Teacher Bytes

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.