tt4t_030 Web 2.0 Participatory technology and you

It’s Monday, March 24th, 2008 and welcome to episode 30 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. One of the nice things about a locally created podcast is that you can customize the content to what the audience finds of value. Since most podcasters create their podcast out of a love for the content most producers are truly interested in audience feedback.

Download MP3

After 30 episodes it is time to reflect over past episodes and ask the audience what you like about this podcast and also ask you what changes you would like to see to make this podcast more valuable in the future. If you have a suggestion for a technology pick of the week or comments that you think other teachers would benefit from please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu so they can be shared. I would also like to ask that you mention this podcast to at least two fellow teachers to help spread the word about the TechTalk4Teachers podcast.

I recently had one of my students ask me what they could do to keep up with the rapidly changing world of educational technology once the class was over. I told them reading blogs and listening to podcasts are wonderful ways to keep up with what is going on in the world of ed tech. You do not have to be enrolled in a class to listen to this podcast and I hope my students will continue to listen to podcasts after they finish the semester. To keep up however does require the effort and the discipline to continue learning new things. This requires a conscious choice and the desire to continue learning once you finish your coursework.

I have spent quite a bit of time over past 30 episodes of TechTalk4Teachers talking about Web 2.0 and the interactive possibilities that the new Web 2.0 technologies offer teachers. For most teachers the burden of using theses technologies is becoming less about technical barriers and more about habits of non-interactivity and concerns over school policy issues. Web 2.0 is participatory in nature and for you to become proficient with the technology your participation is required. As a nation we have been conditioned to take in content passively and when asked to interact we often do not know what to do. For starters you can simply make a comment to this blog, you do not need to provide your name if you prefer not to. Many people commenting on blogs simply use their initials, first name only, or a nick name. Remember that this is a public blog so once comments are approved all viewers can see all postings.

This week I am offering a new poll to the TechTalk4Teachers audience to see how many of you have ever posted comments to a blog. You may cast your vote by answering the poll question that is available at techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com on the right side of the screen. I will keep this poll open for the next three weeks. Simply answering a poll is one way to get audience feedback and learn how others use technology.

If you do post a comment to this blog remember that it will be moderated so comments will not appear until they are approved by a moderator. Having a moderated blog is one practice that helps the blog owner protect against inappropriate postings and is unfortunately necessary for blogs that are used for educational purposes.

Tom's Technology Pick of the Week
My Technology Pick of the Week this week has to do with the podcasting with third graders project currently underway. Last week we were working on the post production phase of the project and some of the preservice teachers were struggling with the vagaries of copyright law and legitimate use of media in the classroom. Since the topic is Abraham Lincoln and copyright law states that most items before 1923 are in the public domain songs like the Battle Hymn of the Republic should be alright for use in the podcast. However, after the preservice students did some research they found that the song was not copyrighted but the performance was. This is frustrating for the preservice students that are eager to produce a podcast with the third graders that all can be proud of.

Another issue involved the sound effects students wanted to use but we found that many of the sound effects were also copyrighted. To solve the sound effects copyright issue I ran across the Soundsnap website that offers user-created sound effects copyright free.
A link is provided in the show notes.

Sound Snap
http://www.soundsnap.com/

Students were wanting to add a train whistle to their podcast to help tell the Abraham Lincoln story. There is a search box that you can either type in the search term in this case train or whistle and we found an appropriate sound to use in the podcast as a sound effect.

That wraps it up for episode 30 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode as well as archived versions of previous episodes are available on the web at techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com that’s techtalk the number 4 teachers.blogspot.com
If you have questions or comments about using technology in the classroom of have some news you would like to share with other teachers please post a comment to the blog or send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu. Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.
.