Flickr and Voicestream: Innovative Classroom Tool, or Another Way to Procrastinate Grading

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make Flickr and Voicethread a part of my final project. Right now, I just have to decide on which unit I will use them.

My two options are "Call of the Wild" and "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". In the past, I've gone out and located images that depicted the time period and struggles present in these two stories. What I'm thinking is a combination research project and synthesis assignment in which students locate photos and images related to each story and create a slide show in which they include a narration describing the pictures, why they chose them, and what specific character or event from our story the pictures can help us understand. To keep the higher ups happy, I will also have them write and turn in a printed script of what they decide to narrate. To culminate, we'll have a share session of our voicethread projects and then comment on each others' work on the class blog (or ning if I can get that up and running in time).

I'm hoping that some of the less motivated students will turn it up a notch knowing that their work will be seen by their peers, and possibly their parents once we get everything posted. The technology aspect won't hurt the motivation part either. I think that as a teaching tool leading up to the actual assignment, we'll spend a day or two in the lab putting together small voicethreads that show off our personalities. As they say in some of the NUA trainings I've done, "New strategy, old content. Old strategy, new content". By the time we get to the actual assignment, we'll be able to focus on the content more than the technology...that is, until the internet crashes in the middle of 1st block again like it did last time. Perhaps a writing prompt as a back up...? sigh.

Here is a slide show of pictures I put together at my favorite dog walking spot where I used to live. The Voicethread version includes a narration that explains the ridiculousness of that day because it was a snow day. As a native Minnesotan, I felt obligated to photograph this hike...for reasons, I think, are obvious in the pictures.

Now that I can run it, how am I supposed to use this in the classroom...?

It's funny you should mention that! I actually gave this a shot last week and had a pretty successful run! To see what we produced, click here.

That represents a small bit of what I want to do with these down the line. In this example, I was able to produce a great discussion by first having my students post comments about an IQ test we all took in class. Part of their posting assignment was to first read what others had posted. This actually worked a lot better than I could've imagined because we were able to debate the claims of cheating while tying that into the bigger issue of intelligence and how one could effectively measure it. The students were engaged the whole time because they knew that 1. Their comments would be read and 2. They got to read the comments of others! Fantastic all around!

One of the things I'd like to do with this in the future is stage an active debate on issues surrounding ethics, which we will highlight in the coming weeks. I'd like to post some ethical dilemmas on the blog and have people weigh in. I would to this in 2 ways: During the first one, I would allow students to stick to their own viewpoint on whatever issue comes up. In the second scenario, I would tie in role playing so that the students would have to attempt to understand other perspectives.

In addition to this, I think the blog can be a useful communication tool between students, parents, and me. I currently run a moddle site, which is okay, but the blog format offers a lot more in terms of 2 way communication. The moodle doesn't really allow for that.

Speaking of blogs, here's a digital map about the experience...

I hope it all makes sense!

Home backpackers hostel

Home backpackers hostel
Originally uploaded by heatheronhertravels

I stayed here with my brother when we were in Valencia. It was like a 20 minute walk from the train station, but the place was so awesome, that it was totally worth it! I definitely recommend it. There's an awesome kitchen, a rooftop terrace, and ultra friendly staff!

Searching for Information That isn't Garbage...

As of late, my primary search method has been creative googling. I admit that it can get pretty hard to sort through some of the bogus information from the good, but I feel that I've become quite adept at finding exactly what I'm looking for.

A lot of times, all it takes is a search for the exact question I'm asking such as, "how can I rewire my garage door opener to get around the safety sensor?". This search lead me to the realization that I shouldn't, under any circumstances, do this. I'm now searching for a new sensor pack, another task google with which google has helped me.

Since my school doesn't have access to a lot of online databases, I usually default to google in all my searches on the academic level as well. When I taught high school, I found Lexis Nexis and the Expanded Academic Index to be invaluable in the information they could bring me. I directed my students to both of these databases as they researched literary criticism and theory for their final papers. We had a lot of success with this searching for multiple terms such as "1984, World War II, Facism, and Individualism". I guess if you know what you are looking to find, just a few key terms is enough. Sometimes, we would start with something simpler like a book title. Reading our findings from this search would boost our thoughts to include other topics, thereby, narrowing our search to something resembling the above list of search terms.

In the event that we had to, and do now, have to default to google, we end up spending a lot of time evaluating the credibility of the source. If a name is available, we search just the name to find out some information about them. We do the same for organizations, colleges and universities, and sometimes screen names. This usually gives us enough information to know whether or not we can believe what the article is saying.

Another thing we look at is the date updated and the domain name of the webmaster's email address. This can often point us to new information like an organization being funded by an oil company, for example.

We often times run into an argument that never ends because everybody has a bias. What we end up doing is agreeing or disagreeing that a particular source is about the best we are going to find, but still pick apart the biases we find so that we can come up with some idea of the truth of the matter at hand.

I'm debating subscribing to RSS feeds from NBC, CNN, Fox, and BBC for my news to compare the different slants on stories. I got this idea during the RNC when, after a lovely prime time medical drama, Fox news reported that protesters exploded pipe bombs in Saint Paul. Upon checking Kare11.com, I saw a video that clearly showed the same explosions to be flash grenades from police. Interesting, don't you think? The experience showed me that many sources are important to getting a balanced look at events as they occur. Everybody has an agenda.

The First Post

Here it is, The Blog of Eckhoff! I find it funny that it took a class for me to start one of these since the peer pressure for just such an action has been mounting over the past 2 years!

I think that this will be a very interesting experience both professionally and personally as I try to get away from emailing everybody with pictures, updates, assignments, etc. I love the fact that people can just pop over to a blog and get what they need at their convenience. Once I figure out the RSS feed system, there’ll be no stopping me!

The things I can do with this tool as a teacher seem endless! With commenting as a possibility, I can now successfully take class discussions out of the classroom, which will open up many an opportunity to my students but especially the shy ones that don’t speak up in class very much. Last year, I learned about embedding using slide share and youtube resources, which can also take this blog to new levels by combining different modes of expression both for the benefit of my teaching, and teacher reflection. My hope is to then pass these skills on to my students so that they can start their own blogs and complete projects that include print, audio, video, and pictures. I’ve directed assignments like this in the past, but with my limited technical know-how, they tended to be rather sloppy as we attempted to move from medium to medium by way of complicated equipment setup and time wasting transitions.

About the only downside I can see to this tool is the lack of knowlege in some of my students and their parents. Even with email as a communication tool, I ran into many families that were not adept enough to handle it. In fact, I have a moodle site that I currently use in my job and I’ve spent the past week trying to get my students oriented to it. This has proved to be rather challenging despite my many links, emails, and directions. Hopefully, down the line, I will be able to teach them enough skills to make all of this much easier.

As far as a personal blog goes, I have the perfect topic: Obnoxious Neighbors. In just the past 2 days I’ve had to listen to a string of expletives from across the way, watch as a scantilly clad man weeded his garden…while I was weeding mine, and deal with my garage mate (I live in a townhouse/condo) and all of her worthless garbage all over both halves of the garage. Last night, she leaned a bag of garbage on my car. I should start documenting all of this stuff. I think it could be very funny!

I think I’d better post this now and see what the rest of the class has come up with. Enjoy!