Roger Ebert Speaks

Last week, I had the good fortune of stumbling across 'The Essential Man' an Esquire article that reconnected me with storied film critic, Roger Ebert. The article prompted me to locate Roger Ebert's online journal, where he seems to be saying more than he ever did 'from the balcony'.

As much as I'm glad to see this man's passionate commentary in text, this morning, I learned that Roger Ebert can now communicate using synthesized audio built from samples of his own voice. To find out how this is possible, listen to Dr. Matthew Aylett, chief technical Officer at CereProc as he explains the technology on NPR's All Things Considered.



Voices in School
While we don't have access to Ebert's voice, staff and students in my district are coming to realize that they can leverage a range of voice-augmented assistive technologies including a talking word processor. In a workshop today, for a combined group of staff and students, my colleague Pat Hammond, introduced many of these Premier literacy tools. My interview with Pat, is episode #219 of the Teacher 2.0 podcast:



I suspect it won't be long before we see personal digital language assistants adopted as universal designs for learning.

Photo Credit: .m.e.c.

An Invitation to Bleat

The map that anchors this blog, is evidence that networked learners are capable of sharing their ideas around the world. But these global connections become more real, when words, images, and audio are leveraged to bridge the geographic boundaries that separate us.

And so, to celebrate the 200th episode of the Teacher 2.0 podcast, I'm inviting you to share your voice around the world. Simply forward an audio shout-out that identifies your school, teaching assignment, city & country. I'll do my part, by tacking one or more such 'bleats' onto the closing credits of future podcasts.

Your invitation is the focus of today's podcast:



It's just an idea, and it may not take off, but I'm game to give it a shot if you are. I suspect that listeners will revel in the knowledge that authentic voices are working as educational agents of change in classrooms around the world.


Thanks to Marie-Therese Le Roux for the inspiration.

Reading Aloud Allowed

Wouldn't it be neat if we could create a space for children to share recordings of themselves reading their favourite books?

Children could hear voices young and old, in accents and languages from far away, as familiar words from picture books and novels were brought to life.


Listeners might read with unseen companions...

Performers might gain an audience...

Non-readers might experience the wonders of the written word...

Parents might volunteer to record their childhood favourites...

Boys & girls might learn from both male & female voices...

Reading might become more than decoding...

Teachers might subscribe to storybook podcasts...

iPods might be recognized as learning tools...

Reading buddies could get together any day or time...

Learners might discover voices inside themselves yearning to tell stories yet unwritten...


If such a site already exists, tell me about it; otherwise, I'll put it on my to-to list and start looking for collaborators!


Photo Credit: Jay Ryness

Old Time Radio... in the Classroom

Do your students realize that television used to be called radio?! Beyond the historic value of such a brief lesson in media literacy, students can produce rich and lasting creative audio works using old time radio dramas as the catalyst.

This 5 minute podcast provides a few thoughts on how and why this might be worth pursuing on Arthur Conan Doyle's 150th birthday.



Related Links:
Old Time Radio Shows for Download
The Internet Archive
Audio at Archive.org

Photo Credit: Brice DEKANY

Top Ten Benefits of Handhelds in the Classroom

One-to-One computing is already here, it's just that we can't experience it on a large scale, until we accept the validity of cell phone technology in the classroom. Here are just a few examples of the potential of this micro-computer technology, should we allow students to bring wifi enabled mobile communicators to school:


1] Photography: Students will leverage cell phone cameras to document science experiments; to create photo essays; to archive learning experiences...

2] Cloud Apps: Wifi enabled cell phones will provide access to instant news; collaborative wikis; and a wide variety of other web-based documents. What's more, access to documents will allow both reading & writing.

3] Synchronous Audio: Whether linking with classmates; or connecting with relevant real world experts, the potential for free communication via Skype and other wifi services will further erode classroom walls.

4] File-sharing: Savvy teachers will engage personal computers as Bluetooth servers to automate the delivery of text, audio, and mixed media content to student hand-helds. For examples of the potential for this technology, visit Jarrod Robinson's blog.

5] Geotagging: As global positioning technology (GPS), becomes common on mobile phones, it will be used to post text, audio and photo content with automatic tags to geographic locations. Partnered with Quick Response codes (QR tags) the resulting cloud content can be drawn to hand-helds through the snapping of photos.

6] Podcasting: Recent studies are demonstrating the value of recordings to student learners who are growing up in a world of random access. With the potential for retrieving content produced by both students and teachers, the use of portable audio as a universal design for learning, is long overdue.

7] Streaming: Besides allowing handhelds to view streaming content, apps on the iPhone and other modern mobile phones, now allow live audio and video broadcasting. Classroom channels will soon share learning with parents and other interested community members.

8] Tweet-notes: Two-way Twitter feeds now available via mobile clients, can connect students to students; classrooms to classrooms; teachers to teachers. Realizing that text message conversations provide opportunities to save, share and search ideas, we may soon be using Twitter Search as often as we use Google.

9] Learning Through Gaming: Video game producers have been slow to meet educational needs with their hand-held devices, but Flash-based learning activities are becoming ubiquitous on the wider web. As mobile browsers evolve to represent this content, every classroom will have open access to engaging learning apps.

10] The World at Hand: The day's global news; electronic libraries; and user-generated content will be available to each student. With the sum of all human knowledge in the palm of the hand, educators will be forced to address issues of validity and bias, and will have to re-think how students can demonstrate their learning. I for one, await the advent of the open phone test!


What other educational changes can we expect, once we welcome mobile phones in the regular classroom?


Photo Credit: Jason Jerde

Creative Commons Chaos

In an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of Creative Commons licensing, I've created a list of resources that educators might share with students as a starting point for all manner of creative projects. To explain a bit about each resource, I've appended a 3 word summary to each CC tools/resource.

If these don't suit your purposes, check out the ever-expanding CC Content Directories.



Audio
ccMixter: sample-remix-create
CC Mixter Dig Tool: simple-search-sample
Free Music Archive: free-music-radio
Free Sound Project: FX-variety-sounds
Sound Bible: licensed-sounds-FX
opsound: music-soundtracks-voice
Sound Transit: samples-environment-sounds
BeatPick: listen-think-create
Free Loops: loops-loops-loops
SoundClick: music-downloads-community
Jamendo: music-artists-sharing
Owlmm: music-search-simplified
Magnatune: listen-download-license
FreePlayMusic: free-music-library
Audacity Tutorials: teach-audacity-podcasting
Sutros: musicians-share-music
The 61: independent-music-democracy

Photos & Images
Wylio: photo-attribution-embed
Flickr: choice-photographers-community
Compfight: search-Flickr-safe
Vezzle: free-stock-search
FlickrStorm: search-Flickr-licenses
Behold: search-Flickr-safe-history
Simple CC Flickr Search: search-Flickr-safe-attribution
Idée Lab: Multicolor: search-Flickr-colours
Image Codr: attribute-cc-images
Cool Image Bank: share-collection-images
EveryStockPhoto: global-stock-photography
More CopyFriendly Media: copyleft-media-education
Sprixi: embed-attribution-automatically

Movies
Big Buck Bunny: animation-remix-share
Elephants Dream: animation-creative-shareable
Nasty Old People: film-torrent-donation
Star Wreck: movie-clips-original
Insecurity: film-online-download
Prelinger Archives: public domain-remix-archive
RIP: remix-manifesto-movie
Khan Academy: lessons-blackboard-teacher


Text
Free Culture: Lawrence Lessig-copyright-creativity
O'Reilly Open Books: choice-book-publishing
Bound by the Law: copyright-comic-remix
Tree of Life Web Project: contribute-wiki-life
Little Brother Cory Doctorow-share-remix
Abracadabra!: book-Beatles-Revolver
Samandal Comics Magazine: comic-magazine-creative
21st Century Technology Tools: Liz Davis-tutorials-ICT
55 Ways to Have Fun with Google: Philippe Lenssen-Google-ideas
Open Thinking Wiki: Alec Couros-wiki-ICT
MIT OpenCouseware: courses-lessons-multimedia

License Your Creative Content
Internet Archive: archive-public domain-media
Blip.tv: simple-video-upload
Slideshare.net: slideshow-CC-downloads


Plenty more CC licensed content is available from the Creative Commons Content Directories. What other Creative Commons resources do you recommend?

CC logo: Drew Baldwin

Teaching on Many Channels

Questions for Consideration:

Which channels do you use most predominantly in teaching? Audio? Text? Physical Activity?

Which modalities do you prefer when learning? Video? Guest speaker? Hands-on Workshop?

Did you know that learning is more effective if you engage more of the senses?




Related Websites:
Rich Performance Tasks
Brain Rules
Universal Design for Learning
Mr. Robbo's Blog
The Back of the Napkin

Subscribe to Teacher 2.0 on iTunes
Photo Credit: From a Second Story

I Hear Voices

The world is learning to use its collective voice like never before in communicating its thoughts, desires and opinions. This realization has become more real to me since joining my brother Todd for a conversation titled "Power to the People".

Recent news stories demonstrate how the public is bringing its influence in a more rapid fashion than has ever before been possible. After a calls to action in editorials and blogs like McLuhan's Ghost, the Green Party of Canada was able to overcome a threatened boycott, and will now take part in Canada's pre-election leaders debate.

At the same time, south of the border,
American voices are sharing their opinions of the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates thanks to the mashup work of MIBAZAAR.

I heard about my favourite voice-sharing story quite appropriately, via a radio show. The Telemegaphone project was highlighted on one of my favourite CBC podcasts, your guide to the next big thing: Spark. The Telemegaphone is a large speaker mounted to broadcast phone calls across the hills and fjords of Dale, a town in western Norway. You dial the number, and your voice is heard by the citizenry.


I'd love to see this idea reversed so that instead of this small town receiving ideas, music, and greetings from around the world; listeners around the world, could tune in to listen to commentary from small town individuals through an 'always on' Internet broadcast. This type of John Q. Public broadcasting is already happening with YouTube and Podcasting, but even simpler tools like www.earfl.com, VoiceThread and Seesmic are already making it possible for groups or random individuals to share their thoughts with their real voices.

As more and more of these applications leverage cell phone technology rather than desktop or notebook computer technology, it's easy to imagine a time when we open our cell phones to listen to geo-tagged telephone messages placed by people all around the world. Projects like Murmur and tools like GeoGraffiti are already allowing users to tap into an unseen network in order to post and/or download audio tags, historic commentary, and personal storytelling.

Who knows... Maybe one day, it will be common for educators to harvest student voices?


Photo Credit: Mirko Garufi

Audacity... Free and Simple Audio Recording

My introduction to audio recording, came when I was in 9 years old and attended school on a 'snow day'. The teachers wanted to keep me occupied, and they turned me loose with a reel-to-reel audio recorder. It seemed like magic that I could make my grade four voice sound like chipmunks or giants by simply playing with the tape speed. Although that event took place for me some 35 years ago, the experience is still vibrant in my mind.

Will your students have similar memories? Today's tools are far more powerful, inexpensive and easy to use, yet most 9 year olds rarely get the chance to do creative work with audio. This post is intended to provide support to those who may be willing to take a creative leap with their students.

There are plenty of professional style audio tools you could use, and while I love to use Garageband, I realize that most educators need a simple, free solution. You may be interested to know that free software is available that you and your students can use to create MP3 audio files! Audacity is an easy-to-use tool that is easily mastered... if you can get past the installation!

Here is how get the software:



If this software is not available on your school network, I recommend sending a polite request to your I-T department. It's difficult to argue with free and easy, especially when such tools open the door for all sorts of creative output by students. Limited options include:

1] create book reviews on audio that can be stored in the library;
2] narrate primary picture books that can be borrowed along with the book by primary students;
3] record old-time radio dramas complete with authentic sound effects;
4] in lieu of public speaking, create audio editorials;
5] broadcast 'rich' school announcements to publicize special events;
6] produce your own original music;
7] challenge students to be foley artists for a given piece of silent video;
8] dramatize poetry or other creative writing...

Beyond sharing audio to live local audiences, MP3 files are easliy shared, and can be published online with little effort. In order to get there, you'll have to take the leap and grab a microphone! If you get any cool projects done, feel free to share your results; I'll be happy to give you or your students airtime on the Teacher 2.0 podcast.

Go for it! Your students will love it, and you'll be meeting multiple curriculum expectations to boot!

Photo credit: Andy Ihnatko