Herman Wood

Welcome

Welcome to EdTech Bytes! It's the place where you can find resources I've shared with you. Hi, I'm Herman Wood. I was a Technology Integration Specialist in the district until the department was eliminated. I now teach Physics at North Cobb High School. In my previous position, I posted to this blog to provide resources and training for professional development. I don't expect to be able to do as much of that as I used to, but I do hope to be able to continue to share my professional experience with you. I'll leave the old content here and available to you. Please feel free to contact me if you have a question. If you're in the district, you can contact me via email by typing my name in the address line. If not, you can contact me via email by typing my first name, then a dot, my last name @ cobbk12.org.

Yes, I'm still here...

No, not here at TIS-ville, but here at North Cobb teaching Physics.  It's been fun, in the 26th year of my career to return to my roots teaching Physics.  Have to say it's a good thing Newton hasn't come up with any new laws lately ; )

I've really gotten back to my roots, floating and working off a cart.  Glad it's me and not a rookie in for the first time.  I've always felt we could give our rookies a better chance at staying around, but then again I've seen a few get a sense of entitlement when they are handed an easier go the first time around.  Guess that's for higher pay grades to decide..

GaETC is coming up.  Please consider use of some personal time and check it out!  Here's the link.

I hope to continue to post occasionally, as time permits and info seems pertinent.  Regardless, please stay in touch!

GarageBand for Lovinggood, February 4th

We'll be introducing and exploring GarageBand on the Macs in this session.  GarageBand is a part of the iLife suite of applications, including iPhoto and iMovie that we have already explored.  GarageBand is used with to create and edit audio and audiovisual files.  In our society, we know that sound is used to enhance visual media.  (What would Star Wars be like without the soundtrack?)  

Even with no musical talent or training, you can create short arrangements using built in audio loops created by professionals to help you get just the sound you want using GarageBand.  You can also create podcasts that can be played in a web browser, iTunes, or an iPod.

I'll introduce the software to you, help you create a short audio clip for whatever purpose you may have, and show you where to get started if you are inclined to create a podcast.

It might be helpful if you'd bring your own set of headphones if you have some!

Another stroll....

Next week is conference week.  In my first year, I only had a few parent conferences, but I remember not being very well prepared for my first.  I think the only thing I carried in was my grade book!  That's not very much help for a parent trying to figure out what their child needs help with.  I'm very glad we are doing more formative assessments now!

25 Years

This week marks 25 years of service in the district for me.  It seems like it was only yesterday that I sat down in Grace Calhoun's office for an interview fresh out of Gail McBride's classroom at Clark Central in Athens, where I had student taught.  Thanks to my future Mother in law's charm with Mr. Tony Melton, then Principal at Dodgen, I was granted an interview and hired for a position at Dodgen.  I finished up the school year for a teacher who moved, but with no prospect of keeping that position for the next school year (partial year contracts give no security for the next school year, and there was a teacher surplus!).

I remember being anxious about that first day, because I still feel it when I've been off for a few days.  It's a real sense of excitement I feel while working to get ready for the students to return, even though my interactions with them are less frequent now.

Getting ready was certainly different then!  Everything was on paper!  There were only a few Apple II computers in a small "lab" off the 7th grade pod.  I used them primarily for my gradebook (a DOS program I had written myself in college).  Unfortunately, I don't remember my students ever being able to use them.

Thanks for indulging my stroll down memory lane.  As I'd really like to continue my stroll with future posts, I'll set up a category called reflecting.  Perhaps it will be something useful for our new hires.

Happy Holidays!

Just a holiday wish from my family to yours...

The video was created through a service called Animoto. I used iPhoto to edit and otherwise get my pictures ready. GarageBand helped me edit the music. Give it a try!

Lovinggood iMovie Session

It's time to learn to import video & edit!  Please use this link as your reference for iMovie 6:  http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/instructionaltechnology/mac/resource_files/iMovie/iMovie_Manual.pdf

If you have the newer version, then use this link:  http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/instructionaltechnology/mac/resource_files/iMovie%2008/iMovie_7_how.pdf

If you don't have access to the video footage we shot in an earlier session, you can shoot some more using the technique I'll show in person.  We'll learn about importing, editing, adding titles, transitions, audio, and still shots.

Your only assignment today is create a short video & share!

TypePad Problem?

TypePad has been in the process of updating their services.  Some schools have reported problems with logins, others with uploading files.  As you should, if you have issues, please let me know.  You will likely need to put in a support ticket with TypePad.

Also, it's nearing time for Tech Fair entries to close.  I'm attaching a PowerPoint presentation I'd like to encourage you to share with your students!

Download TechFairkiosk

Kevin Lane, Podcasting and the Elementary School Classroom- It's how we get our work on the wall!

Kevin is the Music Teacher at Woodstation ES, Catoosa County

Knowing that ES children love to show their work, and want them to, how can we do that when the work is sound?

He cited: http://apple.com/educatiion/profiles/newpormesa/ & Sarah Crenier as inspiration.

Essentially, she carries an iPod with a mic around and records their work, then posts it as a podcast. He uses it as a motivation- "do your best work & I'll record you!"

Kevin is sharing not only student content, but instruction as well. He is at www.woodstationmusic.com (using iWeb & hosting on .Mac)

His podcasts sound fabulous!

He suggested educators Google podsafe music when asked about copyright. Tools are his MacBook, iLife, a Blue SnowBall microphone, a MobileMe account, and a Canon A620 digital camera.

We recorded what will be his 9th podcast right in the session. He came up with the song on his own, as well as the concept for each instrument. If you go listen, I'll let you try to guess which instrument I played ;') One hint- I put my instrument on my Grandmother's ceiling one Thanksgiving and it stuck!

He did a great job of showing how to use GarageBand to create his podcast!

Here's some resources:
Podcasting and Blogging with GarageBand and iWeb by Robin Williams & John Tollett

http://learninginhand.com

Podcasting for Dummies

Apples site for podcasting in education and Audacity's site.

http://www.plyxim.com/free (Easy iWEb Publisher)

Is what we learned in ed school and doing in ed practice bunk?

The presentation will be available under PowerPoints at netsquirrell.com.

This is a very different direction for the speaker, Patrick Crispen. He broke some things down and looked at brain scans to get towards his point, starting with the idea that we only use 10% of our brains at one time. The typical scan of someone doing something shows lots of gray areas. Does that mean that those areas aren't working? Don't think so.

Let's think about multitasking- Studies (uncited) show that a person interupted takes 50% longer & makes 50% more errors.

Learning styles- he says the data does not support the belief. The paper will be released in 2009 from Immordino-Yang & Fisher. Differentiation? Patrick shared a YouTube video from a professor at the University of Virginia. One of the points is we want students to learn content. How can we teach the shape of an object through audio? Some content is audio, some is not.

Gardner himself states that there is little evidence for multiple intelligences theory.

Cramming does work. There can't be too big of a gap before the test. Distributed practice is best, but a limited cram session can help.

Resources & Ref's:
Medina, J Brain Rules: 12 Principles for surviving and thriving at work & home

Byrnes, JP Cognitive development and learning in instructional contexts.

Division 15 of the American Psychological Association

Think this could change some things?

top 10 free web 2 point oh web sites

Steve Dembo is sharing his favorite web 2.0 sites. Here's a link to his site: http://top10freesites.pbwiki.com/

Bloglines is his start point. He seems to be using it in a similar way as delicious. Speaking of... A reminder that you can RSS a person's bookmarks. Collaborative- getting the most of others efforts! What if we do this as a staff or department and share it with parents as resources for our students.

He really likes voicethread- imagine photostory3 online. You can even have it call you & then you can call back to add audio comments. You can even embed a voice thread into your blog or site, as well as download and save locally. A cool use would be to do book reviews here.

flickr is a social photo sharing site, designed to be social. People can build things to add on to it. Free & pro versions, differing limitations. The tagging and annotation tools are pretty helpful. There's tons of services that can connect to your flickr account and create stuff! I especially liked: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ Here's another creator for wordpress blog headers: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/blogheader.php

Note- check out the cogdogblog- I keep hearing that blog mentioned at the conference.

Picnik is Photoshop for most of what we actually need- all online, & free: http://www.picnik.com/