A closer community with Facebook?

  I decided I should chronicle a bit of the process we've begun to increase community/school and school/district relationships. This fall we're launching community Facebook pages for our district's attendance areas. In South Carolina, school districts are county-wide. Horry (O-REE) County Schools has nine attendance areas that will each have a community Facebook page. We're in the toddler stages of the process so far as the pages have been created, myself and another in the district tech department are admins of each page, and we're developing a plan for 'dissemination of the information' so-to-speak.
  The way I see this working (and it will most likely change to be a bit easier than my stream-of-consiousness take on things) is that each school administrator in an attendance area needs to have two things set in place:
 1) They need to have a personal Facebook page.
 2) They need to have a Facebook Page set up for their own school.

   If I'm correct (and this post is rather preliminary) if the school admin selects to "View Facebook as Page" and selects their school page, they can not only post to their school page as the school (not as their personal user account), but also "Like" the community page.
   Here's where it begins to get a bit cumbersome. Because of the content settings we're putting in place on the Community Pages, folks who post or share content to those pages must be administrators of those community pages. (Users or "likers" can post comments, but cannot originate a post, share links, or videos, etc...).
   This brings me to the point of the Community Pages. Let's say there's an attendance area with one elementary, one middle, and one high school, each with individual school Facebook pages. A community page will allow those schools to share main events, school awards, or plans which may effect the community.
  Our hope is that the dynamic and social features of Facebook will allow the greater attendance communities as well as county to become more involved in the life of the school district.
  Again, we're only planning right now, so keep checking back.
PS - the Diigo links aren't live pages yet - they will be after August 4, 2011.
Here's another article on The Plan...

Sound off in the comments on what you think!

To Be Heard: A few thoughts on student podcasting.

This blog entry was recorded using iPadio for iPhone.

Everyone has something to say: be it a kindergarden student who is excited about learning how objects balance; a fifth grader reflecting on leaving the comfort of elementary to move onto junior high; or a high school student delving into the gray areas of philosophy and ethics. As educators it is our role to allow those students an outlet. A method to not just journal on a daily/weekly basis, but a method to state what's on their mind when its on their mind.

 Podcasting is a tool which can offer that. But the big question I’m facing is how to achieve seamless integration of podcasting into the classroom. How can it be organic? How can it be authentic?

 One of my goals this year has been do develop a podcast series on iTunes for my students. So far I’ve been fairly successful. I figured out the RSS details and have the feed set to go to iTunes when a new podcast is available. I’ve recorded Kindergarten through fifth graders, used photographs of their work for background images and created the media files. A few of the students have done this on their own, but so far its been directed by me.

  Perhaps I need to stop looking for what I’m after and listen to the students. Offer them the tools, show them what is available, and then let them make decisions about what they would like to do with those tools. I believe the most pure, authentic recordings come not from me directing the students to create, but the students’ desire to create. 

  As a technology instructor, its my job to teach the tools. Show students how to use Garage Band, iMovie, Audacity, Sonic Pics, etc...And its my job to allow their voices as students to be heard: Let them talk about Star Wars. Let them talk about video games. Let them record and make those recordings available to their classmates in a dedicated network folder or load them on iPods. Let them get excited about the ways they can let their voice be heard.

   The iTunes feed is limited to appropriate, educational concepts of which the students have researched and expressed interest. That’s their goal. Record as much as they can. Practice and learn the skills. When they produce genuine content reflecting on their educational experiences in the classroom, their voice will be made available to a much larger audience. 

Earth Day, Film, and iMovie

For our elementary school's inaugural Earth Day celebration, our music teacher crafted some creative lyrics and choreography to the Miley Cyrus tune "Hoedown Throwdown". Despite what you may think of Miley and her tunes, the kids thoroughly enjoyed the song. With 2 Canon GL-2's, a Sony Digital HD camera, and the assistance of our local electric company (who allowed me to travel up in the cherry picker for overhead shots!), we caught it on film.
After recording the audio track of the performance on Tuesday morning, we caught 2.5 takes on film. Using firewire, I imported all 3 cameras' footage onto my MacBook using iMovie, making a separate event for each camera. From here I went about selecting the first scene of the video. I had some difficulty getting it to match up correctly with the audio once I imported that track from iTunes, but I found that placing a large section of video into the project which lasted longer than the entire audio track made it easier to manipulate the timing of the first scene (and all subsequent scenes for that matter). I simply deleted the superfluous video from the end once the edit was complete.
What I found to be very helpful in iMovie were the precision editing tools. Pulling in clips from each camera feed made it tricky to match the words/motions up with the audio track. The precision editing features made this a bit simpler. While the original audio was captured inside on an earlier day, it didn't feature any live clapping. That was problematic since the kids in the video are clapping along with the song. Each clip imported into the project can have its audio altered to be either raised or lowered. I lowered the volume on each clip enough to still allow clapping to come through, but not much else. The main audio track overtook any extra noise I didn't want.
While other video editors for the Mac may offer more features and a simpler means to edit multiple camera feeds, iMovie (falling quite below the $200 tag of Final Edit Express) got the job done.
Here's the final result:

(google) Earth Day

I'm sure our school is not alone in our celebration of Earth Day for this week. Aside from teaching simplified PowerPoints (emphasis on simplified) with conservation-themed content, and keeping my printer free from paper lest anyone print, we'll be using Google Earth to explore global concerns.
If you're not familiar or have never used this tool, by all means go and download it. In the side bar on the left of the program, you'll find a section called Layers. In the layer tab, look for the section titled "Global Awareness". If you expand the "folder" you'll find over a dozen organizations or subjects which have links all over Google Earth.
I've included an instructional Prezi on how we'll be using this layer in our technology classes this week.

(google) Earth Day on Prezi

iPods, Collaboration, and a hint of Humility

For my inaugural post, I'm quite thrilled. Our learning specialist for ed. tech. just emailed, informing me that we've been offered a set of ipod touches for use 'til the end of the school year! My planning team (consisting of our GT teacher, Media Specialist, and myself) has been researching and dipping our feet into podcasting book reviews from 2nd - 5th graders. As the technology teacher, I've been working this year to engage the students in online activities and the utilization of applications which re-inforce the grade-level standards. For example, students will use Excel to create charts and graphs which they have developed in the classroom. They may not only explore subscription sites like BrainPop or BrainPop Jr. to increase in knowledge of a subject, but play games which adhere and support the standards.
So far, while this has succeeded in engaging the students, it has only mildly touched on areas of creation and collaboration. Strategy, problem-solving, creation, and collaboration are skills which are becoming more an more of a necessity for students, as the world grows smaller and smaller, technologically speaking.
Its easy to be a technological monolith: blogging silently; lurking on user groups and twitter; posting a comment or two on youtube. But to put yourself out there, ask for help, advice, or the opportunity to work with others on accomplishing a common goal requires something more. Its not only inhibition, but a bit of humility as well. What comes with collaboration is not only the assurance that we have something to add, but also that we have something to learn.
The video I've included shows a young boy trying to make a fire using a bowdrill set. Instead of working in isolation, he posted a video, showing what he knew, and asking for help. The video has (as of today) 7, 181 views and 35 comments.
I'm getting there with my own collaboration. I tend to work in isolation, and I like getting the answer on my own. Every time I look at the #edtech twitter feed however, I'm reminded of how much I don't know. I need collaboration. I need help. If I want my students to collaborate, I need to model that first.
How do you collaborate? How are you using technology in your classroom environment? As I get into creating and collaborating with my students I'll post more - especially what we're doing with the iPod touches. I can't wait to see what the kids will show me!