The Value of Listening at ISTE 2010

So it's almost here. If you're living under a rock and haven't heard, one of the biggest and best is once again happening in Denver. I missed out last year but was fortunate to go to San Antonio two years ago. ISTE is my technology refresher since I am unable attend the Apple Summer Institute

The conference has continually opened doors for me in terms of collaborating with others and completely taking my perspective on approaches to education and turning them upside down. That's why I love going to ISTE.

So many people have blogged about the sessions and what they have taken away. Others have said that it was the un-sessions, the informal gatherings that make ISTE great. Honestly, I'm with the latter group.

If you're heading to ISTE this weekend, consider this. It's not about your title. It's not about your achievements and awards. It's not about where you teach or what you teach. ISTE 2010 for me is going to be about listening. Those informal discussions that will occur while waiting in line to go into a session. It's the tweet up that happens randomly that will spark something in your mind. Go to socials that people are talking about and introduce yourself to as many people as you can. Lean in and truly hear what other have to say. Reflect each day in whatever way you can.

Value these interactions. Don't be afraid to miss that sessions you think you just can't miss. Conversations over a pint or water could be just as fruitful as those who attend a facilitated session. Get to Denver early and go to Edublogger Con!

If you're heading out to ISTE and you see a big guy with an Apple tattoo on his leg and portrait tats on his other, it's not a nerdy biker, it's me- a nerdy teacher who'd be happy to have a conversation with you! Tweet up?

Connecting with Poets in Language Arts 9

Last year my grade 9 students took on a huge poetry project using Glogster which I detailed here in a post last year. In addition to this project I had the great fortune of connecting with some of Dean Shareski's pre-service Faculty of Education students. One of them created an opportunity for my students to ask questions of two Canadian poets and have them respond in a wonderfully edited series of interviews that can be found on Youtube. (Video 1, Video 2, Video 3). My hat goes off to Karen Zaplitny-Jarowicz who will be an amazing teacher upon graduation. She really went above and beyond the call for this project last year.

This year I wanted to build on the experience of interacting with the poets. We started out by learning about Dan Tysdal from his blog, online resources and his recent published work called Acts of Barbarity and Vandalism. Students emulated his style of poetry by taking old texts and highlighting words to make poems that in the end were very personal to them. After this activity students were given the task of developing thought provoking questions to ask Dan. My original intention was to show them the Youtube videos created from last year. Due to the awesome work of Neil Stephenson who regularly seeks experts to connect students with for inquiry based projects, I asked Dan if he would be willing to answer our class' questions over Skype (ichat is blocked in our district).

For a first attempt things went pretty smoothly. Students were engaged and interested in asking Dan the questions we had collected ahead of time. A few threw in some random questions about his coffee and his favourite NHL team. Those questions early on were great to break the ice.

Here's a link to the questions that our class asked Dan. I fully realize that these questions are not very challenging in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy and their depth and breadth. The greatest accomplishment from the connection we made via Skype was the engagement and interest that students showed in the life of a real, LIVING poet. Here are their blog responses about the experience.

My favourite question was from a new student who joined our class only day before the Skype call. He asked Dan what he is most proud of. Dan was pleasantly surprised at this question and his response can be viewed at 28:35 of the video posted on our class wiki.

What I am looking forward to is engaging students more often during my poetry unit which is the terror of many of my students (mostly boys of which make up 75% of my current class). While this encounter was a good intro I want students to be able to have more engaging and deeper pre and post skype discussions about the influence of poetry in society. But all that will come with baby steps... Any suggestions to how to take them to that next level will be appreciated.

Thanks for your support! Looking forward to getting back into blogging again!

Audio Editing Gem

Lately I haven't been blogging about specific tools that I have been using in my classroom. Heck, I haven't been blogging about anything lately for that matter.

However this audio editing and creating gem is one that needs to be shared. It is a tool that I will be encouraging all students in multimedia classes or those who are participating in our school's 1:1 program.

The diamond in the rough of many attempts out there is called Myna. You've heard of the gigantic suite of programs under the Aviary banner? Well now they have an amazing web based tool that can be used by all! The tracks are in the thousands with very appealing loops that my students absolutely love. With a free Aviary account students can create their music, download it as an mp3 or .wav file which can be used in any of their films. You can also import your own media such as movies, images and record directly into Myna with a microphone plugged into your computer. This means podcasts and scoring movies will also be possible with Myna! Students will love the fact that they can edit at school on my iMac in the MM lab and go home to continue their work on the other computers (that shall remain nameless).

Files and projects can be embedded with HTML codes that Myna supplies.Advanced audio editing tools within Myna make is simple to do fades, pitch adjustments and increase or decrease gains.

Does this mean goodbye to Garageband? The answer is NO. Garageband is still the go to audio editor and creation tool in the classroom for me. Myna is a close second. The reason I say this is because Myna gives you so much for free, but requires a $25 contribution for the year to go PRO. This will remove the "Made with Myna" watermark, gives you more control to who can see your files and allows higher quality previews of your work.

Take 5 minutes to sign up for your free Aviary account, then hop onto Myna. Here's a link to a HIP HOP track I created this morning! Enjoy!

UPDATE: If the embedded player doesn't work just click on the file jkjh.egg to open the track in Aviary!

jkjh.egg on Aviary.