Blog Juice for Educational Technology

I’m going to be doing a spotlight session in Grand Rapids next week for MACUL titled “Podcast, Vodcast, Screencast Nation” and it’s a new one for me so I’m entering into the production stage. I’m wondering if anyone has been doing anything with screencasts with their students, or frankly, at their schools? I’ve got a couple of examples which I’d like to add to, so if you have any best practices out there that you’d be willing to let me show off, let me know.

Well, we had our four-hour in-service today to show off our Tablet PC pilot and to talk about our vision for technology. It was, I think, as good as it could of been in terms of trying to get 250 or so teachers on the same page about totally changing our classroom model for technology. We had four teachers, young and old, get up on stage in front of the group and showcase their use of the tablets, and by any measure it was an inspiring show. The Spanish teacher who I have written about here before really wowed them some of the ways he integrates inking into his PowerPoints and even video. (You have to see it to believe it…) So far in our follow up survey, 94% of the teachers of over 200 respondents said they wanted a tablet next year. It is a very powerful technology.

Because we ran a bit long, I never did get to do my new tech show and tell, but I did quickly show what I think is one of the most powerful potentials of the tablet. Imagine a digitally submitted student essay or story which you’re able to annotate with ink AND record a voice narration at the same time and send back to the student. Then imagine being able to organize all of those files on your own computer, and being able to publish them to a student’s Weblog where he or she can have them as a resource or where parents and peers can also get a broader understanding of what a reader’s experience is on any piece of writing.

That’s what I’ve tried to show here. It’s a 4:30 Flash movie captured using Camtasia which, in it’s most recent version, is an amazingly powerful tool with tons of potential for educators. What I’m trying to imagine is a paperless classroom where students and teachers can annotate their work in both ink and voice and archive all of it for reflection and publication at some point. It’s such a neat tool, and I’m wondering what other people think after watching it. Let me know…

So in the craziness of the first two days of school, I’ve been running around trying to visit/support our 33 teachers who are piloting Tablet PCs in their classrooms. The good news is that they’re already doing very cool things, and we’ve only had two units that crashed. (Some weird thing where all of a sudden the stylus stops working.)

Anyway, I’m trying to keep them motivated, so I did a quick hopefully motivational screencast/congratulations for them on my own tablet using Windows Media Encoder. I’ve already been asked to add it to the next training…

I love it when technology is fun…and works. Whew!