Podcasting: why are there still tape recorders in our school?

Pushing Podcasting!

It’s September.  I’m visiting each grade level over the first two weeks of school and I’m joining in on their planning meetings.  I ask, “Is anyone interested in exploring podcasting this year?”  Heads go down, papers shuffle and finally a brave soul says, “we really liked the inquiry project that you did with us last year.  Could we just do it again?”  No one in my school is producing podcasts.   It is an unknown tool.

I had set myself the goal this school year of becoming a competent podcaster and using it in some way with each grade level.  I kept hoping that our board would offer some basic professional development, some hands-on training or encouraging support to get me started.  I must confess to not knowing much about podcasts. My only experience is as a listener; to instructions and feedback from instructors of on-line courses.  I’ve somehow pictured it as a cross between Robin Williams in “Good Morning Vietnam”

Robin Williams in "Good Morning Vietnam"

and one of my neighbors growing up, who was always down in the corner of his basement on his ham radio. 

This sure looks like my 1976 neighbor.  We were
fascinated that he was talking with people all over
the world!

 I appreciated de Ramirez’s (2010) explanation “a podcast is like a radio show on your computer.  It can consist of one episode or a series of shows connected by a common theme,” (p.49).    Since no training was forthcoming, it’s time to play!

Playing around with podcasting!

As usual I began searching for an understanding of what a podcast was.  The wikipedia definition, “A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication,”  left me feeling that I had no capacity to understand English.  Crane (2009) uses language I can understand, “the word ‘podcast’ combines two words to make a new word:  (1) POD from the well-known music player iPOD or “playable on demand,” and (2) broadcast.  Podcasts are one-way, non-interactive communications,” (p.41).

 

How to Listen:  Since I have an iPod, I decided to begin by listening to a variety of podcasts.  In hindsight this should have been an easy thing to do.  Honestly, anything that takes most people a few minutes seems to take me hours.  I don’t find that I’m intuitive in any way when it comes to knowing what to do or where to click.  For others like me, here are the instructions:



Use an mp3 player like an iPod!

1.       Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes downloaded on your computer.

2.      From the iTunes toolbar click on podcasts (not the podcast listed under your library)

3.      From the drop-down menu select a category (e.g. I chose ‘education’)

4.      Look at the right side and scroll down until you see the ‘More Education’ box.

Click on your area of interest (e.g. I chose K – 12).

5.      Once the K-12 page opens, look in the top, right-hand corner and choose to view

‘all,’ ‘audio’ or ‘video’ (e.g. I chose ‘audio’).

6.       Browse through the podcasts.  ‘New and Noteworthy’ are across the top, ‘What’s

Hot’ is underneath or ‘Top Chart Episodes’ are down the right side.  Click on the icons

or the titles that interest you for a description of the Podcast as well as a listing of individual episodes including the titles and duration, (e.g. I chose ‘Teachers teaching Teachers’).

7.      You can listen to the podcast on your computer, (e.g. I began listening to ‘Maybe we

Dodged a bullet here, but there are nagging issues.’).

8.      You can also download podcasts to your mp3 player.  Make sure you’ve plugged in your mp3 player and simply click on the word ‘free’.  The podcast will download to your itunes library and then will be loaded to your player when you sync it, (I put ‘simply’ and ‘free’ in bold letters because it took me over ten minutes to figure this out!).

9.      Once you’ve found some podcasts that really interest you and you've found the ‘subscribe free’ button, click it.  You will be asked ‘are you sure…?’  Once you click ‘yes’ the latest episode will be downloaded to your iTunes library.  Every time there is a new episode it will automatically be added to your library. de Ramirez (2010) considers this to be similar in many ways to a magazine subscription. 

Now that I was able to listen to and enjoy podcasts, it was time to create one.

Creating podcasts:  This was a steep learning curve.  I needed to produce a podcast and figure out the technical side of it.  I could come up with many ideas and ‘scripts’ to use for a podcast but the technical bits worried me.  I found a multitude of blogs explaining how to podcast, e.g. how-to sites,

but the videos were what really helped.  I needed a visual demonstration to guide me.  The one that I found simple and straightforward was available through YouTube:  Audacity Tutorial for Podcasting by Rob Whiteus.

 

After listening to this straight-forward tutorial I began.  I stayed at work after school and downloaded audacity,  plugged in my microphone and tried a few “testing, testing” samples.  It was important to rely on the video and the audacity help menu to understand what the different audio control buttons and editing tools would do.  It didn’t work.  I don’t know why, (maybe some issue reading the usb mic?) but after twenty minutes of trying different microphones and rereading expert instructions, I gave up and went home.  I tried again at home.  I downloaded audacity, plugged in a headset, clicked the ‘record’ button and tried another set of “testing, testing” samples.  Success!  I could play this recording back.  I leapt right in and began to record instructions for our grade four students who are working on storytelling for the next few weeks in the library.  (insert podcast) Not only did I like the way it sounded I began to realize that I could do a fair bit of editing if I didn’t like a section, e.g. I can use the selection tool to highlight a section of dead air or ums and use the cut tool to delete that particular section.   I realize there are many more tools I can play with like changing the pitch and the speed.  There's still more to learn.

Podcasts, podcasting and my personal life

In my personal life, listening to podcasts could become a favorite pastime.  Although we all have iPods not one family member has been listening regularly to podcasts.  I knew they would enjoy listening to some so I set about trying to find areas of interest for my immediate family members as well as myself.  While I’m loving listening to BrainStuff (where else would I learn how to make my own carbonated water?)  and The Clever Sheep podcast I couldn't help wondering when I would ever squeeze in a bit of listening like this in my day?  Every minute seems to be spoken for.  Then I realized that while I chopped and stirred, trying to get dinner ready each evening, I could drop my iPod in my pocket, stick in an earbud and listen to my heart’s content.  Then I realized, hockey practice was another place each week that had a bit of down time!  After a week of playing with podcasts I’ve subscribed to a few favorites.  Each night as I go to bed I plug my iPod in to our computer and iTunes automatically downloads the latest installments from the podcasts I’ve subscribed to.  The family is getting into it too!  My partner now has subscriptions to: NHLInsider Darren Dreger, Puck Podcast and Prime Time Sports, while my youngest son has explored quite a few but so far has good things to say about Free Magic Tricks and IGN.com Nintendo Voice Chat.

I’m now thinking about my sister and parents and I’m wondering if iPods, preloaded with some favorite music and a couple of podcast subscriptions might be the way to go for Christmas gifts.  There truly is something for everyone:  Market Watch Morning Stock Talk and The Wood Whisperer for Dad, Knitmoregirls and The New York Times Literature podcast for Mom, and a wide variety of music podcasts like Classiscal Performances for my sister.

While I see us becoming great listeners of podcasts, I’m unsure whether we would produce podcasts outside the workplace.  On the other hand, my Dad loves to talk and may find this a new hobby.



Pushing podcasting in my professional life

There are two things I feel I can do to promote the use of podcasts at my school.  “There is likely to be a podcast that relates to almost any topic that is taught in school,” de Ramirez, (2010), p. 50.   One of the easiest ways to introduce colleagues, students and parents in my school community to podcasts is to suggest some to listen to.  For the Kindergarten and primary teachers there are many story-telling podcasts, e.g. Story Nory and The Story Home.  For all grades there are some fun math podcasts, e.g. Mental Math Secrets and The Math Dude:  Quick and Dirty Tips.  In the library I’ll be sure to suggest podcasts like MuggleCast.  For our community SikhNet Stories for Children would be a fantastic recommendation.

Once staff are comfortable with podcasts that can be used as classroom tools, I can then suggest some for professional development, e.g. Literacy 2.0 and Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

Encouraging staff to listen to podcasts will be fairly simple.  Pushing them to produce podcasts with their students has been met with little interest.  In my role as teacher-librarian I will need to be the one to train students and teachers, to show the curriculum links and to develop some way of sharing our work.

Training students:

It's also time to begin creating podcasts with students.  During nutrition break this week my library helpers crowded around the computers recording nonsense using audacity.  Very few books were shelved and I realized that they will figure out the special effects far quicker than I will.  In order to train a school this size, I've decided to use a train the trainer approach.  Each class will choose two students to come in and learn how to create podcasts.  These two will then go back to class and teach two more and so on until everyone has had some training.  There is one problem I'm encountering.  Where do we save our podcasts?  While we can save them to be played from a memory stick the entire concept of conectivity is lost.  deRamirez (2010) points out that "sharing with family" what has been recorded at school is a huge motivator, p. 53.  Our board does not promote the use of blogs however, in an attempt to see how the process would work, I joined Podbean and tried using this as a hosting service.  We picked one student's announcement to play with.  At the same time I posted the questions, "Is your school creating podcasts?  If so, what site are you using to host your podcasts?" on both our library discussion page and the network manager discussion page.  So far I've had no response.   I need to figure out not just where to host them but how to manage the volume that will be created.

 

Powered by Podbean.com

Training teachers:  The first place to start with my colleagues will be to point out how invaluable oral language skills are and the many curriculum expectations that involve oral language skills or presentation skills, e.g.
Gr. 1 oral language :  1.9 begin to identify some of the presentation strategies used in oral texts and explain how they influence the audience (e.g., the use of differences in tone and pitch for different characters in a story);  Gr. 3 media- 3.4 - produce media texts for specific purposes and audiences, using a few simple media forms and appropriate conventions and techniques (e.g. a tape-recorded (should now read podcast) interview with a classmate about a favourite show, toy or game);  Gr. 5 social studies - use media works, oral presentations, written notes and descriptions, drawings, tables, charts, maps and graphs to communicate information about early communities.  Along with specific expectations, any topic can be used for a podcast.

“A podcast can be created on any topic – it is limited only to your imagination,”  (de Ramirez, 2010, p. 51).

Podcasts can also take many forms, e.g. choral reading, chants, poems, songs, presentations, debates, interviews, diaries...  If teachers are stuck for ideas there are many books, e.g. Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom;   websites about podcasting  and wikis about podcasting  to help them out.

In anticipation of people buying into podcasting our technology committee has purchased 40 microphones as well as one 'EasyspeakPro' microphone which is cordless and can be passed among a classroom.  I need to provide in-service during lunch hours and model the use of podcasts during lessons in the library.  A few simple tools like a podcast of instructions on how to record a podcast and some 'how-to' posters will also help.
Finally, I need to highlight the benefits for our English Language Learners, nearly 70% of our school population.  de Ramirez (2010) states that podcasts are "excellent, authentic listening resources for English language learners,"  (p. 52).  Imagine being able to hear yourself speak as you learn a new language.  Podcasts “provide students with information, aural practice and accent training” (de Ramirez, 2010, p.52).

Videocasts and Webcasts:  Of course it doesn't end with podcasts.  I now need to look into what equipment is needed at our school in order to create videocasts and webcasts.  What sites are open for us to use at school?   Who will our audience be?  Will we only be sharing within a classroom or within our school?  Will we share our work with the world?  If so, how will we promote our podcasts?  I see the possibilities as endless.

Duh!  Of course this post was about podcasting so maybe you'd rather hear me talk about it instead of reading:  Podcast of Podcast Post

And duh again!  Just when I think it's finished and it's looking okay I realize that my cute little headphones from Podbean are not working as I'd hoped and you can't hear our podcasts!  Back to the drawing board.  Here are the Gr.4StorytellingInstructions now saved on archive.org.  The student announcement on bus appreciation may be lost forever.  I need to track down this student and see if the audacity file is saved under her student number.  If it is there's hope.  If not, we begin again!

References

Crane, B. E. (2009).  Using web 2.0 tools in the K-12 classroom.  New York, NY:  Neal

Schuman Publishers.

de Ramirez, L. L. (2010).  Empower English language learners with tools from the web.   Thousand Oakes, CA:  Corwin.

 

Richardson, W. (2010).  Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin.

Diary of a compulsive organizer

Dear Diary,

 

I was at School’s Attuned Training today.  We were examining ordering systems.  One of the activities was quite embarrassing!  We needed to visualize our clothes closets.  Then, we had to organize ourselves into a continuum by conversing with others in line and arranging ourselves from the messiest closet to the most organized.  Well, I was near the ‘neat’ end.  The instructor, my principal, (someone who knew me too well), asked me to share how my closet was organized.

I said, “It’s a large walk-in closet.  The closet is changed seasonally and off-season clothing is packed into bins and put in the basement.  Clothes are arranged by type, dresses, skirts, pants, tops and then each type is arranged by colour according to the colour spectrum, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white.  Shoes are on racks underneath the tops and skirts and handbags, scarves, etc. are in bins on the top shelf.”  As I’m speaking people are rapidly leaving my side and moving on down the line.  By the time I finished describing how there are certain types of hangers for certain items I was alone at the neat end.  There was a gap of several meters and then the line began again.  I didn’t realize I was such a freak!

I’ll confess to being a compulsive sorter and organizer.  Just like earlier organizational tools, the staple, the paper clip, post-it notes, coloured file folders, tabs, and graphic organizers, I’m discovering that social bookmarking tools are fantastic on-line friends! 

Exploring and learning about Social Bookmarking tools!

Dear Diary,

I need to explore social bookmarking tools for my course.  I like diigo and refworks but I don’t think I use them to their full potential.  What is it I’m missing?

What would we do without Wikipedia?  It’s now one of the first places I look for basic information.  Wikipedia explains that, “social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online.”  This sounds like the perfect tool for me.  A friend had recommended delicious several years ago.  I played around with it a little but truly couldn’t see the difference between it and the ‘my favourites’ option on my toolbar.  This past year I explored evernote, refworks and diigo as part of a course requirement.  The advantages of social bookmarking over 'favourites' became a little clearer.  Crane, (2009) points out several problems with relying on ‘my favorites’, “when you bookmarked a site on one computer, it was only available on that specific computer.  If you changed computers, you lost your bookmarks” (p.151).                

Dear Diary,
The light bulb is beginning to flicker on.  I realize that when I use a social bookmarking tool instead of my favourites I can access my bookmarks from any computer in the world. 

I decided to stick with refworks for bookmarking and organizing journal articles as well as generating citations and bibliographies as I found it straightforward and it was the tool that the university provided.   I
chose diigo over evernote  as evernote is blocked by my school board filters and diigo isn’t.   This time I decided to focus on diigo.

Dear Diary,
I don’t begin to think that I have a firm understanding of diigo.  I need to go back to the beginning.  It’s funny, in the summer I used diigo for research.  I found articles, websites and blogs, saved them, tagged them, highlighted items or captured a page and I was thrilled with this new tool.  Now, I feel like I must have had tunnel vision as I didn’t go beyond the research stage.  Everywhere I look I see words like share, network, community and follow.  How does all of this work?

Crane (2009) states “another problem with this method of bookmarking (favorites) was that you couldn’t easily share your bookmarks with other people and other people couldn’t share theirs with you” (p.151).  I went back and reread Richardson’s (2010) chapter on social bookmarking and focused on the sharing part of this tool.  Then I went beyond the research phase and watched diigo’s introductory videos on "Sharing: building a personal network"  and another on ‘Collaboration: Create a group knowledge repository'

Dear Diary,
I think I’m beginning to get it!  I can use diigo to bookmark sites I find.  I've figured out how to tag them, highlight items and add sticky notes.  I can capture a page or a section of a page.  Now I need to think about how I would share this knowledge.  How do I build a personal network or a group knowledge repository?  I need to explore these features as I think about how to use social bookmarking in my personal and professional life.

The best cinnamon knots:  bookmarking tools in my personal life!

While I like to be organized, I don’t spend a great deal of personal time on the internet and wasn’t really sure if there was a reason to use social bookmarking in my personal life.  As I described this assignment to some family members, their eyes lit up.  I showed them technorati.com and they were sold.  My partner follows all of his favorite sports teams and icons and now he has the latest gossip for his tailgate meeting the next morning.  My sister has simply gone crazy.  She discovered that searching entertainment tags and the top 100 blogs, gives her some of the latest information from sites like tmz.com  and just jared  and she can easily share it all on facebook.  They are the social butterflies of the family.  This kind of information and chatter doesn't interest me.  I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. 

Whether it’s just my perception or not, delicious seems more social in the sense of connecting friends and personal interests.  Since I’m in love with Diigo in my professional life, I decided to switch and explore delicious a bit more using a couple of my personal affinities as my guide:  cooking and gardening. 
I must admit to being fairly negative about this exploration.  I simply didn’t see it as something I would use, or something that would be useful to me.  For each interest, I generated a few tags that I thought might be useful.  I decided to browse tags and started with ‘food’.    

Overwhelming!  There were 2,404,028 bookmarks with this tag.  Instead of using another of my food tags, I went with one of the eleven related tags suggested on the site, ‘sweets’.  Now I’m down to 4,255 bookmarks.  I was disappointed that no further tag suggestions were provided.  I added my own ‘cinnamon’.  At last, I’m down to 22 bookmarks and I can eliminate 17 that are cookies, breads, and cakes.  So I have 5 cinnamon roll recipes.  I try to open one that has a straightforward title ‘Cinnamon Roll Recipes’ and sixty-three people have bookmarked it but as you can see this cinnamon bun recipe page cannot be found.  I’m thinking, “See?  This is a waste of my time and surfing through the food network  would yield me better results.  I click on the one above.  Only seventeen have bookmarked it and I think it will be another loser but success!!  Not only do I have a decent recipe but I have found a baking blog with yummy recipes and many, many mouth-watering pictures.  I subscribe to this blog Pip in the city and slowly I’m beginning to think I might be getting it.  I need to test it out some more.

Skunks are tearing up our front yard looking for grubs.  I’m looking for some environmentally friendly advice that can help with this problem, other than digging the pests out.  The tag ‘gardening’ produced 251613 results, not nearly as many as I was hoping for.  The suggested related links had nothing to do with garden problems so I added the second term grubs.  I’m down to 22 and at a glance can see that this is not a popular topic as most have been bookmarked only once or twice.  The results can be categorized quite easily into grub identification, pesticides, and environmentally friendly solutions.  I already know about nematodes so will take a look at my local garden centre for a product with the bacteria bacillus popilliae as recommended by commercial link while another was a completely useless forum.  I'm beginning to see the benefit of searching by tags, following people with similar tags and interests and love the idea that I can find interesting blogs through these connections.  To stay on top of everything Richardson (2010) points out we can use RSS feeds" (p. 90).  de Ramirez (2009) adds, “diigo also serves as an RSS feed reader...Users can manage subscriptions and organize them using key terms and phrases to facilitate research and sharing.. access the most recent saves, headlines and popular websites"(p.125).

 
Diggin’ Diigo:  Social bookmarking tools in my professional life!

Dear Diary,
I adore the tool Diigo.  I can use it as I would all of the tools I gather around me as I read a hard  copy of an article.  I've figured out bookmarking, highlighting, adding a comment or note and capturing a section of a page or site.  While I tag what I bookmark I need to start thinking about what Richardson (2010) describes as "socially negotiated categorization".  I need to start thinking about folksonomy and what he suggests is the "added potential of seeing how others might interpret or use resources that we share” (p.91).  Since I have some competency with the research features of diigo, what kind of network, group or community will be of use to me as a professional and as the library media specialist in a technologically backward environment?

Harris (2009) views social bookmarking as a “great tool for librarians to gather, organize, and disseminate the best of the Net” (p. 14).  Since I feel I have some competency with the research element and my clientele are very young, I decided to focus first on my colleagues.  One of my areas of interest is social justice.  At work we have a committee, The Future We Want, that is responsible for promoting inclusion and acceptance.  Since a great number of my bookmarks are related to social justice I decided to focus on this group.  Within diigo there is a groups tab.  I've joined several education focused groups, diigo community, classroom 2.0, Literacy with ICT and social bookmark websites.  I follow one personal group, All Things Food, and formed my own 'The Future We Want' group.  As with most of my bookmarks, I've marked it private for now.  I think this is a case of I need to feel a bit more confident before I mark things public.  The chair of the committee has joined and I'll be inviting all of the other committee members just before our meeting this Wednesday, when I'll have time within the agenda to show diigo  and some of the items bookmarked.  I've prepared several bookmarks to demonstrate highlighting and adding a note.  Once staff are interested, I'm hoping to make the group public and further build our network.  Along with joining and forming a group, I've started to build my network and now follow a few bloggers, journalists and educators who focus on social justice.  I'm finding it interesting and realize that I need to take some time to look at who they follow and continue to build this network. 

Dear Diary,
I'm excited at the prospect of building a diigo network with my colleagues.  What about my students?  Most of what I read refers to highschool-aged groups.  Is there any use for diigo with younger students?

Harris (2009) suggests that "like special librarians who gather and organize resources for business customers, we sometimes need to gather information to share with school staff or younger children," (p. 14). 
Yes, I could provide resources to teachers via diigo.  While I understand this use, for the last few years we've been using pathfinders built on wikis with both staff and students.  Since I can highlight, annotate and share with diigo, I'm wondering if I should be changing or adding diigo to our pathfinders? 


Crane (2009) provides clear descriptions of classroom applications, e.g. class bookmarks, using the annotating feature to describe hidden messages in advertisements, diigo class group study notes, (p.153).   Many of these suggestions have the teacher doing the searching, bookmarking, and annotating.   I think in a kindergarten to grade five setting it is my job to model, both for the teachers and the students.  I also think we need to make the link between what we do with a hard copy and how we can do the same things using diigo, e.g.  if grade twos are generating a list of keywords to use while exploring e-library for a heritage project a link can be made between generating keywords to generating tags as we look at a family tree blog bookmarked on diigo.  If a grade five class are reading and discussing an article about bullying the article could be bookmarked in a diigo class group and students could have a chance to comment on the article and classmates views.

de Ramirez (2010) relates Larry Ferlazzo's views on using social bookmarking with English language learners.  Not only do they relate basic bookmarking and commentary to TESOL standards, they review sites, social bookmarking etiquette and suggest uses for different age brackets.  They suggest that for grades K-5 "social bookmarking sites can be used with elementary aged students to collect class Web sites and to share them with caregivers at home.  Teachers can find appropriate and useful Web sites and collect them on a Diigo page, for example, for students to access and use for research, homework and group projects.  They can create a class group to house and organize the bookmarks that the class finds useful throughout the year" (p.131).  If I consider the expectations in OSLA's Information Studies document, as early as Kindergarten we ask students to ask questions, sort and classify objects, and contribute their ideas.  All of these skills will make them capable diigo users.

Dear Diary,
Each time I sign in to diigo I discover something new.  I'm gradually realizing the benefit of networking! I can follow people with similar interests or better yet, ones that look at things from a different point of view.  I can search through their tags.  I can search through who they follow and find others that would be a benefit to my network.  I can form a professional learning community with colleagues using diigo!

Do I have a handle on social bookmarking?  Absolutely not.  Richardson (2010) reminds us that “with more than 10 billion pages of information on the Web already and millions more being added each year, it’s no wonder people are starting to feel overwhelmed by the Internet,” (p 89).   As we become more competent at tagging, annotating and networking, social bookmarks are going to become invaluable.  Diigo explains it the best.  Here's why we should be using diigo as a teacher, a student and in the classroom:  "Diigo enables collaborative research.  You can easily share your findings, complete with your highlights and sticky notes, with friends and collleagues.  A project team, a class, or a club can create a group on Diigo to pool relevant resources, findings and thoughts together"  Diigo (2010).

References

Crane, B. E. (2009).  Using web 2.0 tools in the K-12 classroom.  New York, NY:  Neal
Schuman Publishers.

de Ramirez, L. L. (2010).  Empower English language learners with tools from the web.  Thousand Oakes, CA:  Corwin.

Diigo. http://www.diigo.com/learn_more

Harris, C. (2009).  What’s next for social bookmarking?  School Library Journal, 55(2), 14 -15.

Ontario School Library Association. (1998).  Information studies:  Kindergarten - grade twelve. 
http://www.accessola.com/data/6/rec_docs/113_Information_Studies.pdf  Retrieved Oct. 9, 2010.

Richardson, W. (2010).  Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oakes, CA:  Corwin.

Schools Attuned.  http://www.schoolsattuned.org/

Stearns, J. (2010). Serendipitous Learning with Social Bookmarking. CSLA Journal, 34(1), 18-19.

Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking.  Retrieved Oct. 7, 2010.

Video Sharing: Cows, Dead Babies and Unsupported Possibilities

My life with film

Picture a field of cattle.  Have you ever really looked at a cow?  Touched one?   Zoomed in on its eyes?  Cows, cows and more cows:  we named them,  tried to ride them, and every Spring as the new calves were born my grandfather filmed them, us and his favorite tractor.  It was the early 1960’s and I was fascinated by his 1953 Bell and Howell 220, an 8mm home movie camera.  I still have it! 



My treasured movie camera!

Jump forward twenty years.  It's the eighties.  I'm at university dabbling in a couple of film courses and using movie cameras nearly as big as myself to make 'art films'.  Another 20 year leap and I have my Sony Hi 8 camcorder.  It takes great video.  Even though it seems huge compared to today's digital options, we still use it on holidays and at family events and celebrations.  I've shot a lot of films and videos and really am not bad at it.  I get the production side of video, so what's the deal with video sharing?  While I'm thinking, who would want to look at our massive archive of cow film, I've discovered that it's still a favored topic  Current cow video from flickr.    I'm surprised that sixty years after my grandfather was annually filming the herd, people are not only filming them but joining video sharing communities and forming groups who have an interest in or specialize in filming bovine.  It's funny, but I don't think I get it.

 My attempt to learn about Video Sharing

Picture the family sitting around the family room on Christmas eve watching last year's Christmas video.  Obviously this isn't what is meant by video sharing.  I was aware of YouTube, Google Video, Teacher Tube, etc. but other than for entertainment or some very dry educational material, I really couldn’t understand how this would apply to me personally, or as a teacher or teacher-librarian in a kindergarten to grade five school. 

To begin my investigation, I read.  I went to  wikipedia and discovered not only a clear definition but a listing of over 70 video sharing sites.  I continued reading professional books and articles, blogs and any site that came up when I searched for video sharing combined with keywords like kindergarten, school, young children, education, and so on.  Lamb & Johnson (2007) provide clear, basic knowledge.  Their description of video sharing social networks allowed me to see the similarities to photo sharing.  "Some sites...are entire social networks incorporating options for user profiles, video ratings, a list of favorites, tagging and comments.  Such sites may also provide options for e-mailing links to videos, as well as embedding the videos in a web site or blog" p. 55-56.   Other sites provided links to projects, rubrics and yet more video sharing sites, e.g. Webtools4u2use Wiki.  At the same time I began viewing what was out there.  I'm delighted to say that I found many clips that were just as entertaining as America's Funniest Home Videos, clips and entire films that would be useful at school, some wonderful ideas for student and teacher use and useful resources for professional development.


Ready to forge ahead,  I stayed at work late to see what would get through our filters.  Sadly,  I spent a frustrating evening at work searching through the seventy+ sites and learned a great deal about my school board in the process.  I knew that YouTube was blocked however I was disappointed to find that over fifty of the sites named by Wikipedia were also blocked.   What confuses me the most is the number of different reasons for the blocks.  I expected and encountered quite a few sites blocked due to reasons labeled as either pornography or R- rated.  I was surprised to also find sites blocked because they’re blacklisted, online communities, chat rooms and the one that totally surprises me, web-based storage.  I truly expected board officials in riot gear to burst through the library doors as I investigated each site.  Thankfully there are a few I can access at work and I'm began to explore these.

To Share or Not to Share, That is the Question (some personal resistance to video sharing)
Picture me, a very private and not particularly social person.  I'm not sold on the idea of posting my personal videos to a site that shares them with the world.  I like the flickr feature that allows me to mark them private and then I can share only with family and friends.  At the same time, I hesitate to send everything that we take.  In this sea of great quantity who monitors quality?What is reasonable in this instance?  Do the grandparents really want two hours of the grandchildren at the zoo?  Do I subject my friends to my travelogue style trip videos?  While I like what friends send to me via e-mail like this one from a violin-playing colleague:





I don't spend enough time browsing videos to make sharing a regular part of my communication with them.  Watching my teenaged nieces and nephews, I realize that they do.  Richardson (2010) points out that "older kids have started gravitating to video in a big way....You Tube...it's also becoming a place where more and more of our students go to publish the artifacts of their lives." p. 121.   I need to learn more about this.  As my own children hit their teens I'd like to understand what they're doing and why.

  
Along with sharing personal footage with friends and families I need to set a couple of other personal goals to make video sharing a part of my life.  I need to spend a few minutes each day looking at some of the top featured clips on TED , YouTube, and flickr video and start sharing them via e-mail, twitter and facebook.  I also need to explore some tags and interest groups for video that I will enjoy at a personal level, e.g. Quilts from Paducah, Ohio , How to winterize and close your swimming pool .

Professional applications - endless and often unsupported possibilities! 

Picture one three year old and two four year old boys in the Kindergarten house centre.  All three are seated with dolls in their arms.  It’s only the third week of school but there is tranquility in the room, each child is very busy.  One boy has a book in one hand and is ‘reading’ to his baby.  Another has a giant, stainless-steel soup ladle which is being used to feed his baby.  The third has his wrapped up in a blanket and he simply holds it.  It was an idyllic scene until a fourth child walked past the swaddled baby and asked, “Is it still dead?”  Where was my camera?   Warlick (2009) states that a video camera is a "device that allows us to capture information about the world around us and then input it into a computer” (p. 86).  Years ago we used to record kindergarten students on audio tape and later on video tape.  The samples were used as part of their portfolios, with student dialogue and commentary recorded along with teacher interpretations, e.g. parallel play, three-way conversation, speaking in short sentences, role-play reader, etc.  I understand this teacher produced anecdotal record.  It can be part of a child's portfolio and shared at student-led conferences.  Is sharing with classmates and parents, video sharing at this level?

The questions I'm struggling with revolve around what is appropriate video sharing with young children?  When do we start, why and how?  Obviously I feel very unsupported by my school board.  Many sites are blocked.  Many of those that I can access are simply to difficult for the age group I work with, e.g. Ma Yo Mo - user-generated news .  Our curriculum provides general suggestions as to the role of technology.  The blurb is the same in each document and already seems quite out of date:  "The Role of Technology in Social Studies, History, and Geography Information and communications technology (ICT) provides a range of tools with a unique capacity to extend and enrich teachers’ instructional strategies and students’

learning in social studies, history, and geography. Information and communications technology can be used to connect students to other schools, at home and abroad,
and to bring the global community into the local classroom. Computer programs can help students to collect, organize, and sort the data they gather and to write, edit, and present reports on their findings. The technology also makes it possible to use simulations – in geography, for instance – when field studies on a particular topic are not feasible. Whenever appropriate, therefore, students should be encouraged to use ICT to support and communicate their learning. For example, students working individually or in groups can use computers, CD-ROM technology, and/or Internet websites to gain access to museums and archives in Canada and around the world. Students can also use digital cameras and projectors to design, script, and present the results of their research to their classmates. Teachers will also find the various ICT tools useful in their teaching practice, both

for whole class instruction and for the design of curriculum units that contain
varied approaches to learning to meet diverse student needs" (Ontario Ministry of Education, p.18).

This seems quite vague when it comes to informing uninformed teachers.  Specific expectations do little to expand on this philosophy.  The first reference in our Social Studies document to 'media works' comes in our grade five Ancient Civilization unit, "use media works, oral presentations, written notes and descriptions, drawings, tables, charts, maps, and graphs to communicate information about early communities" (p. 30).  Our board has provided detailed technology skills that are posted on our curriculum instruction support services section of our intranet.  Unfortunately, many teachers do not know it exists and it is not mandated.   To top it off, our technology policies are often frightening and vague.  We are unsure of what we are allowed to do.  In spite of this, as teacher-librarian I'm willing to explore and share the possibilities.  Here are a few for me to try!

Curriculum resource:  It seems obvious that video would be used as a curriculum resource.  Google video provides hundreds of great videos to support curriculum e.g. fairy tales like Cinderella, authors reading their stories, e.g. Bill Martin Jr. reads "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and to support our grade four habitat unit e.g Endangered Animals.  The only downfall, is that often these videos come from YouTube and we'll need to use a "work-around" as suggested by Kist, 2010, p. 117.

Professional Development:  What better way to model the use of a new tool then to demonstrate during professional development sessions, staff meetings and grade level planning meetings.  There are many to choose from including philosophical talks and 'how to' videos like Reading and writing with young children.

Digital Storytelling:  Kist (2010) points out  that “a popular model for helping students to practice skills in employing images and video is Digital Storytelling.”   With our Kindergarten and primary teachers this would be a great place to start.  Introducing examples of projects done with young children, e.g. Monarch butterfly project, at team planning meetings will be one way to begin.

Hooks:  Videos are motivating.  They're a great way to introduce a new topic or inquiry.  I'll be kicking off our grade three aboriginal unit by having them guess what is in the bag, answering questions around how people stay warm and by showing this clip,  Buffalo (and yes, the item in the bag is a buffalo robe).

Project Presentations:  Warlick (2009) focuses our exploration of video by asking “think about how you are currently asking students to demonstrate what they have learned, believe, and know, and imagine how they might express those ideas using video” (p. 122-123).   The possibilities are endless.  Certainly some basic skills in taking pictures and videos need to be taught.  However, when viewing projects on schooltube, I realize that with younger students e.g. grade fives looking at Science: erosion are very directed by the teacher.  Maybe this is necessary at this age?  I think it takes some of the fun and skill away.

Promotions:  We already broadcast weather, jokes and current events over the TV in the front foyer.  It's time to begin adding more curriculum to the focus and one of the first places to start are book trailers.  Examples like those found on the School library journals trailee-awards are just what I need.  The trailers for primary picture books like Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus are great examples and will be encouraging to students.  I'm curious to know if anyone has tried making book trailers with students in grade five? grade four?  Has anyone tried it any younger?

Speeches and Rants:  Several of our junior teachers hog our video cameras.  They use them frequently to record students when they're giving oral presentations.  Students are then given a chance to view themselves and are given feedback not just on the content but on their presence, use of voice and presentation skills.  Sharing some videos like this one on Persuasive Speeches, (we focus on persuasive writing starting in grade three) or this one showing Debates (point of view is discussed as early as Kindergarten) provides yet another avenue for video production and sharing.

Obstacles:  While iCarly is a favorite show with lots of students, the possibility of introducing webcasts seems far, far away.  Many obstacles are in the way.  While teachers will feel fairly safe to view videos from Schooltube and Teachertube we suffer from a lack of access, vague expectations and no professional development.  There is no reference to video sharing in our board's computer policies.  There are however some frightening statements like, "Student safety is a priority. Anything posted on an unprotected Internet site can be read by anyone on the Internet. At no time can student safety be compromised when selecting Web 2.0 tools" (Peel District School Board, 2008).  What does this mean?  Are we never to post anything for global consumption? Add to that a lack of equipment, (two video cameras for over 1000 students) and an already heavy curriculum why would a teacher even attempt videosharing?  Kist (2010) describes a situation similar to mine and a teacher who unsuccessfully breaks a few rules to use a ning with his underage students.  I'm not willing to do this and appreciate that Kist raises the question, "what does "in loco parentis" look like in this new arena of social networking" (p. 118)?

It looks like it will be up to me, the lowly teacher-librarian, to model possible uses of video-sharing through team-teaching situations in the library.  I realize that in spite of the obstacles
the possibilities are endless.  I'll begin with Lamb & Johnson's (2007) great advice, "Video-rich projects are a wonderful way for the teacher-librarian to collaborate with classroom teachers.  Begin by exploring video-sharing web sites to identify good examples of student projects"  (p. 56).

References

Kist, W. (2010)  The Socially networked classroom:  Teaching in the new media age.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin

Lamb, A. & Johnson, L. (2007). Video and the Web, part 2:  sharing and social networking.   Teacher Librarian, 35 (2), 55 – 58. 

Ontario Ministry of Education (2004).  The Ontario curriculum:  Social studies grades 1 to 6.  Toronto, ON:  Queen's Printer for Ontario.

Peel District School Board, (2008).  Guideline:  School and teacher use of web 2.0 tools.  Retrieved from:

http://inet.peelschools.org/departments/ciss/Files/18InstructionalTech/Web2_guidelines.pdf                    

Richardson, W. (2010).  Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for  classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin.

Warlick, D. F.  (2009).  Redefining literacy 2.0.  Columbus, OH:  Linworth Books

Photo Sharing with Flickr (a.k.a. my latest addiction)

What my brain’s been doing lately - reflections on the learning process

Before this assignment I had heard of Flickr, looked at Picasa and had created a few shows on PhotoPeach. Yes, we take pictures in our household. I’m actually a bit of a closet photographer, having taken a photography course at university back when special effects were things we did manually with the camera or while we developed our prints in a dark room. I certainly haven’t kept up with the digital revolution. We use Photolab to download, store and order prints. I’d never bothered to look at photo sharing sites in depth. As I attempted to scale this mountain of new learning (okay, really I’m just trying to find the first hand-hold), I find myself thrilled, excited and terrified all at the same time.  Thrilled at the prospect of learning something new, terrified that I just won’t ‘get it’, and excited when something that’s been unclear to me suddenly works and my confidence with the tool builds.

I was excited to see that Will Richardson recommends Flickr as "the Web-based digital photography portal of choice for many educators” (Richardson, 2010, p. 102). With that in mind I checked and was thrilled to find out that the site was not blocked by our school board’s filters and so it is accessible at work. To begin, I read. Did you know that when you Google Flickr you get 424,000,00 results? Then, I began to play. I took the tour, signed up, browsed, uploaded a few pictures and joined a few groups. Truly, I’ve had a lot of fun and have found it quite compelling. It’s been like getting lost in a maze. As I discover something, it leads me somewhere else. I’d still be walking in circles if it weren’t for the many websites and blogs offering support and guidance, e.g.  http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrsites.htm ,  http://flickrring.blogspot.com/ http://mashable.com/2007/08/04/flickr-toolbox/   . At the moment I could easily have a few weeks off (who am I kidding – months!) to simply continue exploring, connecting and creating.

Dogs, hockey and a shoe fetish - using Flickr in my personal life

It seemed obvious that this was a place where I could organize my photographs, tag them and describe them. My first discovery as to why I should be organizing my material here, instead of my basic Photolab, was the ability to be part of a community through the group feature. I was having a great time searching personal interests and hobbies and found all kinds of groups that I'd be happy to share pictures with, e.g. Dogs named 'Daisy', a group from my city of Brampton, and groups for gardening, hockey, North American birds, and so forth. I looked through many pictures and photostreams. I even created my own group, Schnauzer-Jack Russell crosses and will be interested to see if in a few months there are any other members. I read some of the funny comments in the discussions but found many of them finished, e.g. posted 6 months ago. I needed something to really connect to.  I was sold on Flickr the second I discovered the group for 'Librarian Shoes'! Truly, how could I resist sharing my back to school shoes, my pirate-princess shoes and my fabulous gold lame wedges (a favorite with the Kindergarten girls) purchased a few years ago in Rome during the summer shoe sales.  Now I’m really intrigued and will participate in this group quite actively.

Pirate - princess shoes!

Back to school shoes!

Even Barbie couldn't resist these!

I also realized that with Flickr, here was a place where I could share photos with family and friends around the world, create shows, screensavers and using some of the tools, send items like ‘framed’ photos and cards, e.g. http://bighugelabs.com/frame.php.

I wasn’t sure if there was much more I would do with Flickr in my personal life. While I was checking out our local minor hockey association’s website this week, I discovered that they are looking for suggestions for a new logo. In the past, I would have drawn my ideas by hand using a combination of pen and marker. Since I’d been investigating tools for school use, I’d discovered Flickr logo makr, http://flickr.nosv.org/ . Here was a starting point for helping to design their new logo. Surely using one of the images available in the hockey group along with this logo tool, I could come up with something. Then, I discovered Spell with Flickr, http://metaatem.net/words/ . The variety of fonts and styles available is outstanding and I like having the ability to change each individual letter. Now I can incorporate the league’s traditional colours, along with some unique lettering and an image. Hopefully, someone in the hockey community has a bit more technical skill with this and will help out. And so, the personal uses of Flickr continue to grow.

Exploring the maze – using Flickr in my professional life

If getting to know Flickr is like getting lost in a maze, then considering its’ professional uses is like turning a corner to explore new twists and turns which of course lead to more twists and turns.
Once I was used to the basics, I began to play around in the ‘apps garden’. As I explored, I was thinking about how would I use this as a classroom teacher, as a teacher-librarian and would I have students use this, and if so how and for what? Is there a use for this within my professional learning communities? What kind of instruction and professional development will need to happen? Are there ways for all of these groups to be both consumers and producers?
The answer of course is yes! We need to equip our classes with digital cameras and start right in Kindergarten. At the most basic level it’s a place for teachers and students to contribute their own pictures and find images for units, e.g. habitats, animals, ancient civilizations. No longer do I need to provide old National Geographic’s for cutting out images. When I began exploring Flickr, I began to save habitat pictures to create a show for our grade four teachers and really couldn’t see how this was any different from using Google images. Then I realized that because of Flickr’s amazing search features I could search by a keyword or tag, e.g. rainforest, restrict the search to images within the creative commons and from the ‘view’ menu click slideshow and the work is done for me in seconds. Why would I waste my time importing pictures to PowerPoint when I can achieve these amazing results in a few seconds?
For the kindergarten to grade five setting there are many usable suggestions for uses of individual images, e.g. deconstructing an image, as story prompts, and to stimulate descriptive writing. Similarly, I can see our students using the annotation tool to develop scientific diagrams, e.g. parts of a plant, character maps e.g. Little Red Riding Hood or to illustrate vocabulary, e.g. feelings.  One of the first things I tried was adding notes to some images of my library.  Next year's orientation show will look
quite different. 
Geotagging, could be useful in many ways, e.g. celebrations around the world, ancient civilizations, Canadian provinces and land regions, tracking a real person like Henry Hudson’s movements and tracking a fictional character like Flat Stanley or Waldo’s movements. I can see this being a favorite. Using multiple images we’ll have records of real trips, performances, speakers, and projects. We’ll also have virtual trips, storyboards and student photo-journalists reporting on school, community and current events.
As teacher-librarian I’m thrilled that there is a creative commons library. This is a great way for me to illustrate intellectual property rights. The fact that students can attribute rights to their own images will help make a tough concept much clearer. I’m also thinking students could use images to create book posters for new releases and our upcoming Silver Birch program. The list is really endless.
I’ve asked on our teacher-librarian discussion page if anyone has been using Flickr and so far I’ve had no response. So, do I begin with PD for other teacher-librarians? Do I offer a workshop for my staff? Since our students are young, I’m inclined to offer an after-hours workshop for parents. I’m also inclined to stick with what seems to work with my colleagues by choosing one or two keen teachers per grade and modeling the use of Flickr for them and their students.

Final thoughts before my brain explodes

Truly, I’m not even close to getting out of the maze. There are a few things I’ve discovered though that will stay with me. First, Flickr is incredibly easy to use. It’s convenient for storing images and publishing them. The ability to create presentations and slide shows, tag images, annotate images with notes, associate images with geographic locations and the huge number of extra applications available is simply outstanding. Personally, I’m sold. Professionally, well, I’m sold too, but as always there are some concerns. For the three to eleven year old, do we have their teacher set up a class account? Who can access it and how? Should the older children have their own accounts? Obviously, the ability to mark photos as private will be necessary in many cases. As always, how to we supervise this and what do we do about e-mail accounts for kids? For use at work, the 100mb and two video per month limit, will simply not be enough and we’ll have to move up to a pro account. Once we solve these issues we have a mountain of features to explore and educational uses to discover.
After I’ve played a bit and feel comfortable creating the products suggested above there is still more to explore. I’d like to consider how to use Flickr with students to create digital portfolios. With the multitude of free apps that let us create highly motivating items like magazine covers and trading cards, student interest will be immediate. Flickr can be the doorway to more uses for digital images as well as ways to get students publishing and collaborating. We might even have to start with a show about shoes that come to school!

References
Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

My Favorite Flickr feature for young students

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Originally uploaded by FictionFaerie

This is an annotated image of part of the library.  Instead of a quick slideshow depicting the collections of the library and my boring monologue, library orientations could be revolutionized (along with many other topics and events).  This will become part of a show for teachers and older students next Fall.  It will be posted on my class site, so that viewers can explore the labels at their own pace.