Need a vacation, but don't have the time?
Well, you can sit back and pretend as you listen to this one minute soundscape of an evening strolling through a night market in China. The noisy Asian night market was a challenging theme, but I found some great sound clips on Soundcloud, which was simple to use. I've also become familiar with using Audacity, a free multi-track audio recorder and editor.
Can you tell what's going on in the soundscape? Click on Soundscape of a Chinese Night Market.
See answers below:
Background noise of people selling wares and food
Sequence of sounds:
Footsteps on loud street
Walking through arcade area
Child talking with mouth full
Bamboo flute player
Crunching on prawn chips
Man singing and saying "thank you" for tips
More crunching on chips
Beijing Opera music
Cart rolling on street
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Monday, September 5, 2016
How to Vlog
While Screencast-O-Matic serves as a useful tool in recording video blogs using a computer with a built-in camera, you can achieve the same results using a cell phone with a camera. Here are a few pros and cons to consider.
Pros:
Pros:
- You don't need to be in front of a computer to post a vlog. You can just shoot the video selfie-style.
- You don't need to download software.
- After uploading from a cell phone, the video image appears as a vertical rectangle with black borders filling in the left and right sides of the screen.
- Holding the camera with your hand can make the video shaky. Solution: Prop the camera up on a table. Problem: But finding a table tall enough to prop a camera on so that you don't have to squat or kneel on the ground to be seen, as well as selecting a nice background makes for a difficult combination.
4 Ways Vimeo Rocks over YouTube
Vimeo is an obvious alternative to YouTube, but since I haven't used it before, I didn't realize the amazing perks. Here are a few:
1. There are no ads! This is excellent to know if I'm looking for content to show to students in class so a commercial doesn't waste precious instructional minutes.
2. Vimeo has password protection so you don't have to set it to private mode; just give the recipient the password to view the video.
3. You can upload from Google Drive to Vimeo. Great for GAFE users!
4. And the final reason...Vimeo users in general upload more meaningful content. That means less chance of having to wish that you can "unsee" (or "unhear") video footage!
1. There are no ads! This is excellent to know if I'm looking for content to show to students in class so a commercial doesn't waste precious instructional minutes.
2. Vimeo has password protection so you don't have to set it to private mode; just give the recipient the password to view the video.
3. You can upload from Google Drive to Vimeo. Great for GAFE users!
Sunday, September 4, 2016
From blog to vlog
I ended up taking a full month's hiatus from maintaining my blogsite. Now that I've started a new course, ET 730: Multimedia in the Classroom (I know, multimedia sounds like an adjective, but I just read in my textbook how it's also used as a noun), I'm back in the saddle! Our first assignment was to create a vlog, or video blog. So here it is! I discuss a few takeaways from the first few chapters of Wes Fryer's Playing with Media: Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing and Richard E. Mayer's Multimedia Learning.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Watching my PLN Grow
This post is a reflective piece to wrap up my online summer course through Fresno Pacific University. It contains a shout-out to my teacher, my growth as a connected educator, major challenges I've faced and ones I expect to face as I move forward, action steps I've taken this week, and my next steps for growth.
Shout-out to Ed!
Today marks the end of my six weeks of being in ET 735: Creating on the Web, taught by Ed Warkentin. His six-week module for this course was cleverly designed to implement everything in steps, week by week. This class was most pivotal for me professionally and personally, as it served as an impetus for me to start this blog, to bring life to my Twitter account, and mostly to start making connections in my PLN. Thanks, Ed, for making our class meetings meaningful and responding so quickly when I needed help.
My Growth as a Connected Educator (here and embedded throughout this post)
I initially thought I would just go through the motions to get through this class, then leave my online accounts fallow, which I have no problem doing whatsoever (and no judgment on anyone else who chooses this route). But, I'm feeling so much promising and positive energy from my PLN that I feel it's a good fit for me and prudent to continue expanding. I continue to outline my growth in the following action steps and next steps.
Action Step #1: Add underrepresented members to my PLN (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
The point of chapter 6 was to not fear diversity and dissent within the PLN, but to actually invite both into my PLN, but I realized that my PLN started out being too diverse. I had been so overwhelmed and scattered when I first started that I was following and connecting with anyone in education whose ideas simply wow'ed me, mostly innovators. I wasn't connecting with my second grade tribe who could more likely ground me in my practice. So, I looked at #2ndchat and found and followed at least a dozen teachers in grades one through three. I looked at their Twitter feeds to make sure I could immediately gain some insight before following them. Several of them have already followed me back, which I find to be nice. I can't wait to meet them in a Tweet chat. I'd like to connect with people who can inspire me, as well as people who can use my ideas. I'll be reevaluating who I follow periodically so I can curate who I have in my PLN.
Action Step #2: Take the Trustworthiness Test (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
This was very eye-opening! I thought I'd do well, but I scored average. I confused honesty and trustworthiness, which are not the same. But, you do have to be completely honest when answering the questions about how people perceive you. I liked reading my test results and with a positive growth mindset, I can take the advice and run with it. The results offer ideas and links to articles on self-improvement. Here's the Trustworthiness Test. Take it and share your comments below.
Action Step #3: Retweet congratulations on someone's accomplishment (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
Professor Warkentin did this today, congratulating us on our coursework. It was a very warm and thoughtful thing for him to do while busily grading our coursework. It only took a few moments, but it goes so far because every time it gets liked or retweeted, I'm notified. I decided to give kudos by thanking Ka for posting a tutorial video to help others out on Twitter. I hope she sees it. That's the downside to the Twitter stream. You might miss very nice tweets if the person tweeting forgets to add your handle or group's hashtag. I'll keep doing this action because I love when I get kudos for my accomplishments.
Action Step #4: Unplug for 3-5 minutes during the work day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
Chapter 8 is about unplugging, exercising, and finding solitude. One action step suggested at the end of the chapter is to build 3-5 minutes into the work day to walk away, stretch, move, and recharge. I'd like to add that doing this outdoors exposes us to fresh air, as well as gives us a chance to give the eyes a break by focusing on trees or houses in the distance. I love that as teachers, we have the freedom to roam outdoors a few times a day, even if it's to walk the students to and from the playground or bathroom.
Action Step #5: Read for 15 minutes a day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
The catch here is to read a magazine, a newspaper, or a book, real ones make of paper, not in digital form. Lucky for me, I have a number of books that I've bought but never finished. I'll gladly read 15 minutes daily from one of them. I just pulled a book out to pack for my trip next week.
Challenges
Michael Hyatt (2015) wrote, "Perfection is the mother of procrastination." That is a long-standing habit of mine that rears its ugly head far too often. One of my classmates keenly commented that my need for labels or tags in my blog would arise as I write more content. That was a very good push for me to admit it to myself that I'm not writing enough and that I'm too worried about how it appears to others. The truth is that most people don't really care or notice grammatical or typographical errors. Unfortunately for me, I do care and notice. It's both a blessing and a curse. I've worked hard to suspend judgment to the point that I let it go most of the time now. I'll continue to tackle this problem. I like that Hyatt included this and other issues in his book.
My Next Steps for Growth
After three rejections (well, actually, one rejection and two who didn't respond), I will continue to search for a connected educator to do an interview that I can post onto my blog. I've already practiced using Google + Hangouts on Air a few times, so I'll just need to refresh myself once I secure an interview.
I'll continue to read tweets daily for a few minutes every morning, schedule in a Twitter chat once a month. I say this knowing that my PLN is fluid. As Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas write, "Learning networks are fluid groups, and, over time, we welcome new educators to our network while others drop out." I've already observed my number of followers increase, then decrease, and I know that perhaps some members simply didn't feel I could offer them much, just as much as when I decide the same for some of my Twitter followers. It's just the nature of Twitter and PLN growth.
Because of Twitter's 24/7 streamlike abundance of ideas, I can easily find resources from my PLN to inspire blog topics. I'll continue to use Blogger since I'm already familiar with it, but if I find in the future that it doesn't serve my needs well, then I'll switch over to Wordpress or another blog site. I love that I can save blog post drafts. As I'm reading through my tweets and emails, looking at people's blogs and videos, or trying out different tools, I draft some notes on different topics, then copy and paste them into separate posts as needed.
I like Michael Hyatt's advice from chapter 26 in Platform: How to Get Noticed in a Noisy World, which is to read a blog post through twice, read it aloud once, save it as a draft, then read it again before publishing it. The goal is to publish it quickly to get it out there. He discourages using a proofreader because that can delay the post from getting published in a timely manner, and besides, loyal blog followers can help find errors, which can be fixed easily (see Twitter image below). If I manage my time carefully, I can manage it. Just a few minutes each morning on my laptop, jot ideas in a blog post, then during my personal writing time (I'll have to plan in 30-60 minutes a week), I can continue to research or explore, then finish the post. Ideas that I don't want to write into a full blog post can be tweeted if it's clever.
Some areas of development for my blog would be the resources tabs, an email signup, and opening up my blog to more interaction. The teacher, parent, and student resources are each static pages, but as I add more content, I'd like to organize them so that readers don't have to scroll down forever to get to the bottom. They should be able to find the content they need at the top of the page, either using pull-down menus or a search box or both. I would like to add an email sign-up linked with comments so that people are notified of new posts. I'll add a sticky note to my message wall to write more casually and to invite interaction onto the blog.
References:
Hyatt, M. (2012). Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World: A Step-by-Step Guide for Anyone with Something to Say or Sell. Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson.
Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What Connected Educators Do Differently. New York, NY: Routledge.
Finally, funny, but good advice.
Shout-out to Ed!
Today marks the end of my six weeks of being in ET 735: Creating on the Web, taught by Ed Warkentin. His six-week module for this course was cleverly designed to implement everything in steps, week by week. This class was most pivotal for me professionally and personally, as it served as an impetus for me to start this blog, to bring life to my Twitter account, and mostly to start making connections in my PLN. Thanks, Ed, for making our class meetings meaningful and responding so quickly when I needed help.
My Growth as a Connected Educator (here and embedded throughout this post)
I initially thought I would just go through the motions to get through this class, then leave my online accounts fallow, which I have no problem doing whatsoever (and no judgment on anyone else who chooses this route). But, I'm feeling so much promising and positive energy from my PLN that I feel it's a good fit for me and prudent to continue expanding. I continue to outline my growth in the following action steps and next steps.
Action Step #1: Add underrepresented members to my PLN (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
The point of chapter 6 was to not fear diversity and dissent within the PLN, but to actually invite both into my PLN, but I realized that my PLN started out being too diverse. I had been so overwhelmed and scattered when I first started that I was following and connecting with anyone in education whose ideas simply wow'ed me, mostly innovators. I wasn't connecting with my second grade tribe who could more likely ground me in my practice. So, I looked at #2ndchat and found and followed at least a dozen teachers in grades one through three. I looked at their Twitter feeds to make sure I could immediately gain some insight before following them. Several of them have already followed me back, which I find to be nice. I can't wait to meet them in a Tweet chat. I'd like to connect with people who can inspire me, as well as people who can use my ideas. I'll be reevaluating who I follow periodically so I can curate who I have in my PLN.
Action Step #2: Take the Trustworthiness Test (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
This was very eye-opening! I thought I'd do well, but I scored average. I confused honesty and trustworthiness, which are not the same. But, you do have to be completely honest when answering the questions about how people perceive you. I liked reading my test results and with a positive growth mindset, I can take the advice and run with it. The results offer ideas and links to articles on self-improvement. Here's the Trustworthiness Test. Take it and share your comments below.
Action Step #3: Retweet congratulations on someone's accomplishment (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
Professor Warkentin did this today, congratulating us on our coursework. It was a very warm and thoughtful thing for him to do while busily grading our coursework. It only took a few moments, but it goes so far because every time it gets liked or retweeted, I'm notified. I decided to give kudos by thanking Ka for posting a tutorial video to help others out on Twitter. I hope she sees it. That's the downside to the Twitter stream. You might miss very nice tweets if the person tweeting forgets to add your handle or group's hashtag. I'll keep doing this action because I love when I get kudos for my accomplishments.
Action Step #4: Unplug for 3-5 minutes during the work day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
Chapter 8 is about unplugging, exercising, and finding solitude. One action step suggested at the end of the chapter is to build 3-5 minutes into the work day to walk away, stretch, move, and recharge. I'd like to add that doing this outdoors exposes us to fresh air, as well as gives us a chance to give the eyes a break by focusing on trees or houses in the distance. I love that as teachers, we have the freedom to roam outdoors a few times a day, even if it's to walk the students to and from the playground or bathroom.
Action Step #5: Read for 15 minutes a day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
The catch here is to read a magazine, a newspaper, or a book, real ones make of paper, not in digital form. Lucky for me, I have a number of books that I've bought but never finished. I'll gladly read 15 minutes daily from one of them. I just pulled a book out to pack for my trip next week.
Challenges
Michael Hyatt (2015) wrote, "Perfection is the mother of procrastination." That is a long-standing habit of mine that rears its ugly head far too often. One of my classmates keenly commented that my need for labels or tags in my blog would arise as I write more content. That was a very good push for me to admit it to myself that I'm not writing enough and that I'm too worried about how it appears to others. The truth is that most people don't really care or notice grammatical or typographical errors. Unfortunately for me, I do care and notice. It's both a blessing and a curse. I've worked hard to suspend judgment to the point that I let it go most of the time now. I'll continue to tackle this problem. I like that Hyatt included this and other issues in his book.
My Next Steps for Growth
After three rejections (well, actually, one rejection and two who didn't respond), I will continue to search for a connected educator to do an interview that I can post onto my blog. I've already practiced using Google + Hangouts on Air a few times, so I'll just need to refresh myself once I secure an interview.
I'll continue to read tweets daily for a few minutes every morning, schedule in a Twitter chat once a month. I say this knowing that my PLN is fluid. As Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas write, "Learning networks are fluid groups, and, over time, we welcome new educators to our network while others drop out." I've already observed my number of followers increase, then decrease, and I know that perhaps some members simply didn't feel I could offer them much, just as much as when I decide the same for some of my Twitter followers. It's just the nature of Twitter and PLN growth.
Because of Twitter's 24/7 streamlike abundance of ideas, I can easily find resources from my PLN to inspire blog topics. I'll continue to use Blogger since I'm already familiar with it, but if I find in the future that it doesn't serve my needs well, then I'll switch over to Wordpress or another blog site. I love that I can save blog post drafts. As I'm reading through my tweets and emails, looking at people's blogs and videos, or trying out different tools, I draft some notes on different topics, then copy and paste them into separate posts as needed.
I like Michael Hyatt's advice from chapter 26 in Platform: How to Get Noticed in a Noisy World, which is to read a blog post through twice, read it aloud once, save it as a draft, then read it again before publishing it. The goal is to publish it quickly to get it out there. He discourages using a proofreader because that can delay the post from getting published in a timely manner, and besides, loyal blog followers can help find errors, which can be fixed easily (see Twitter image below). If I manage my time carefully, I can manage it. Just a few minutes each morning on my laptop, jot ideas in a blog post, then during my personal writing time (I'll have to plan in 30-60 minutes a week), I can continue to research or explore, then finish the post. Ideas that I don't want to write into a full blog post can be tweeted if it's clever.
Some areas of development for my blog would be the resources tabs, an email signup, and opening up my blog to more interaction. The teacher, parent, and student resources are each static pages, but as I add more content, I'd like to organize them so that readers don't have to scroll down forever to get to the bottom. They should be able to find the content they need at the top of the page, either using pull-down menus or a search box or both. I would like to add an email sign-up linked with comments so that people are notified of new posts. I'll add a sticky note to my message wall to write more casually and to invite interaction onto the blog.
References:
Hyatt, M. (2012). Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World: A Step-by-Step Guide for Anyone with Something to Say or Sell. Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson.
Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What Connected Educators Do Differently. New York, NY: Routledge.
Finally, funny, but good advice.
 |
| Image: Twitter |
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Making Connections (The Neural Kinds)
What's Trending on Twitter?
This week trending on Twitter were a number of political hashtags, but I found a few from within my PLN.
Through the Twitter trend of #bsdtech16, I found someone new to follow. Ed Campos, Jr. (@edcampOSjr) is a high school math teacher and CUE innovator, who I decided follow because although I teach second grade, many ed tech leaders recommend growing your PLN by connecting across from elementary to secondary level. Sharing ideas across vast grade levels is one way to avoid an echo chamber of the same ideas being perpetually thrown around. I like how Ed Campos, Jr. cleverly selected a Twitter handle that spells out his name, but with a tech twist to it. Today, he posted about Twitter's new ad campaign to #TwitterTrainingWheels, which I may recommend to several people I know who are resistant to social media, but could thrive and contribute meaningfully. The Twitter ad is like a digital citizenship lesson on the appropriate use of technology for adults, promoting Twitter as a tool for real communication, not just for mindless folly.
Watch the new Twitter ad campaign video:
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