Praxis Makes Perfect

I am on my way to Seoul right now, on Korean Airlines.  Taking a picture with photobooth on my Macbook, posting it to Flickr via the Flock browser, and blogging it (also via Flock).  All made possible by in-flight wifi.

Just thought that was cool.

Here’s me on the plane right now.

technorati tags:korea, 2006

Blogged with Flock

I was talking to one of our English teachers the other day in the faculty lounge, and learned that he tried podcasting with his students this past quarter. The students wrote and created podcasts, discussing the readings they were doing in English. He told me that he was happy about how the technology integrated with his curriculum, and brought together many important aspects: reading, analysis, discussion, writing, and communication of ideas. The podcasts were a fun way for the students to engage with computer technology, and apply their analyses of the text and communicate their ideas in a relatively new way.

The cons of the experiment: The kids used iMovie (software this teacher was familiar with) to create their podcasts, which created huge files that were hard to work with. I pointed our English teacher to other resources to create podcasts that would be more efficient and in-line with his goals. He also wondered about something to easily publish the podcasts online. I was able to tell him about RSS feeds and the possibilities of publising the podcasts…. What should I recommend for him to use? Any suggestions? There were issues scheduling the computer lab for his kids to work, and I think our laptop cart next year will help alleviate those scheduling conflicts.

In all the conversation was so great because:

1. This teacher took his own initiative to try something new.
2. There were successes and he recognized them, but also several things that didn’t go well.
3. Instead of giving up on the project altogether, our discussion focused on what we could do next year to alleviate some of the pitfalls. It was positive thinking and direction.
4. I relied on his expertise as a teacher to guide the conversation, but also had opportunities to help with technical aspects (recommending certain direction, strategies, and software). It was a truly collaborative dialogue.

In all, just a small snapshot of how technology begins to be integrated into the classroom.