Teacher Bytes

For those of you who are considering purchasing a Flip Video Camcorder, Pure Digital is offering educators a $15 rebate per camcorder if purchased from an authorized dealer. The catch is that you must purchase at least 3 camcorders to get the rebate. Maybe you could get with fellow teachers and pool resources to get the rebate. Click here for more information.

What a start, late to class on the first day and then I had to hunt the students down. Finally found them in the media center instead where they were supposed to be. However, when I got everyone in the right location, which is one of our new classrooms equipped with a Smart Board, Things got rolling. After the usual “this is what we are going to do and this is how you are going to act and this is what you will need” speech I used Voice Thread to get the students used to the idea to putting themselves on the internet. They really enjoyed the activity. The only major glitch was the video I recorded from the Smart Board did not save properly. I am amazed at how well a Bluetooth headset works though (tests and today’s lecture). The lectures will be posted on a wiki site I created for the course.

Today was a different story. The topic was Media Responsibility where we discussed freedom of the press, objectivity, bias, and why these things are important. This lecture ran longer than I hoped by about 10 minutes. Then came the moment of truth where the students realized I was not kidding about them doing videos. The activity of the day was screen tests. I set up my Flip camcorder and had each student come up and answer a few questions while looking directly into the camera. All those brave future TV & movie stars now started getting stage fright. It will be funny showing these videos at the end of the course after all the students gain experience.

Tomorrow we set up our blogs.

This semester I will be teaching a course to 6th graders on Web 2.0 Media Communications. The students will learn how to use blogs, podcasts, webcasts, and online videos in their classes. For the blog part of the class, I have selected Learnerblogs for the students, Edublogs product. To keep things together I am moving Teacher Bytes over to Edublogs as well.

Here is the new link to Teacher Bytes: http://teacherbytes.edublog.org
Please update your news feeders and bookmarks.
Here is the first posting on Edublogs: http://teacherbytes.edublogs.org/2008/01/19/maybe-time-for-a-change/

See you on the other side.

John

For the past year and a half I have been using a rival blog service for the Teacher Bytes Blog. No real reason I chose one over another, it just happened that way. Starting Tuesday, I will start teaching a course called Web 2.0 Media Communications or maybe Web 2.0 Communications. This marks the first time in about a year and a half I will be in the classroom with my own set of students. The 11 students who currently make up the class roster are all 6th graders. For someone who taught Social Studies to 9-12 students, this thought of teaching 6th grade is a little daunting.

The course will have two main objectives. First, the principal wants to see student created school news projects. So you should start seeing blog posts, a podcast, uStream live webcast, and You Tube show under the Bulldog Barks moniker. As soon as these activities are finalized then I will share the links with you. The other objective is I would like to see if students who use Web 2.0 tools in their regular classes actually have better achievement. Students will be required to use what learn about creating blogs, online videos, and podcasts in assignments from their Math, Science, Language Arts, Reading, and Social Studies teachers. At the end of the course I plan to view various test data, grades from 1st semester to 2nd semester, and teacher interviews to see if achievement and the quality of work goes up because students will be posting their work online.

The blogging tool I have selected to use is Edublogs for the school’s news blog and Learnerblogs for the student blogs. Each student will be required to blog about class activities at least once a week and after class lectures and discussions. Since I have selected Edublogs for the class activities, maybe it is time I use Edublogs for my main blog as well, just to keep everything together. It will be a busy semester coming up but if all works well, it should be a fun one too.

One trend we should see in 2008 is notebook prices will drop. Last year MIT’s One Laptop Per Child group finally started shipping its XO to developing nations. This was supposed to be the $100 laptop marketed to help children of developing nations acquire technology. The XO wound up costing around $200 but it did prove functional laptops could be manufactured at a cheaper cost. Intel is also marketing its own low-cost machine to other countries and ASUS is selling low-cost laptops on the open market.

Well the genie is now out of the bottle. Engadget reported former OLPC Chief Technical Officer Mary Lou Jepsen has left the group to form her own company. The goal of her new start-up, Pixel Qi, is to produce a laptop with a cost of $75. While a $75 laptop might be a bit of a stretch for now, even producing one for $150 would be step in the right direction. Also, Pixel Qi plans to sell its machines on the open market, something both OLPC and Intel are not doing right now. If the machine works well new customers will be lured in by its price. This will force other manufacturers to produce lower cost machines as well and parents who have been reluctant to buy laptops for their children may start if the costs are below that of a Nintendo Wii or iPod.

OLPC is making a mistake by marketing its XO to other countries, although Birmingham, Alabama schools are making a large purchase. Schools districts wanting to start One-to-One programs but were afraid of the costs might be willing to take the plunge. This would lead to a lower cost of the XO because of economies of scale. OLPC will eventually realize they need to market to American schools to stay alive but will it be too late as the competition heats up?

According to an ARS Technica posting, Sony announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the PlayStation Portable (PSP) will finally be getting a keyboard. This is potentially good news for educators since the PSP already has wireless Internet capabilities. Students can now use online applications such as Google Docs to do assignments along with some Internet research. Other features of the PSP include video, audio, RSS support and newer PSP 2 models have video out ports to go along with its gaming function. Sony also said the PSP will also be able to use Skype which allows voice communications over the Internet which would be good to communicate with other classes. Camera and GPS support are also coming and could be useful classroom tools. The only thing the PSP will lack is a book reader which may not happen anytime soon because Sony already markets an electronic book reader. However, the fact that Sony sees the PSP as something other than a gaming and music player is a step in the right direction.

According to an ARS Technica posting, Sony announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the PlayStation Portable (PSP) will finally be getting a keyboard. This is potentially good news for educators since the PSP already has wireless Internet capabilities. Students can now use online applications such as Google Docs to do assignments along with some Internet research. Other features of the PSP include video, audio, RSS support and newer PSP 2 models have video out ports to go along with its gaming function. Sony also said the PSP will also be able to use Skype which allows voice communications over the Internet which would be good to communicate with other classes. Camera and GPS support are also coming and could be useful classroom tools. The only thing the PSP will lack is a book reader which may not happen anytime soon because Sony already markets an electronic book reader. However, the fact that Sony sees the PSP as something other than a gaming and music player is a step in the right direction.