Highland Man

Testing this process. Picasa to my Blog 

Computers as tools, not curriculum...

I would like to think that what I have been teaching them has been creative, interesting and enjoyable. Over the years the students have undertaken activities which have been heavily based in multimedia: creating Flash animations using KidPix and other professional Flash producing software; music video clips with ULead Video Studio; web pages with FrontPage, Dreamweaver and using html in notepad; navigated slideshows using PowerPoint and HyperStudio; and more recently photo montages with PhotoStory3 as well as Podcasting and Blogging. There are some core elements such as typing and file management as well but I have always endeavoured to include more full on, open ended activities.
Throughout these activities I have witnessed the students produce beautiful multimedia work in the computer room, simply dazzling. Yet as I move around classrooms I don't see any progress, students aren't using technology to assist their learning in other curriculum areas. The skills taught in the computer room and skills they use for their computer lessons. ICT as it stands in most schools is simply another curriculum area.
This is insane. For many many years teachers have been complaining about time scarcity, how do I teach everything children need to know in such a little time. Yet when a tool comes along which could possibly alleviate this problem, teachers turn computers into another curriculum area only making things worse. And we compound this problem by creating a room where we go to learn how to use these computers. Computers should be tools, not curriculum.
Teachers need to find software which easily achieves the desired results - if the software can't be explained completely in one or two demonstrations then it shouldn't be used. Find simple software which can.
Case in point: Email photographs - one of my pet hates is receiving digital photographs in an email which at 2-3mb in size. They have not cropped nor has the image size been reduced, it is simply the raw photo taken from the camera. Normally each photograph is a 2-3 minute process in order to crop resize and save. Not to teach this might take 2 or 3 40 minute lessons to cover all of the elements of a photo package. However a two minute lesson should be able to solve this problem for any computer user - if you have the right software. Picasa by Google is wonderful photo management software which is free for all to use. Downloadable from the Google website Picasa will allow you to perform a number of image editing actions with the click of the button, but what more is that if you simply select the photos you want to email and then press the email button it will shrink the file size of the photos and add them as attachments to an email program of your choice.
Teachers need to forget about explicitly teaching and assessing a student's ICT skills, and assessing the curriculum work that they are submitting. Computers and ICT should not detract from the basic curriculum learning experience that the teacher is trying to achieve, it should enhance it. Let's make teaching easier and reduce amount what we have to teach, let's use ICT and computers as tools, not curriculum.

Grade 8 Podcast Begins

Well I have finally done it. Today I got the Grade 8 Podcast off my computer and online. I guess it has only been in development since early last week, and it is now online... it has taken me twice as long to get this blog off the ground - but this is the first post so cross off one more thing from the to do list.
The plan is that now I have gotten the first episode online, the students will take over and with only a little direction from me, they will run the show. I am hoping that they will produce about 4 shows over the remainder of the term, fingers crossed.
The software that helped get this idea of the ground was Itunes and Audacity. ITunes allowed me to convert audio files from acc format to wav and then to mp3 all with the right click of the mouse. A wonderful secret of what I initially thought was only a media player. With the audio in wav format I used Audacity to edit the kids voice recordings.
Biggest disappointment with the first podcast is the noise in the background of the kids. This is because there was too much noise in the room where we recorded them, and that we only used the built in mic of the USB voice recorder. The intro part that I did was much clearer and that was a cheap stand mic plugged straight into the computer - a much better result and the setup the students will use for the second show.
Final step is to get the RSS syndication available - mainly because I want to know how to do it. I found an excellent example of how to do it at podcasts.yahoo so it is all my fault to i can't do it. A few more trys and I will get it.
Check out the Grade 8 Podcast, Youth Alive here.