Been really busy

I have been busy doing my normal job lately and haven't had a chance to blog properly or even look at new technologies that might be useful. So I thought I would at least tell you what technologies I have been using whilst being busy.

1. We had an online lesson last week with 25 year 8 students who since have all been really busy creating their own vodcasts and blog entries based on what the online lesson was about. We have other students completing the tasks in there own time

My school has an online environment but if you don't have such a facility you might want to try some type of chat place like:

TinyChat

Chatzy

or just MSN

You could also try a Web conferencing tool like Dimdim

Or an online whiteboard like the ones mentioned in a previous post (scribblar, dabbleboard and scriblink and there are probably others).

Also the blogging sites like Edublogs and Blogger would be easy to get students contribute to.

We have one group blog and all students have added entries.....this is not ideal but our software is due for an upgrade....Students are only given one personal blog which Philosopy has taken over and so my option was to create a group blog....and the software is not advanced enough for blogs to be created from one overall blog....


2. For the online lesson I had made three little 1 minute videos for the students to watch which were placed in our wiki but are also on teachertube. To make the videos I got most of the pictures used from nice people on flickr ( I wrote a note explaining what I was using the pictures for and most people replied quickly and positively) and also using the creative commons search on flickr. I used PowerPoint, Camtasia and Audacity to put it all together.

3. I social network everyday in one form or another (facebook, twitter....I even checked my bands myspace).

4. I created a task for students to complete later in the year using VoiceThread and hopefully this will create a great overall end product.

5. I created an informative video for students using Ispring free, Audacity and PowerPoint. This took me no time and proves the more you do it the easier it is to do.

6. I have been able to access Ning again at school :-) So I have been setting one up as a trial type place for a group of teachers at my school. Is there a better place than Ning for the same type of features?? I have no idea as I haven't had time to really look into this.

7. Slideshare is still down at work....the filters think it is an ad :-(

I think that is all a part from my regular visit to other blogs, use of google and wikipedia...

Back to normal posts next week...hopefully

I forgot to mention my IPhone and Quizlet