Last week Canada’s federal government announced they would be changing our paper money to plastic in 2011. Some students in Mr. Toft’s grade 5 class thought this was a good idea but others did not.

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Click here to see the video Nathan’s students put together for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority’s Show Us Your .CA contest.  We created at least fifty posters.  The majority of the video was filmed and recorded the week of March 1, 2010.

Here is the video we put together for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority’s Show Us Your .CA contest.  We created at least fifty posters.  The majority of the video was filmed and recorded the week of March 1, 2010.

All music used in this video is used with permission:

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

I’ve taken a small “learn how to podcast” through my school board (Waterloo RegionDistrict).  At the workshop they mentioned your site as being helpful,  so I’ve been exploring away.  I’ve figured out how to use Garageband, and how to send a podcast to itunes so that it shows up on my own personal itunes on my computer.  The next step for me, is that I would like to know how to send the podcast out there into cyber space so that my podcast is then able to be subscribed to by other people.  I subscribe to lots of podcasts, myself, so I’m familiar with the process from the listener’s end, but I’m not sure what I need to do from the recorder’s point of view.

I think my big questions are…

• what sort of resources do I need (do I need a website?  I’ve got a personal blog using blogspot, but I’m not sure if this is the best type of website for my needs)?


• what kind of costs (if any) am I looking at?


• how exactly do you get the podcast from your personal computer out there into the big wide world?

Any suggestions for helpful point by point websites or checklists, or discussions occurring on your own website would be *so* appreciated.

Thanks so much for any help that you can send my way.

Murray Fox

Hi Murray

Nathan and I are really cheap so we don’t like to spend much if any money on getting our podcasts out there so I don’t think you are looking at any expenses. You do need some space out in internet land to house your podcasts. You said in your note that you have a blog right now. If you have space on your blog account to upload your podcasts there then that can be your storage site and it is also a way for people to subscribe. Blogs have subscription features associated with them so your readers can subscribe and would see when a podcast was posted. Not quite as cool as iTunes but still works. We use our podcast blog PortableRadio.ca to house our student produced podcasts. We pay a fee to Edublogs to get the extra space. It works for us. There are free storage spots out there. For a while, Nathan was uploading our podcasts to TeacherTube and then jumping through a variety of hoops to get them to appear as players on our blog. It is possible and it seemed to make sense to him. Nathan created a post about the TeacherTube option on our PortablePD.ca blog here.

iTunes is free, as you know, and they will let you have your podcasts there for free too. They don’t actually store the podcast so much as point towards it. We did a post on how to get your podcasts onto the iTunes site on our PortablePD.ca blog. Here is a link to the actual post.  I made this post a while back but when I visited the podcast area on iTunes just now I see that they still have a spot that says Submit a podcast. I hope that the information in this post is helpful.

I suspect that right now you are seeing and have access to your podcasts now on your iTunes account because they are resident on your computer…not enough for the rest of the world to hear them.

Please let us know how it goes and if you have anymore questions. Take a look at the PortablePD.ca site and see if there are other things that you might need. It isn’t the most organized of sites but we are working on it.

Looking forward to hearing about your progress. We are happy to link to other podcasts from our sites to so let us know when you are up and running.

Jane

At the moment my house is home to myself, my husband, my teenage daughter and an international student who happens to be a teenage girl (young adult son is away at university but will be back!)  Computer time has become a precious commodity around here. There are daily negotiations about who gets the computer and when. We also have the problem of several user accounts, iTunes accounts, and assorted media that are gobbling up the space on our poor laptop quite quickly. Because of all this, I have decided that I need to have my own computer. So here is where I need your help.

Right now we have two PCs in our home. One is an older desktop computer that is really showing its age and the other is the above mentioned laptop. Because it is faster and newer, it is the computer that my daughter and I battle for, daily actually many times a day. It runs Vista – still not quite sure what I think about Vista but I cope. I used to be a Mac user. My school board used to use Macs (the good old days) but switched to PC so in the interest of keeping homework and schoolwork compatible, I switched too. In the old days, 5 years ago or so, that mattered. Now I don’t think that it matters so much. I think, and I may be wrong, that those compatibility issues are not so much issues anymore.

I am leaning toward getting a Mac. I would like to see how the Mac side of podcasting looks. I would like to be able to upload video and edit it without having a nervous breakdown but I also want to be able to bring my PC created schoolwork home and work with it. I do do some stuff on “The Cloud” but I have quite a few items that I just transport around with me on memory sticks. I am happy to use open source software and to jump through a few hoops, but I don’t want to have to recreate or go through painful conversion routines just to use the stuff that I have created on my PC.

I have already compiled some arguments in favour of Mac to be used on my husband (PC user – always was, never experienced Mac ownership). Most of my arguments revolve around the ability of Macs to handle media. I have also pointed out that my learning how to podcast on a Mac would be fantastic because then Nathan and I could offer support to podcasters in both platforms. Think of how wonderful that would be…

Anyhow, I need third party advice. I know I need a computer. I need pros and cons. Please help. I am looking for any points of view or any things that I should be thinking about before I make this big move. My family will thank you, I will thank you.

Click here for video

Listen

Here’s what is on the show:

Egg protector speeches: Greg, Ryan, Calysta, Katie, Kayla, Sydney

Rocks and Minerals: Caitlin

Don’t Say it! – game played by Katherine, Charlie and Maxim

How to play freeze tag: Dylan

Station IDs: Greg and Alex

How to play Man Hunt: Cameron

How I Moved my Little Brother off the Couch: Emily

How to move Devin’s Brother off the Couch:  Devin, Keegan

How to Move Talia’s Sister off the Couch: Talia

How to Get My Brother off the Laptop: Dillon

Ballad for a Green Alien: performed by Sheridan

Blue’s Smile: performed by Maggie

All music used in this episode is used with permission:

WW – Greenroom (Music Alley)

Dead Weight – Purple Planet Music

The Music Box – Purple Planet Music

Eggs – Trixie and the Merch Girls  (Music Alley)

Flashback – Roger Lemelin

Spanish Flair – Roger Lemelin

Mysterious Adventure – Roger Lemelin

Blue’s Smile – Nathan Toft (PortableRecorder.ca)

Ballad for a Green Alien – Nathan Toft (PortableRecorder.ca)

Hello Jane and Nathan,

Well, thanks to your help my class is enjoying blogging.  So much so that in one week they have used 48% of the space we have with Edublogs.  I am now thinking that I should sign up with Edublogs as a subscriber.  I spoke with the Principal at my school, to see if the school would cover the $40 year subscription, and she has asked that I confirm that this is being done by others in our board. (That the cost is being covered by the school budget/parent council).  I hope you don’t mind my asking you questions about funding.  Are you aware of Edublogs subscription costs being covered by people other than the teachers themselves?

Anne Bancroft

Hi,

Some years I’ve footed the bill myself – something like $45 gives you an additional 5GB storage for a year and a bunch of other features.  On occasion, Edublogs runs contests where you get a free subscription.  I’ve won one of those as well.  To answer your question, one year I did include an internet subscription in my classroom budget without any problem.  My principal was very much on board and aware of how I was using blogs/podcasts and various tools in my classroom.

Saying all that – there are ways to continue doing all this for free.

1.  Flickr.com

Upload your pictures to Flickr.com and link to them on your blog.  Here’s a post Jane wrote on how to do that:

2.  NetCaster

If you’re uploading audio and video, the our board has something called NetCaster.  Again, you just link to it through your blog.  Here’s more information on that:

All the best!

Nathan

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to present today.

As promised, here are the links to the various resources we mentioned in our presentation about teaching technology in the junior classroom.

Complete Recorder Resource Kit by Denise Gagne. (commercially available online and at school music supply stores)

This is the recorder method that Jane and Nathan rely on. There’s also PowerPoint version now available.  Each slide includes the accompaniment.

PortableRecorder.ca

We created this site.  All of the resources (sheet music, audio and video files, animation) are copyright free.  We encourage you to make use of this resource.  It was created with the purpose to share!

Audacity

This is an installer already on OCDSB computers.  It’s also a free download for home computers. If you do decide to download make sure you take the one that isn’t marked “Beta” (unless you’re into that sort of thing).  Currently, the best version to use is version 1.2.6.

Acid Xpress

Acid Xpress is much like painting with sound. There is no music notation involved.  Those of you who are Mac users will compare it to Garage Band.  The free version does quite a bit and allows you to save to MP3.  By the way, it is really cool to use on a SmartBoard!

Noteflight.com

Free online notation software that is much easier for kids to use.  Nothing to install on your computer, it  runs off the web.  You do need to register with an email address.

Really keen on this stuff?  Here are a couple other sites that we did not mention today that you might be interested in:

Edublogs.org

This is the provider we use for our various websites.  Let us know if you create a blog and we’ll work our magic to take off the advertising.

Do you have any favourite resources you want to add?  Questions?  Comments?  Fashion tips?   Email us or leave a comment by clicking on the “Comment” link after this message.

The 2010 Microsoft Innovative Education Forum will take place in Cape Town, South Africa.  Teachers are selected from all over the world to “compete” at this event.  It’s an incredible opportunity to say the least.

Having been fortunate enough to participate in the 2009 forum in Salvador, Brazil, I highly encourage teachers to put together a proposal and send in the application.

English application

French application