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Create a new audio file: voice recording using Audacity
1. Open Audacity
2. Create a new Audacity file if a new file window doesnt open
Add voice (record with a microphone)
1. Attach a peripheral device if desired ( a microphone), or use the built-in microphone
2. Go to the control panels (Audio/Sound) to check that it is the active recording device. Or leave as is, to use the built-in microphone (it will not sound as good). Note: your school laptop may not have an inbuilt microphone. If you cannot get sound to record as per the directions below, helpdesk the IT Dept and ask for help.
3. Click the Red record button in the toolbar to commence recording
4. Click the Blue Pause button to pause
5. Click the Yellow square button to stop.
Saving files in Audacity
Use File > Save Project As if you wish to save the Audacity file to continue working on it. Other applications wont be able to read this format. It is a work-in-progress format
Use File > Export as Mp3 to save the final recording in an Mp3 format - for uploading to iTunes or your blog. Name the file appropriately and save it to your home folder - be sure to organise your audio files where you can retrieve them
Use File > Export as WAV for applications that require WAV file formatted audio files
Edit the audio file (if necessary)
1. Drag in from the far left margin of the track until you see a greyed-out area the cursor will convert to a pointer finger - slide to the exact edit point
2. Do the same with the right side of the track
3. Go to Edit > Cut
Add music/effects to your file
Go to my previous Audacity post to read up on how to add a music track to the background, add an effect or make more complex edits
Export the audio file as an MP3 file
1. Go to File menu > Export > select type eg MP3 and the destination folder
2. Be sure to give your file an appropriate title that can be identified in your post
3. You may need to install the Lame MP3 encoder to Audacity first - its an “optional extra”. Follow the instructions at Lame Installation to download and install Lame.
Upload the audio file to a blog post
1. In your Wordpress blog, go to the Write menu > Write post
2. Give your post a title and add any written information or media
3. Click on the ‘Add Media’ button above the format pane. The simple Browser Uploader link is the quickest way to add media
4. Browse to locate your audio file
5. Click upload
6. Add relevant information: description etc
7. The link appears in your post and will automatically play when you click on it
Here is an example of a simple audio file created using Audacity that I have uploaded to this post:
Upload the audio file to a website
Go to my previous Audacity post and scroll down to
Uploading to a website (podcasting)
to read how to upload to a website
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Well, here we are at the start of a fresh new term and year at TIGS. As this is the second year of the Strategic Plan, several major eLearning strategies will shape the future for eLearning at TIGS in 2009.
NETWORK and MICROSOFT 2007 UPDATE
Over the summer vacation, our IT guys, Neil Cross, Andrew Greenlees and Josh Lukins worked tirelessly to update our servers and install Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office 2007 products on all computers across the school. This update will facilitate new ways in which staff can use and access files. Admin staff will receive training in 2007 products in February and teaching staff will participate in faculty workshops in the transition from Office 2003 to 2007, on the forthcoming Professional Development Day on 9th March.
A NEW WEBSITE
Soon we expect to have the first stage of our new school website up and running. The new site promises to significantly change the way staff, students and parents and the TIGS community learn and interact with the school. It will incorporate many exciting new features such as an online newsletter; a portal to key staff and departmental blogs and later in the year, teacher home-pages where students can gain access to key class information anywhere, anytime. Features of these home pages will include access to class photo albums, student blogs or journals, discussion boards and the ability for teachers to upload podcasts. Of course it will take some time to train staff and students in the use of the website and all of its functions but it has the potential to pave the way to transform the way that students interact with the school and their teachers.
For parents, the website promises to be a goldmine of information about what is happening at school and the new exciting interface that our IT guys have designed is sure to have a big impact!
INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS
Thanks to the generous donation of the P&F, we have just completed the installation of the first of the new Promethean Interactive Whiteboards in the senior school. The IWB is strategically placed in the Goodhew Research Centre in the eastern computer bay, where staff from across the school can book it for lessons.
Training workshops for staff will commence in the next two weeks. Throughout 2009, we will commence rolling out interactive whiteboards across the senior school classrooms. This will continue over the next few years. Maths will be the first department to benefit from the roll-out.
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Learning Technologies 2008 Conference
Thursday 6th November
Videoconference
Catherine Macklam and Danny Mass: The 2Learn.ca Education Society, Canada:
“Its easy 2Learn.ca – a unique model of technology professional development
This is a fantastic initiative that demonstrates how a structured and fully supported eLearning network for teachers can create paradigm shifts in pedagogy.
2Learn.ca is a professional development, non-profit educational organization established to help teachers use video technologies to support teaching and learning in Canada. Teachers are trained to use the technology and helped to setup conferenced events.
Teachers are supported at all levels. The team provides workshops, professional speakers and events for a provincial group of schools and teachers in Canada.
The program works with a cascade model, that provides release time for teachers to attend PD activities. They teachers contribute to this program, through ongoing evaluation and responses that help the organization develop training solutions emergently. Teachers must also provide learning opportunities for other teachers in their schools to facilitate the cascading model.
Teacher leaders for the province schools undertake the training needed to learn the technologies, and then take these back into their school communities.
Classroom teachers are given leading opportunities to train and lead their schools in various technologies. This empowers these teachers to the point where they empower other teachers in their school, leading to very effective ICT learning environments.
The key to the 12 year old program is that teachers are encouraged to lead in an area of personal passion. They don’t have to know everything.
Each year they have had a different focus:
1.Curriculum use of internet resources
2. ICT embedded curriculum
3. Grass roots projects
4. Improved broadband: SuperNet, led to multimedia in classroom
5. Videoconferencing in classrooms
They have established a great free website of resources built up of all of the resources they have accumulated over the years. The database is an aggregation of thousands of sites.
The portal focuses on theme based units of study: a teacher teaching that theme can engage in ICT units of work that are fully supported. Teachers can ask the organisation to make an event specific to their programs. This will be posted for all, on the site.
The key to this program is the professional development support that is scaffolded at all levels.
A new initiative is an online community website called 2LearnTogether. This site will connect teachers, learners, resources and events. Forums will help people to engage and establish relevant learning environments. This forum will be moderated and monitored so as to meet privacy issues, via access limitations. The software for the site was Dolphin, an Australian product.
Have a look at their site: its a great resource:
http://www.2learn.ca/
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Learning Technologies 2008 Conference
Thursday 6th November
The Adult Educator: an endangered species
Anne Bartlett-Bragg’s workshop
Anne adopts the role of storyteller in her confronting and entertaining workshop.
Whilst she pitches her presentation toward adult educators, it has relevance for all educators.
Anne takes us into the future to the 2015 Learning Technologies Conference, and describes an isolated and ‘endangered’ group of educators - the last remaining ‘tribe’ of educators.
She provides us with a definition of ‘endangered’:
“threatened by predators and changing environments; few in numbers”,
and shows us a number of other endangered species:
- Printers (Anne pushes a paperless environment)
- Swimming pools, car manufacturers
- Educational services
- Bankers
- Chimney sweeps (for fireplaces)
Anne explains how her 2015 future-world is shaped by 2008 events happening now,
- The changing nature of work: only 70% jobs are now full-time and permanent
- The new trend for part-time work for women
- 200,000 jobs predicted to be lost during the next 12 months
- Learners have changed and their needs and expectations have changed
- Effective Learning Management Systems (LMS) are available for students online
She names the predators responsible for the crisis in education:
- Educators who continue to use digital technologies in boring, pedestrian and irrelevant ways that do not engage students: eg. powerpoint shows, use of IWBs as data projectors, printing materials etc
- Managed informal sharing and discussion groups: we can do all of this without the ‘big guys’, in more relevant ways
- The IT department: they block and restrict access
Anne describes some key identity issues that put educators at risk:
- Decreasing numbers of young educators: an aging population
- The role of educators has fundamentally changed (but have educators changed?)
She finishes her presentation with a whimsical response to this question: What can we do about it?
- Create sanctuaries
- Lobby
- Set up a Save Vocational Educators fund!
Whilst amusing, its also sad! And thats the whole point of her presentation!
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Themes
Once you have your blog up and running, you may wish to find a theme that is more ‘you’, or suits the purpose of your blog.
For my blogging workshop participants, these sites have a host of WordPress themes that you can download free:
You can do a search on Google and find more
Email me any that you would like to try and I will get Andrew to upload them. Once that happens, you can select the theme from the Design Menu when you open your blog
Check that any theme you find is compatible with WordPress 2.6 by going to the following WordPress link. Search alphabetically for your theme. If its not there, find another! This site is also a good way to find a theme but its a slow way of doing it.
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Some tutorials for you to try
This post will help the participants in my beginners Blogging workshops. Try these tutorials when you are having a play with your blog.
There are a number of good free WordPress tutorial sites on the net. Note: we use WordPress 2.6 version. If you search for tutorials on the net, make sure they are for version 2.6
Open your favourite web browser, check you are connected to the internet and try these:
The following tutorials are screencasts: audio visual tutorials.
The following screencasts are from the Likoma Design website
The following site has some comprehensive information about the features of WordPress. It will take you some time to read through it, however its a good way to learn all about your blog and what the various buttons and menus can do. It doesnt contain tutorials but does provide a concrete background to blogging
The author describes it as a beginners site:
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I have written this article in response to the Learning Technologies User Group’s online pre-conference forum of the same name. I am attending the LTUG Conference in QLD from 5th-7th November 2008.
This is specifically a response to Mark Bauerlein’s evidence that literacy standards are dropping in our schools, due to students’ increasing reliance and use of technology.
Before we take away their laptops….
Before we take away their laptops, perhaps we need to consider Mark Bauerlien’s discussion in the light of what we are really trying to provide for our students through education.
Gen Z, born from 1995 onwards, will live, work and participate largely in a technocentric culture, which I imagine will be radically different to ours. They will need new skills and new literacies to adapt to the complex social, cultural, environmental and technological issues they will surely face as they reach adulthood.
I have often thought the same things that Mark mentions – the drop in what we call student ‘literacies’ and ‘standards’. However some research has reminded me that the term literacy, like technology, has radically changed. It has, in fact, kept abreast of technology.
“… literacy is more than just being able to read and write; it is the ability to comprehend, interpret, analyze, respond, and interact with the growing variety of complex sources of information”. This definition was written by Roger Sensenbaugh in 1990! Since then we have witnessed a proliferation of literacies: computer literacy, scientific literacy, emerging literacy, visual literacy, conceptual literacy, cultural literacy, and many more.
A current definition is offered by the Centre for Literacy in Quebec: “Literacy is a complex set of abilities needed to understand and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture – alphabets, numbers, visual icons - for personal and community development. The nature of these abilities, and the demand for them, vary from one context to another.
In a technological society, literacy extends beyond the functional skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening to include multiple literacies such as visual, media and information literacy. These new literacies focus on an individual’s capacity to use and make critical judgements about the information they encounter on a daily basis.”
Are current education systems and institutions up-to-date with the real literacies being invented by new generations of students who have grown up with digital technology? I think not.
The students I teach today are so different to the students I taught only 5 years ago. I have had to completely adapt my own teaching practice to meet the learning demands of these students. These students don’t want to read and write to learn about things. They want to experiment, practice, play and experience how things work. They want to invent their own way to decipher and deliver information, and devise their own literacies in the process.
I am convinced that Gen Z will transform our idea of what literacy means and what ‘standards’ are important in education. In fact, these young people are already rewriting and inventing new literacies as we have this discussion. This happens for many of them on their computers at home – because – at school, they are still engaging with 19th century learning practices!
The “proficiency” of Gen Z is set to challenge us. They may not “create prose that is precise, engaging, and coherent,” and may not be able to “write well enough to meet the demands” of archaic institutions. But they may well be the generation to create the revolution in education we are discussing.
As educators, we have the power now, to stretch the parameters of our own thinking and engagement with technology, to help them create a sophisticated revolution: one where technology is used in meaningful, relevant and contextual ways to sustain a lifelong process of learning, as well as support life on this planet.
Lets not draw “deeply flawed conclusions” about how the literacies of younger generations match up against our own. Rather, let us find some sense of recognition and value in the native digital language of these students, help them identify, refine and utilize multiple literacies, to help equip them for the brave new world in which they will need to survive.
The revolution, the new paradigm of technology-supported education will only be achievable and sustainable when students and the literacies they need to live, work, play and survive in the 21st century, are placed at the centre of the learning process by educators.
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I have written this article in response to the Learning Technologies User Group’s online pre-conference forum of the same name. I am attending the LTUG Conference in QLD from 5th-7th November 2008.
Has technology Revolutionized Education?
Technology will revolutionize education when it is used as a wholesale instrument of pedagogy, rather than as a resource.
Technology on its own is of little benefit to many teachers: a data projector is a good substitute for an overhead projector, perhaps. Unfortunately I have observed this in many secondary and tertiary classrooms.
If real change is to take place, teachers need to learn how to effectively use technology as a tool for student learning, rather than use it merely to display resources or source information. In most Australian schools, a digital education revolution seems light years away!
Installing computers in any number of classrooms will not effect change until teachers change their way of teaching. This can be achieved through subtle shifts in pedagogies: posing questions that encourage students to use computers to discuss-collaborate-research-interact-analyze-answer problems-present solutions, rather than source information-find facts-copy-paste-print.
The key is to create a paradigm shift through pedagogy and teaching practice so that the way our students learn is revolutionized! The shift toward student-centred, problem-based learning environments will empower Gen Z and Y students to do what they do best: use technology as a primary language to learn everything they need to know, just-in-time. For these new generations of students, authentic learning is technology-centred and their chief native language is digital.
Educators can theorize the need for change and manufacturers can invent amazing whizz-bang technology, but the revolution will not even begin to take shape until teachers are assisted and supported in the process of creating new pedagogies to embrace ICT as a learning tool in their classrooms.
The real revolution must be facilitated by administrative bodies and governments, not merely through the installation of hardware, but more importantly, through the supply of ICT focused professional development opportunities and support for teachers.
The technology itself will not inspire revolution. However, the meaningful use of technology may revolutionize education. Such a revolution will be human-centred, driven not by the technology itself, but by the wisdom and insight of teachers, and the enthusiasm and engagement of their students.
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In November I will be attending the 2008 Learning Technologies Conference, where George Siemens will be the keynote speaker.
George is a prominent writer and researcher on learning, networks, technology and organizational effectiveness in digital environments. He is the author of Knowing Knowledge, an exploration of how the context and characteristics of knowledge have changed and what it means to organizations today.
Read more about George and his ideas at these web spaces: eLearnspace, Connectivism and Knowing Knowledge.
In his session George will explore the seemingly obvious ‘networks and connections as the foundation of learning’ and present new perspectives on how to foster deep, critical, understanding through effective implementation of learning networks. He will address:
- What are the characteristics of learning networks?
- How do they differ from social networks?
- What types of attributes are evident in conceptual networks versus social networks?
- What about neural networks?
- How can educators utilize attributes of networks for teaching and learning?
- How do we foster networks of a particular type to serve intended learning goals?
Check out his webspace: it has amazing links to events, articles, interviews, sites and blogs
eLearnspace: everything technology
His elearnspace blog includes daily posts on a wide range of eLearning topics
