Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

One of my favorite edubloggers (who resides in a folder for Experts in my reader) has set up a new location for his blog. That’s right friends, David Jakes, expert at Digital Storytelling Guru (just to name a few of his many educational tech skills/expertise) has created a new web presence and moved his blog The Strength of Weak Ties to a new home. Gone is the unforgiving blogger tape across the top, as he is no longer using the blogger service. It’s now a Wordpress theme and hosted under his own domain. Quite impressive. Some of you know I’m looking to relocate too, so I’m especially watching others who are doing the same thing. I will get to talk shop with David Jakes, whom I consider a friend (right now only in the virtual sense, but soon–@Educon2.0 January 25-27–I’ll be able to say he is a friend in the truest sense.) W00T!! Jakes is coming to South Carolina in June for our Upstate Technology Conference in Greenville, SC, and I almost feel like I am the reason he is coming. Well not really just me but allow me to explain. You see, some of the organizers of that conference were at SC EdTech back in October, and they were asking for a presenter who might consider being their (Greenville, SC Upstate Technology Conference) keynote. Since I’m on the planning board for SC EdTech, I was at the information desk when that conversation took place. Knowing those folks fairly well, I joined in the conversation. Tim Van Huele and Jeff McCoy asked if anyone had an idea of who might would come, and I suggested David Jakes. I told them to research him, and that I knew for a fact that Jakes did keynotes and sessions at many educational technology conferences. Well what do you know, but Jakes is coming to SC! I don’t know how big a part I played in him coming this June, but I will take some of the credit. I hope to see him face to face there too. So now I’ll have at least three opportunities to hang out with Jakes: Chris Lehmann’s Educon2.0 in Philadelphia, Greenville’s Upstate Technology Conference, and NECC in San Antonio. Maybe I can get the goods on how to select a host for my online presence.

I first met Jakes at EdubloggerCon in Atlanta. He led some of the conversations, and really challenged my thinking about digital storytelling among other things. Then I befriended him in Twitter, and discovered he had worked early in his career less than a year here in SC, down in the lower state. I sort of rode on his coat tails virtually during Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Conference during the summer, blogging about it several times. I also blogged about joining him virtually at New York’s TechForum. You can read those posts here, here, and here.

You meet all kinds in the bloggospher and twitter. (See the screenshot of a few o my Twitter friends?) They could turn out to be life-long friends, some of ‘em, even if only in the virtual sense. Okay, so this one was too long too. I’m working on it. And it is still not Jan. 1 so I have another couple of days before I must adhere to my personal goal of shorter posts. Some things just can’t be shared in brief posts.

Attribution:

Image: ‘Down on the corner‘
www.flickr.com/photos/21787159@N00/324191327

Image: ‘Twitterfriends_dec07‘
www.flickr.com/photos/c_nelson/2149390049/

As I see others reflecting on the year 2007 as it draws to a close, I must as well. There have been several changes for me including a new job, a new living arrangement for my family, and new opportunities that are as a direct result of joining the blogosphere and interacting with a network (like Twitter.) I won’t bore you with my favorites, but instead make some goals:

• Brevity – In my own blog reading I find it difficult to read long posts. I know I’m guilty of writing long posts too. So I have a goal–be brief and get to the point! I am planning to reduce verbiage, and try to say it with far fewer words, and instead use more pictures, and maybe a video or two (stored sensibly on video and picture storing sites–hello, YouTube, TeacherTube, Photobucket, & Flickr.)

• Relocate – I am becoming ever increasingly unhappy with Edublogs. I dumped blogger a year and half ago, and jumped ship to Edublogs, primarily b/c I feared Blogger would be blocked at school (and I was not disappointed.) Edublogs was good for me, but as I have grown, my material requires more space. Since it is time to pay for more space to be allowed the service, I see it also as a good time to explore hosting it on my own space/domain. I don’t even know if I understand it, but I have been assured help from my friends Chris Craft, Jennifer Wagner, and perhaps even David Jakes. (Counting on you all, actually!) Timeline? I don’t know. I need to get bills from Christmas squared away before I decide. But in the meantime, my posts will probably be limited.

• Video – I’m going to seriously look at adding video to my mix here. I’ve created myself a YouTube and TeacherTube account, and want to begin playing in the green screen department. Dean Shareski is responsible for that! (Note to Dean–You inspire me!)

• Redesign – I have some presentations coming up, and I plan to redesign them. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the 10-20-30 rule for presenting. I’ve also come to understand that folks don’t want to read it, they want you to tell it-and what better way than in a story. So I’m going to be hitting Flickrcc hard, and trying add in the mix some videos (for commercial breaks, as I heard one blogger call them–wish i could credit that person!) And I’m going to rehearse my spill in the best storytelling format I can come up with. Along with that, I hope to add some kind of interactivity to my sessions–though I haven’t quite figured out how yet. Anyone have any suggestion? Look out SCASL, SCASA’s SLI, and SC Edtech.

Okay, I know, I know, still way too wordy. Give me a break, it’s not 2008 yet! Rag me about it after the first. Happy New Year everyone!

Attribution:
Image: ‘massive change‘
www.flickr.com/photos/20532289@N00/31219031

Today I posted a video some sixth grade students made for a spot on our news program. One of my loyal readers wanted to know how it was done, so this post is an attempt to tell how the video was made. We did not use any really expensive equipment to make that video. The library has a Sony DV Handycam camcorder that was used by the kids to take video. I told them not to worry about the sounds, noises, or talking, as in all likelihood we would remove it and use our own voice over narrations. So I got a locker key from the office, and they got the camera and we went looking for lockers to shoot.

Once we had our footage, we came back to the library, and they set up my Dell laptop. Using a Compaq firewire card we connected the camera to the computer and turned it on. Almost immediately the computer asked if we wanted to capture the footage. I made the girls direct it to my external harddrive (notice the duct tape holding it together–i dropped it about a year ago!! It still works thankfully!) I learned sometime ago that if video was captured to a basic computer it may skip as the computer’s basic memory is not fast enough to handle video. (I had an entire Christmas program from school that skipped like crazy, and lots of disappointed parents.) I also don’t want to fill up my harddrive with a bunch of videos. So I sought out an expert–the video editor from my church, and he recommended an external hard drive that had 200GB of memory and a 7200 spin rate to keep video from skipping. I now have two of these, both four or five years old, which are great, b/c now all pictures and video go there.

Anyway, once we got our film on the computer, we used a very basic editor–the freebie Windows Movie Maker. The girls imported the video, and then we cut out and snipped unnecessary footage. I wanted them to cut more, but they were very protective of the video.

I had them create a cover or opening, and they used PowerPoint that was saved as an image. Pretty basic. Then they wanted to do their audio voice over. WMM allows you to, so they began by planning what to say. Before videoing, they had already written out a plan of what to get–lockers that were not closed right, lockers with things blocking the frames that might cause jams, and messy lockers. They had already selected the messy locker, and they decided to clean it out for the video too. That was cute. The guy who owned the locker kept asking if anyone saw anyone around his locker. They didn’t tell until he saw his locker on the show. They also told me his locker is already messy and full of clothes again.

Anyway, they did their audio narration section by section (as the clips imported were in pieces–every time the camera was stopped and started clips were created, so there were many.) They would mute the existing audio, and record their own.

They ran into a problem when they wanted to add transitions, as the narration would not align, so they only used one transition–a flip or rotate at the point where they cleaned out the locker. If one looks closely, it is in the wrong place, but they were pleased as punch with it.

I told them their video could NOT go more than 3 minutes, so they did not get to put any credits on (other than “the end”). Oh did they fuss. But they did not want to get rid of any footage, and we were at the end of their class, so they decided on just a quick “the end.” We used a CHEAP headset w/ a microphone to record it. They saved it as a movie file (.wmv in moviemaker) and then watched it again. They wanted music, so we looked in freeplaymusic.com for some. I finally had to lay down the law, as they didn’t have time to search– that would have taken a whole day again, and so I convinced them to use something I had already used for another project. So they re-imported their video w/out music in WMM, and added the song twice with a slight overlap at the end of the first time and the beginning of the second. The music was 90 seconds, so two times through was just enough. They saved it as a movie file, and that was the final project, which we played out during the news program the next day. The whole project took two days–one day to shoot and capture, and then one day to edit and finalize. (They are w/ me for 45 minutes each day.)

Our studio has a pc/tv converter, so inserting the wmv into a ppt slide allowed us t0 share it schoolwide.

These girls are already planning their next one, which will center on lost and found stuff. They are in the planning stages of a puppet show type video, where the clothes talk to each other asking where their owners are. Should be cute–IF they can pull it off.

Now that I’ve told you how it was done, I want to say that our studio has a fancy, expensive video editor, but my goal was to let the girls see that one does not have to use fancy expensive equipment to make videos. I think they got it too. They are all jazzed about the lost and found clothes puppet show. I also know that this could have been done using a 2.0 USB wire instead of a firewire, and that using a Mac would have been just as easy (but our school does not use Mac.) Even better, the new flip cameras make it even easier to capture video.

Today I gave 2 workshops (one on a overview of Web 2.0 and the other on Digital Storytelling.) Both of these were quite well received, and I should persobally thank Lisa Parisi for the wiki from her course of We 2.0 and for her calling in to my session today using Skype. My attendees were flabbergasted first by her Skype call and the ability to interact with someone in New York City, and then by her wiki for the course, which included many video links and websites to help people get started in the exploration of web 2.0.

I also need to thank David Jakes, and Will Richardson, who both allowed me to use their wiki links on the topics too. It was nice to be able to focus on the introduction and/or sharing about my topics rather than focus on a handout for once. I should also give kudos to Chris Craft for allowing me to share his “Life ‘Round Here” videos that are a part of his phenomenal global digital storytelling project. And Chris Betcher (of Sydney Australia) and Ann *** (NJTeacher) surprised me today when I showed my own first attempt at a Voice Thread by leaving txt and voice comments! My audience was so excited. Just imagine how the kids will feel when I share this. You guys ROCK!

During both of my sessions today I also asked my twitter network to warmly greet my session attendees. You did not let me down, and I was able to show how my global network is awesome

Look at my twitter images at all the greeters!

Awesome! This was shared many times in the recent past, and I am considering sharing it with some kids–sort of as a starting point for conversation. I heard some other educators have shared it with their kids too, so I figure, why not?

Today I had kids for the first time–shocking I know. The library has had a slow start, and I’ve been pulled for all sorts of other things (my favorite being MAP Testing.) But I do understand we all work together, and I’m a member of the team trying to do my part.

As a way to introduce myself to eighth graders today, I showcased my interests: my blog, my aggregators–bloglines, my iTunes (just a screenshot) and pictures of the family. But they were intensely interested in my ipod! I pulled it out, hooked it up to speakers, and gave them a random sampling of some of my music selections. Many were stunned at my choices, since I have some really oldies as well as new material there. I played some Queen, Styx, Journey, Boston, Jimmy Buffett, Sugarland, Rascal Flatts, Nicole C. Mullen, Michael W. Smith, and a few opening in lines to some of my podcasts I subscribe to (like Bit by Bit, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, and a soap opera–Guiding Light.) I even shared a snippet from some of the audiobooks on my ipod, including The World is Flat and A Whole New Mind–which by the way I have still been unable to play off the iPod. (It will begin, but suddenly ends for no reason!!) It was funny to see the reactions of the kids. They were really surprised to know that I put books on my iPod.
I used this as a door to the discussion of Web 2.o tools, and how the Internet has changed to a give and take world, and how they can give as much back as they take. We talked about YouTube (and I made it clear they did not have permission to post me in YouTube!!) That got a laugh. And then we talked about the tools they have right in their pockets to add content, but then I disappointed them when they realized many of these tools (like flickr, many blogs, and YouTube) are blocked at school.

It was only a beginning, but I hope with this group I piqued some interest. I didn’t have that long to go over this, so they only got a taste, but my hope is that they will see me as one who is “up” on most things, and one they can turn to in asking questions. I do believe I impressed some, b/c at the end of school today, some passing eighth graders called me by name to say goodbye. Before today, I haven’t known a single student in the whole building to call me by name. That’s a start in changing the perception of the library for this school.

Oh, SYP I guess. Bad news today too. My fixed assett disposal forms (all 12 of them) will have to be rewritten so that the equipment that I’m ridding the school of is easy to identify. I was told today if the folks who come pick it up can’t identify it and match it to the sheet, it will not go. : ( But a fellow LMS at St. James Middle–Paula C. gave me a method to the madness of color coding using colored dots and NUMBERS so that when they look at a sheet, they look for items that have that colored dot. That will make the process easier. And all we have to do is re-arrange the line of stuff and put dots on the items, and perhaps NOT have to rewrite those sheets. For those that know about my eye surgery, I am also worried that I miscopied numbers–model numbers and serial numbers are microscopic, even w/ glasses!

So my next visit–I’m thinking about playing “Pay Attention” to start a conversation. Wish me luck.

I’ve seen this posted in several blogs I subscribe to today and in several list serves that I am a member of.  When I first saw it, I read it but didn’t really process it.  Then when I saw it in several different locations, I began to pay attention.  Considering my posting to support Global Lib 2.0 this week, here is an awesome opportunity to invite the teachers at my school to jump in the water.  I’m copying and pasting, though I cannot take credit for it. The first place I recall seeing it was on the Teacher Librarian Ning, posted by Karen Kliegman of Albertson, New York.  But what an awesome way to seriously think of ways to implement 2.0 tools?

MidLink Magazine Call for Participation!

You are cordially invited to explore the July-December issue of MidLink Magazine http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink the award-winning magazine for students ages 8 – 18. If you’re looking for ideas for your upcoming year, you’ve come to the right place! Please email the teacher/editors of the projects below you would like to participate in with your students! You and your students are sure to get inspired by the projects created by MidLink Magazine’s teacher-editors:

1. Periodic Table of Podcasts: Have your students add their own scientific podcast to the growing body of information found in this exciting project!

2. Find a Story… Map a Story… Tell a Story: Use emerging digital mapping tools to explore the connection between story, place and community.

3. Science Through the Camera Lens: Study the science found in pictures and then create a multimedia project

4. Tell Me a Story: Learn how to encourage children to accept and celebrate their differences, using digital storytelling

See detailed descriptions below or visit MidLink Magazine at: http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/

1. Periodic Table of Podcasts

We invite students from any school to participate in the development of the “Periodic Table of Podcasts”. To participate, instructions are provided within this website. There are very easy ways to create audio files in the classroom even if you have only a few computers by using Internet resources such as Podomatic or Odeo. Audio files could be hosted on your school’s server, various Internet resources, or other means. Don’t let the technology get in the way- for help and advise contact the webmaster of this site. All we need is the URL (link) to your students’ audio files, and we can add them to the Periodic Table of Podcasts! If you wish to collaborate regarding your podcast project, e-mail Joselyn Todd, Ph. D.

Project URL: http://tinyurl.com/2ornnn

Contact Teacher Editor, Dr. Joselyn J. Todd, Cary Academy, Cary, NC

2. Find a Story… Map a Story… Tell a Story

This Place-based Stortelling Project invites students to choose a story that matters to them and using an online mapping tool like Community Walk, Wayfaring or Google Maps, create a StoryMap that will place their stories within a geographical context. Using one of these digital mapping tools, students will locate a geographical map from their story location, and add images, audio and text memories to the place markers found on the mapping tool. This project will help students recover lost stories and save and share them so other can enjoy and learn from them. You are invited to browse through the project resources and projects example on this web site and plan to have your classroom participate:

Project URL: http://www.rebooting.ca/place/

Project Coordinator: Brenda Dyck, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Red Deer College (Middle Years’ Program), Red Deer, Alberta

3. Science Through the Camera Lens

Have you ever seen a view of nature or engineering and wondered about the “awesomeness” of it? Did you take a picture of it so you could capture it forever? Florida State University School Science students did just that. They took pictures with a digital camera or a camera phone. Students delivered them to their science teacher via email or on a flash drive. Students studied the science in the pictures then created their multimedia project. Here are their stories…..

Project URL: http://www.fsus.fsu.edu/mcquone/scicam/scicam.html

Teacher Editor, Cathy McQuone, Earth/Space Science Instructor, Florida State University Schools, Tallahassee, Florida

4. Tell Me a Story

Tell Me a Story is a project in which students were asked to contemplate the following essential questions:

How does culture shape the way we see ourselves, others, and the world? How does my culture shape me? Why is it important to understand culture? The purpose of this project is to encourage children to accept and celebrate their differences. We want to help all children develop a positive self-concept and feel proud of whom they are. If this positive sense of self and others is allowed to flourish, today’s children will become adults who accept and affirm differences, identify unfair situations, and strive to eliminate racism of any sort.

Grade levels: K-8

Project URL: http://tinyurl.com/2qnzgr

Teacher Editor: Karen Kliegman, Library Media/Educational Technology Specialist, Searingtown School, Albertson, Adjunct Professor, Long Island University, New York kkliegman@herricks.org

Brenda Dyck, BEd, MET

Senior Editor: MidLink Magazine: http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/

Sessional Instructor, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Red Deer College MiddleYears’ Program, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

E-mail: dyckba@shaw.ca