Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab

This week we're taking a look at Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab. The lab offers many features and is free to use. We're all about the free stuff here at The Paradigm Shift podcast. I found this site because Robert Diem has a link to it on his site, The Daily Idiom. Way to go, Robert!

I want to give you an overview of the site first. So let's take a quick look at its features. The site includes:

• Streaming audio and video content through Real Player;
• Over 150 original activities and quizzes;
• Activities and quizzes are categorized according to difficulty level;
• Activities contain a variety of tasks and learning opportunities;
• Pre- and post-listening activities.

You will need Real Player to listen to the audio files. No problem--free download and available for Mac and that other operating system that the kids like.

The Interface

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab is easy to navigate around and has a reasonably intuitive interface. The ESL students I have had working in the lab have been able to move around the site with relative ease and success. It's far too early to demonstrate significant growth (about two weeks), but they have found the lessons to be a fun way to improve their listening comprehension.

eBoard

The show has been posted. Your media aggregator will probably create a new playlist in your audio software called Paradigm Shift. I was recording until the wee hours of the morning after experiencing a number of audio troubles, which were not to be outdone by problems with the PHP file and the feed. I apologize if I sound half-asleep at times. I was determined to get it done, though! To check out the show, click here. To have each show automatically loaded onto your audio player software, simply follow the directions near the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

Check out eBoard!! It allows you to post assignments and attachments online as well as keeping a calendar and gathereing student reactions through iNotes.

We've also got The Daily Idiom by Robert Diem.

Next week, we're going to review Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab.

My brother, Marshall, has just become a published author. His book, Adventures As Dogboy, is available through Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Congratulations, Marshall!! I can't wait to read it!

Flash Drive

A few weeks ago on the show, Kathy Schrock talked about how students could benefit from loading a flash drive with OpenOffice and Mozilla's web browser and email client, Firefox and Thunderbird, respectively. Now, she has even given teachers some text instuctions to follow in order to configure this for students.

Once again, she's done all the testing and hard work for us!

Thanks, Kathy!

Podcasts as an Instructional Tool

Podcasting has exciting potential in education that is just now being explored. On this week's podcast, we're going to talk about some ideas for podcasting as an instructional tool.

Most references and links are contained in our collaborative blog, On The Cutting Edge-ucation. However, there are a couple of additional links I can leave you with.

George Mayo’s 6th grade students at Brandon Middle School :

• •publish an online magazine that consists of student blogs;
• •podcast shows that highlights those blogs.

We've got a couple of fun clips of the students podcasting that you'll definitely want to hear!

Also on the show, I'm going to talk about EduCasters.net, the new site that Steve Dembo is cooking up to help educational podcasters!!

Finally, if you have an idea, brainstorm, thought, or activity that integrates podcasting into instruction, please email me and I'll send out an invitation for you to join the On The Cutting Edge-ucation blog so you can post your ideas. Of course your comments are always welcome either way.

--Eric

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This Week's Show

Well, I went ahead and did it. I purchased the domain name paradigmshiftpodcast.org to move this site to in the very near future. Paradigm Shift will be the new name of the show because I've become aware of a site that proclaims to own the name Teachnology. The one time I think I've got an original thought and ker-BLOOOEY! :-)

In fact, they even sent a cease and desist letter to Dan Mitchell of Dan Mitchell's Teachnology Blog. In response, he has neither ceased nor desisted. Good for him. He used the name first, I believe.

However, for me and where I'm at, I believe I need to change names for two reasons. Most important, I think it's crucial to set a good example for my students and fellow teachers in terms of copyright law. Secondly, I want to host a show that is original in content but also in how it's identified. Clearly, Dan Mitchell used the name long before I did, so in deference and respect to him as well as the copyrighted site, we'll switch it up.

To make the switch as seamless as possible for our listeners, we'll do a couple shows under both names as we get everything moved over to our server space at PodLot.com . It's important to note that you won't need to change the feed you've entered into your media aggregator to continue to listen to the podcast.

It's past time to get another show out! I plan on getting it out on Friday. We're going to talk about some of the great ideas, thoughts, and examples for using podcasting instructionally that educators have posted at the On The Cutting Edge-ucation site.

So, please join us as we begin our own Paradigm Shift...

Using Podcasting for Instruction

We're building a repository of instructional ideas and strategies for using podcasts in schools.

I'd like to generate a bank of ideas (anything from a quick brainstorm idea to refined activities and units) that teachers could contribute to, draw from, and even refine.

Click here to check it out. If you would like to contribute ideas or activities, just email me and I'll send out an invitation to you.

We'd love to hear from you!

--Eric

Kathy Schrock Interview and the Schrock Guide for Educators

Kathy is the Administrator for Technology for the Nauset Public Schools on Cape Cod, Mssachussetts. Plus, she is the creator and proprietor of the Schrock Guide for Educators at Discovery School.

Join us for this intriguing question and answer session.

The show notes for this one are real simple. Click here to go to the Schrock Guide for Educators. The Schrock Guide is an incredible repository of educational web sites. It has links for curriculum areas, searching tools, and teacher helpers such as Fry's Readability Graph, Assessment & Rubrics, and one of my favorites--Digital Gadgets, just to name a few.

Some of the best features of the site are the Sites of the School Days, the New Sites This Month, the Theme of the Month, and the Content-Rich Sites.

Kathy Schrock puts sites through a very rigorous process before she links them to the Schrock Guide for Educators. Rest assured, these are worth your valuable time. There are great teaching tools throughout the Schrock Guide, so check it out!!

iPodder 2.0 has been released

Click on the title above to get it. It's much better than the previous version!

Single Feed

I just uploaded the Teachnology03-19-05 QuickCast, so if your media aggregator (iPodder, iPodderX, Doppler, etc) doesn't catch it the next time it checks for new podcasts, then you may want to check to make sure you have the following feed entered for Teachnology:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Teachnology

QuickCast about Podcasts and Blogs on our Single Feed

Here's some interesting educational podcasts that I enjoy, and some general information about them. They are not listed in any particular order.

Teach42, hosted by Steve Dembo, blends practical tools with the right doses of philosophy and perspective. On his blog, he has listed several free, open-source software titles for educational uses here . Feed

Kelly Dumont has a weekly podcast, The Educational Mac, that discusses Mac software uses in the classroom. Feed

History According to Bob is a daily podcast that Professor Bob Packett, covering different historical topics. Professor Packett has an effective conversational style to get out his message that includes interesting anectdotes and unique perspectives. Feed

Some recent topics include:

• Otto Von Bismarck - Iron Chancellor or Iron Liver and Lungs?
• Chariot Racing - Ancient Rome's Nascar
• The History of the Finger - The International Gesture of Disdain
• Pirate Rules - Why is my left leg worth less than my right?

Professor Packett has an effective conversational style to get out his message that includes interesting anectdotes and unique perspectives. Feed

Jeff Moore is an educational technology specialist that hosts One Big Head, which discusses educational philosophy, trends, technology-based solutions, research and ideas. Feed

The Daily Idiom, hosted by Robert Diem, examines everyday idioms about three times per week. Feed

Here's some educational blogs I enjoy reading:

Bud The Teacher is, amongst other things, investigating how use blogs and wikis for instruction.

The Education Wonks discusses education-related issues. It also hosts The Carnival of Education, which provides links to informative and interesting educator posts each week.

The Art of Getting By is a written by an educator, though it rarely, if ever, deals with education issues. It also offers an aesthetically marvelous design!

One Feed on Saturday

On Saturday, March 19, Teachnology will delete the feedburner feed that has mobilepodcast in the URL. However, we will continue to provide our listeners with effective instructional tools through our permanent feedburner feed which can be found below:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Teachnology

On Saturday, I will send out a QuickCast on the permanent (and only) feed to verify to our listeners that they have the correct (and only) feed. If you have not received that QuickCast by Sunday morning then simply launch your favorite aggregator and enter the permanent feed address.

Saturday's QuickCast will be a brief talk about a few educational podcasts that I love listening to (besides Teachnology ;->), so you don't want to miss it!

I sincerely appologize for any inconvenience or confusion our multiple feeds have caused to our listeners.

Thanks for listening (and reading)!

Internet4Classrooms and Platonic Realms

What an exciting week! My 7th grade girls won their conference tournament over the weekend. Listen how I seamlessly integrate that into the show as to avoid sounding like I'm bragging (unlike here in the show notes!).

We have a ton of things in the hopper. We've got The Daily Idiom, A Word A Day, and the much anticipated, Microsoft Ad Slogan of the Week. Most importantly, our featured sites are going to give you some great instructional tools. First, we're going to talk about Internet4Classrooms. Then we'll investigate an intense math site, Platonic Realms.

Internet4Classrooms is a links site that has a rich library of helpful sites for teachers and students. The three areas that impressed me the most were Links for K-12 Teachers, Daily Dose of the Web, and On-Line Practice Modules.

On a recent visit to Internet4Classrooms, I found a great math site called Platonic Realms, which is geared toward secondary/post-secondary level math students and teachers. I've really enjoyed Today's Math Moment, which are short shockwave multimedia presentations. For example, today's topic (March 10), Why Isn't 1 a Prime Number, gives an interesting explanation that goes beyond the definition, albeit very quickly. I've also found their Daily Challenge to be just that--a challenge. There's other features that are well worth the time to check them out. This is definitely not a static site that looks the same from one month to the next. Several features change on a daily basis. It's a fantastic math site!

4teachers.org

Just a QuickCast for you this week as grades are due, my girls basketball team is starting its final week of the season, and I'm sorting through our questions for Kathy Schrock and developing a few of my own.

So this QuickCast will not have our other popular features, the Daily Idiom, A Word A Day, and the Microsoft ad slogan of the week. We will resume with those pieces on our next full-featured Teachnology podcast.

We are going to take a look at the very comprehensive 4teachers site.

In an earlier podcast, we looked at one of it's great features, Rubistar. Fortunately, 4teachers didn't just stop there. They have several features that are incredible instructional resources for teachers and students! Plus, they're constantly improving those resources. So click in...

One Vision, One Feed

I'd like to ask you to check your aggregator and make sure you're subscribed to the permanent feed, which is http://feeds.feedburner.com/teachnology.

It's the one that's now available by clicking on one of the XML icons.

I was making a new feed for each show. DOH! Silly me.

Thanks to Russell Holliman of the Treo Podcast for fixing the cluster of feeds I had generated at feedburner and developing one feed for the podcast and one for the show notes. Russell, you da man!

I will delete all other feeds shortly, but we want to make sure we get all our listeners over to the new feed first.

Rewiring the Research Project

Holy smokes, it's been a busy two weeks, but it's time to get the show going! We are going to explore how to frame your essential questions for research projects to elicit higher level thinking from your students. We are fortunate in the Thompson School District to have three exceptional instructional technologists and former classroom teachers who keep us very current on instructional strategies involving technology. Traci Gile, Michelle Logan, and David Grubbs worked tirelessly to bring Rewiring the Research Project to our technology coaches and facilitators earlier this month.

The Developing Essential Questions PowerPoint:
*gives important background information about research projects;
*provides a summary of forming Essential Questions;
*supplies an example of how to do so in a 5th grade classroom.


Framing Essential Questions

Essential questions are at the heart of Rewiring the Research Project. Our Instructional Technologists did a fabulous job of explaining the qualities of essential questions, how to put power behind them, and differentiating them from the important Foundation Questions that the Essential question is built upon. Additionally, they demonstrate how to promote higher-level thinking through questioning with the section: Moving up the Bloom's Taxonomy ladder by avoiding the "What is" questions. This is a brief, yet informative, document that will help educators breath life into the questions we ask our students to solve. There are also tremendous sources listed for the document if you would like a more in-depth evaluation of the material. That said, the first source I clicked on was down at the time (http://www.fno.org/oct97/questions.html). FNO is a terrific education site. Try this FNO page if the FNO cited page still doesn't work.

The Student Pre-Search Planner is a concrete road map that helps student save time and frustration in the long run by planning their research. It's an excellent tool for students! An important Reflecting and Refining Checklist follows the pre-search plan, and it offers a quick way for students to evaluate and adjust their strategies. It also gives teachers an instant look into who may need a little extra help.

The Teacher Research Planner gives us a guide and timeline to setting this rewired research project into motion.

I want to thank Traci Gile, Michelle Logan, and David Grubbs for providing the instructional resources this week. They are fabulous, hard working educators!

Our New Features and the Notes for the Wednesday, 02.02.05 podcast

We're excited to offer a couple of new features to give the show a change of pace and someone else to listen to instead of just me!!

Each week, we're going feature one of the Daily Idioms from this site and A Word A Day (one of them) from this site.

As many of you may know, The Daily Idiom is a podcast produced by its owner, operator, and sole proprietor, Robert Diem. Robert has generously agreed to allow us to air one of the Daily Idioms on Teachnology each week. Thank you, Robert.

Thanks also to MICHAEL QUINION of World Wide Words for his historical perspectives on idioms. To read his take on how "Kick the bucket" originated, click here.

Our thanks also goes out to Anu and Stuti Garg who have been putting A Word A Day on the Internet every weekday (I believe) since 1994. WOW! To visit this very informative site, click here.

If you believe you might be afflicted with resistentialism, click here--not for a cure, just more background information. :-)

Thanks again to Robert Diem, Anu Garg, and Stuti Garg!

LearnAlberta

This week's featured site is LearnAlberta. This is an emerging website that can be used as a learning supplement to other teaching tools . Its resources have been developed by Alberta Learning. Specifically, LearnAlberta is a repository of multimedia resources and lessons for K-12 classrooms. There are a variety of curriculum areas represented here. Being a teacher, parent or student in Alberta, Canada is helpful, but by no means mandatory to use many of the resources. Non-members can simply log in as a guest to access the site. Plus, many of the multimedia resources are available in English, as well as French. Check it out: LearnAlberta has several highly engaging multimedia lessons/tutorials.

To preview what's on the horizon for LearnAlberta, click here.

Next week: We're going to take a look at some ways to rewire research projects to foster higher level thinking.

iMic, Lapel Mics, and Ear Jams!!!!

iMic, Lapel Mics, and Ear Jams are in from Griffin Technologies!

I plugged the Lapel Mic into the iMic and the iMic into my PC.

In the Audacity (iMic comes with it, but I had previously downloaded it) preferences, I selected iMic audio system for input and output (it was in the dropdown menus waiting for me).

I switched the toggle switch over toward the headphones (don't know why that worked) and--bang! I was recording.

Hello better sound quality!

It took longer to open the package than to set it up.

I might just have to throw out a special Weekend Edition of Teachnology for this.

Math Forum

Here's a great math site! Math Forum from Drexel University is an incredible instructional tool for teachers as well as a helpful homework resource for students that also offers challenge problems to extend their learning. There is also a resource for teachers and parents to ask questions about teaching mathematics, called Teacher2Teacher. There's also the Math Tools, which is a community library of technology tools, lessons, activities, and support materials for teaching and learning mathematics.

I appologize if the audio was a big distraction. I ordered two lapel microphones from Griffin Technologies. Once they get here, the show won't sound like some heavy-breather prank phone call.

Thanks for listening!
EJ

Wednesday's Show

I'm sorry I haven't posted any previews for this week's show. My 7th grade girls basketball team had two games on Saturday and really chewed up my prep time for the show. I'm on it now though.

EJ