or headphones if the user wants the text to speech to come through only for the user instead of out loud through its built-in speaker.  This would be important because it would mean a user could use the ReadingPen right in the classroom with the rest of their classmates if read-aloud support is the only accomodation that the student requires.  No more being taken from the classroom to have a test read aloud, no more being singled out to sit with a para at a separate table in the back of the room.  I see great potential for confidence and independence growth for many students because of this tool!

OK…a few details about the product:  Manufactured by the WizCom company.  You can see their website here.  The product I reviewed was the ReadingPen 2 which sells for a base price of about $230, but is on sale on their website now for about $184.  The company was good to work with to send me a trial pen to see how it might meet the needs of our kids, too.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Mrs. Edelman works with SHS Spanish 3 students to produce an iPad version of Snow White.

I worked today with Spanish III students at Sabetha High School…didn’t understand a word they were saying during class, but I could tell they were enthusiastic about the iPads!  The teacher decided to use an app that aloud the kids to record their own voices to narrate the story of Snow White in Spanish!  The Spanish II and I classes will be the audience for the finished project.    Read about the activity and see a sample video made with the Puppet Pals app for iPad here!

• Leave a comment... (0)

Used from http://pics4learning.com/details.php?img=2009digitalcamera.jpg

In early December, I spent two days at a great conference put on by SDE titled Power Up! which focused on lots of great technology integration ideas.  I had the pleasure of attending with two great elementary teachers from one of our district’s buildings and I’m excited to work with them to implement a few of the ideas we brainstormed while we were at the conference together.

One of the things that I was motivated to do as a result of the conference was to dedicate myself again to sharing more information out through my blog.  So for the next couple of weeks, and through the Christmas break, I’m going to try to be faithful about writing blog posts and promoting my blog to our staff a little bit more.  (Hopefully I can develop this into more of a habit!)  The content I’m going to focus on for these next few weeks is going to cover the main points and resources I came away from the Power Up! conference.  So . . . here is my first “share out” from this conference:

“Engaging Students with Digital Images” was the title of one the sessions I attended.  Gail Lovely presented this session that really has application for all educators no matter what the grade level or subject matter or type of students in your classroom.  Some main points from the session that I think are worth being reminded of:

• Images add context to anything students read (handouts, presentations you’re using to deliver instruction, etc.)
• Images prompt students to question what they read/hear, to reflect on what they read/hear
• Images can help build a common background before instruction
• Pictures can help students understand your expectations
• VERY IMPORTANT:  Teach students at ALL grade levels to use images legally and give credit for images not their own when used in any way.  Model this!
• Learn what Creative Commons means and teach kids to look for images that are free to use with creative commons rights
• Model using pictures with permission and citations in your presentations to kids.

Some specific examples of how images can be important in your classroom using the ideas above:

• If you’re delivering instruction using PowerPoint or another presentation tool, carefully select the images you include.  They should just be humorous or pretty.  They should support the ideas…ask yourself before adding an image…will this picture help kids with no exposure to this topic, better understand this information?…will this picture prompt the class to ask questions around this topic? …will this picture encourage deeper thinking about the information I’m presenting?
• To use images to teach classroom behavior and social expectations, ask students to help you “set up” and take pictures of the right and wrong way to do things.  Take a picture (or video) of kids lining up the right way and show to your class compared with a picture of a class lined up the wrong way.  Show a picture beside a center of what the “cleaned up” center should look like before students leave for the day.  Show pictures of how students should look when they are paying attention to the teacher, when they are working with a partner, when they are working in small groups.  Discuss body language in the pictures and how it affects the dynamics of the classroom settings.
• Teach students to properly identify and cite where an image comes from.  If used from the internet, when you ask a student where they got a picture…the answer is NOT Google.  Just like you don’t “live in the phone book,” a pictures doesn’t “live at Google.”  It has a specific web address (URL), and that is what should be used for citations.    When students want to use a picture in a project, teach them to FIRST copy the URL and create the citation, THEN copy the picture they want to use.

• Leave a comment... (0)

I’ve just recently updated to Windows 7 from Windows XP operating system. At the same time I updated Internet Explorer from version 7 to version 9. I’m also supporting around 140 staff members who will be making the switch when them come back to school this fall! For many of them, this will be their first experience with Windows 7, IE 9, as well as moving from Office 2003 to Office 2010 all at once. So I’m going to post several short tips now and then so that I can share things I discover and have them all in one place to refer folks to!

Here is my first “thing I really like” about IE 9:
Creating a desktop shortcut for a website is super easy! Using Internet Explorer while you’re viewing the website you wish to make the desktop shortcut, simply right-click and choose “Create Shortcut.” Once the shortcut is created, it even opens in whatever browser you have set as the default browser for the machine! Cool!

• Leave a comment... (0)

I sometimes review manuscripts for publishing companies, and I’ve had the pleasure of recently reviewing one that mentioned Jeff Utecht’s Ted Talk titled “Community Trumps Content.” He does an excellent job of bringing to the forefront the idea that schools are trying to keep kids away from the social aspect of today’s technology when, in reality, that very social aspect is what can draw kids to technology and its application in education. Here is the video from YouTube:

Click here to read more

• Continue reading or Leave a comment... (0)

I’ve decided that throughout this year, I will post some challenges to my readers.  They’ll be challenges that should help you grow as an education professional in the area of technology.  The difficulty levels will vary in these challenges, but if you need help accomplishing any of them, I’ll be glad to work with you in person or in a small group in your building to accomplish it.

The first challenge is find 2 – 5 professional blogs to follow, and to schedule time in your work week to skim through them regularly.  Once you’ve found the blogs you’d like to follow, the skimming should only take 15 – 20 minutes a week.

You’ll find that reading others’ ideas and reflections will energize you as a teacher, and help your own professional attitude and creativity.  Choose the first blogs carefully.  Find someone who seems to have a similar teaching assignment either in subject matter or grade level.  Read through a few of their posts to see if their sense of humor, attitude, and writing style seem like you’d enjoy reading them on a regular basis.

To get started here are links to two great lists of educational blogs, one organized by subject matter and one organized by grade-level.  Once you find a blog you enjoy…also skim the front page for blogs that the writer recommends.

List of Subject Specific Blogs

List of Grade-Level Specific Blogs

For now, bookmark or save the blog to your favorites.  Challenge #2 will involve a way to organize the blogs you like to follow into a simple to use format.

If you take my challenge, post a comment telling how it goes…I’ll provide a small reward to the first 5 USD 113 Prairie Hills employees who comment!

• Leave a comment... (0)