Audio and Podcasting: Sounds Great!

HauntingVisionStock (Photographer). DeviantArt.com. Vintage Little Girl 2 [Web Photo]. 2009 November 2.  CC By 3.0. 

This week in LIBS 602 we created and shared audio files and podcasts.

Blabberize
Blabberize combines photos with audio files.  Creators can place a "mouth" on any photo to create a talking effect.  I would like to use this in my classroom for students to add their own voice to art inspired writing.  I need to make the mouth move a little more on my Blabberize, but I have had a family emergency today, so I didn't have a chance to tweak it as much as I would like.

Vocaroo
Vocaroo has two qualities that appeal to me: simplicity and embed-ability.  I love resources that require no special logins, passwords, or email addresses.  It's much easier for students to use, and students can focus more on what they are recording rather than how to use the software.  Sharing recording online without going through a conversion process is also very appealing for classroom teachers.  I enjoy being able to easily embed the audio into my class blog. I might have students record themselves reading their own writing and an editing technique.  After the recording, they can listen to their recording while reading their drafts, allowing their ears to pick up on mistakes the eyes may have overlooked.

AudioPal
AudioPal is similar to other audio tools I have used in the past where users can record themselves by computer, phone, or even text-to-speech, which always sounds a little unnatural to me. To retrieve your recording, you have to have an email address, which can be problematic to use in schools. However, once emailed, the file can be embedded into a website such as this blog.  During March Madness, I could create an interactive website/tournament bracket where students could create their own mini-book talks and vote for their favorite books.

Podcasts
I explored TechTalk4Teachers, which is designed to help K-college level teachers keep up with latest technologies in their classrooms. The website features links to blogs, audio podcasts, and video podcasts.  There really is a little bit of everything. As I browsed, I found a topic that is very timely for this time of the school year- Digital Organization!  I am a little obsessed with organization, constantly trying and experimenting to find the right system that will work for me.  This year in particular I have felt a true need to improve my organization, so I decided to give this podcast a try.  Here are a few tips the author shared.

• Avoid sub-folders in sub-folders in sub-folders.  Try not to have file paths longer than three or four folders deep.  
• 3-2-1 Back-up Rule: 3 copies of anything you care about using 2 different formats and 1 off-site back-up.  
• Organize folders first by year and then by course number/committee/etc.  If you organize your files by school year, you can copy and paste files from one school year folder to the next.If you include a reflection file inside your school year folder, you will already have a list of what worked well in the lesson and what improvements you would like to make.  In the new school year folder, you can then delete anything you don't need without the fear of completing losing a record of what you completed in previous school years.

Audio Tools

Vocaroo
Voki
Audiopal
Blabberize
Clyp

Audacity

Three Ways to Create Audio Messages for Your Blog

Apps
Dragon Dictation
Chatterpix
Booktrack Reader

Podcasting
60 Podcasts
Top STEM Education podcasts
EdTechNetwork: Podcasting and Vodcasting
Teaching Ideas: Podcasting

Additional Audio Tips
A Handful of Ways to Publish Audio
Talking Turkey with Blabberize
Public Domain Sounds
Free Music Archive
Voicethreads
Narrable
Narrable Classroom ideas
Pandora
How to embed Pandora in Blog

The Boy on the Wooden Crate Slide Doc

For my slidedoc, I wanted to create a product I could use in my classroom next year.  The Boy on the Wooden Crate is a book on next year's Virginia Readers' Choice book list.  Do you feel the gray font color choice is too dark? I wanted to keep the colors dull on purpose so the yellow star would pop, since it's a central story telling element of my design.  In my title, I chose the blue font because it was opposite the yellow star on the color wheel.  I tied the color of my graph with my title.   I am not sure how to include my citations on my doc.  Do they have to appear on the slide doc itself or can we attach a second sheet with our resources? If it has to be on this doc, can I place them as footnotes on the bottom?  Any feedback on my graphic, reflection, or citations would be greatly appreciated! I am a born and bread MLA girl, and this is my first time having to use APA.  I not sure if I am creating my citations correctly.

Reflection

For my slidedoc, I created a graphic I could share with my students advertising a book from the 2015 Virginia Reader’s Choice book list.  I used restraint by only including two photographs to tell the story: the yellow Star of David and a black white photograph of a barbed wire fence.  In combination, viewers should know this will be a holocaust story while still preserving enough white space to avoid being cluttered (Reynolds, 2014, p. 15).  I also attempted to create harmony in my color choices. The gray background and color scheme were storytelling choices; they represent the mood and tone of the novel. My blue title complements the yellow star; the two colors are opposite of each other on the color wheel (Reynolds, 2014, p.73).  Since I used a photograph for my background, I placed my text inside solid boxes to increase legibility (Reynolds, 2014, p. 50).

My font choices for my title and subtitle are very effective.  I wanted to call attention to my title, so I used a serif font, American Typewriter.  This title is also similar to the type of font that might have actually appeared on Schindler’s List, so I was able to tie in this detail to help me tell the story.  I used the same font for my subtitle and for my body text.  I used Futura, which is a sans serif font. Using this helps my reader more easily read my text.  The font color matches the gray in the background photograph.  In my graph, I used the same blue in my title, which draws the reader’s eye, but I also wanted to emphasize the author’s remarkable survival by making a direct connection between the data and the title.

The photos of the yellow star and barbed wire fence are a little cliche.  Holocaust literature is very prevalent among middle school libraries, and I am not sure there is enough here to show how this particular story is different from the others.  I didn’t have permission to use the book cover or photographs of the author, so my Creative Commons photos are a little broad where I would prefer to be more specific.  To improve this, I could use other photos that relate to the plot, such as a type written list, a crate, or even boxcars.

Citations

Naniantero (Photographer). Flickr Creative Commons (7 August 2010). Stutthof Concentration Camp [Web Photo]. CC BY-NC 2.0 (unchanged).

Thirty Six Questions About the Holocaust. (1997). Retrieved June 13, 2015.

Ullrich, Daniel (Photographer). Wikimedia Commons (8 February 2015). Judenstern JMW [Web Photo]. CC-by-sa-2.0-de (unchanged).

Catch the Infographics Wave!

Gdsdigital (Photographer).  Flickr: Creative Commons (2010, April 26).  Record Breaking Tornados [Web Photo]. CC BY-ND 2.0 (no changes).

This week in LIBS 602 we analyzed and created infographics.  Not sure about infographics? This Youtube video explains everything!

I had a difficult time trying to find an infographic that wasn't too busy.  Even this one has a lot going on within the picture, but I thought the information was at least organized in a neat and orderly way. The graphic designer used a high quality photo that bleeds to the edge of the frame.  I like chart on the left; it shows the amount of damage by storm with the smaller numbers on the bottom and the larger numbers on the top.  The circles increase in size creating a tornado shape.  Very creative!  The dark background contrasts nicely with the white font.  The sans-serif font is consistent throughout the graphic.  The headings are simply a bold version of the same font as the text. The title of the graphic is aligned left on the top line, which is a logical location when reading from left to right.  The arrangement of the other graphics surround the tornado, but in an orderly fashion.  The middle column graphics are aligned left and graphics in the right column are all aligned to the right.  This creates a sense of a order in what could potentially be a messy graphic. 

This is the infographic I created.  My advanced English students participate in the Virginia Readers' Choice award selection, so I created a graphic that lists the last three winning books.  I used Piktochart to create it.  Of the three tools, this one I found it the easiest to use.

Piktochart: This was my favorite of the three sandbox tools.  I had no problem customizing my design to fit my needs rather than trying to make my idea fit their design.  There were plenty of themes and photos to fit my needs.  The graphic assembled quickly, too, which is always a plus for me.

Easel.ly: I also liked this website, too! I found it very easy to use and easy to create customizations.  I liked Piktochart more because it had more graphics built in.  I could see myself using Easel.ly with my students, too.

Canva: Canva did not work well in my Chrome browser, so that was an immediate turn-off for me. I gave the application another chance in another browser.  I thought the layouts were very creative and beautiful, but they weren't easy to customize.  At one point, I became frustrated because I needed a plain text box, and I couldn't find one.  I like how the application allows the user to build other graphics besides infographics.

5 Great Online Tools for Creating Infographics
Pros and cons of five tools including the three recommended in the Infographics Tools folder in this sandbox.

Educator's Guide to Infographics

10 Tips for Designing Infographics
Interesting to compare to the textbook principles for design.

Getting Creative with Creative Commons

Hancock, J. (Photographer). Flickr: Creative Commons (2014, July 22).  There's No Place Like The Death Star [Web Photo]. CC by 2.0 (no changes made).

Hancock, J. (Photographer). Flickr: Creative Commons (2014, July 22). 

          The New Girl [Web Photo]. CC by 2.0 (original changed to 

          trading card).

This week in LIBS 602 we explored how to find, share, and edit images found on other websites and discussed copyright and fair use policies.    

On Big Huge Labs, I used the Trading Card creator to make a trading card for a fictional character. This would be a fun project for students when we are studying characterization.  We could also create an entire set of cards that represented the characters, setting, conflicts, and themes of our stories or novels.  Big Huge Labs also has a Magazine Cover creator that I could use with my students to personalize covers for our writing portfolios. Finally, I enjoyed playing around with the FX filters.  I was able to convert a photograph to drawing students could actually color on paper.  

ImageChef: This website has many fun framing options.  I could easily see myself using this to create writing prompt graphics for my students.  Students could use these to create exit tickets.  I especially liked the beach frame and Grumpy Cat.

Tuxpi: I am going to use this website with my students next week.  We are in the middle of creating our writing portfolios where we are publishing the best pieces of our writing from the school year to put in a special booklet to carry home.  My middle school students will enjoy all of the theming options for their photos!

Citing Images

Creative Commons: Free Photos
This infographic is a great overview of the kinds of Creative Commons licenses and how to cite. Read from top to bottom.

Best Practices for Using Images in Blog Posts
From the Free Tech 4 Teachers Blog.

Finding Photos for Our Blogs

Creative Common Licenses
An overview of the creative commons licenses that are available.

Google Image Search
Be sure to click on Search Tools > Usage Rights

Free Stock Photos
25 Awesome sites with stunning free stock photos

Morgue Files
Photos in the public domain

Seven Places to Find Creative Common Images

Pixabay

Image Editing and Creations

Big Huge Labs
Big Huge Labs is an amazing site that will allow you to use your images to create magazine covers, movie posters, jigsaw puzzles, trading cards, and much more.  Think about using with students as a way to report information.

Image Chef
Use the templates with the images provided and add words, then copy and paste.

Foldplay
Create a book or other item with your photos.

Tuxpi
Tuxpi allows you to add effects to a photo.

PicMonkey

Apps

Pic Collage for Kids
Pic Collage for Kids is a free App for IPads.  Read about it on this blog.

Superimpose
This is another app for superimposing photos on top of each other.  Read a cool way that a teacher used word clouds and this app to create student self-portraits:

Creating an Avatar

Doppel Me

Yahoo Avatars

Pick a Face

Copyright and Fair Use

Poster of Fair Use Guidelines
From Technology & Learning comes a concise poster you can use to help remind your teachers and students of Fair Use guidelines.

Fair Use
Here's a statement of the law regarding Fair Use related to Copyright. (More information and tools are found on the government's Copyright site where this Fair Use statement is located.

National Council of Teachers of English Fair Use Statement
NCTE Code of Best Practices: This is a fairly lengthy page but one of the most helpful, comprehensive and concise about Fair Use that we have found.

LIBS602 BlogRoll

For the past eleven years, I have been teaching 6th grade English, and while I love my job and my students, my passions are changing.  My favorite part of the day is reading picture books to my two year old daughter at bed time. I am very interested in becoming an elementary school librarian, so I have enrolled in Old Dominion University to obtain my certification in Library Science.  I am very excited to take LIBS 602 Production of Instructional Materials! Here are links to my classmates blogs (for future reference)

http://lifelaughlove2teach.blogspot.com
http://literatureliaison.blogspot.com/ 
http://mrsbslibrary.wordpress.com
http://mrsdlibrary.blogspot.com/
http://sunnyside23.blogspot.com/
http://new-tricks-at-50.blogspot.com
http://thestoryofferdinand.blogspot.com
https://chill0062015.wordpress.com
http://pictures2encyclopedias.blogspot.com
http://fillyourlifewithstories.blogspot.com/
http://librarianwanttobe.blogspot.com/
http://talesofa6thgradeteacherstudent.blogspot.com/
http://runwithbooks.wordpress.com
http://backtoschoolfordino.blogspot.com
http://curlyqreader.blogspot.com
http://steppingstonesofimagination.blogspot.com/
http://mswolineatsbooks.blogspot.com/

http://mrsamyyoung.blogspot.com

SMART Notebook Express

Over the last few months, I have found several resources with the .notebook extension.  These files are used with Smart Boards.  However, if you don't have the Smart Board software, you can still view them using SMART Notebook Express.  This website enables most of the functionality of the software, such as interactive buttons, drag and drop, and pen/text/eraser annotations.  And did I mention SMART has an app in the app store for iPads? So, if you are like me and find yourself living in a Promeathean world, you may want to take trip on the SMART train to see what you're missing!

Check out these great resources for .notebook files!

• SMART Exchange
• ABC Teach
• Meacham's Classroom Snapshots

PhotoPeach is Peachy Keen!

PhotoPeach.com is a perfect Web 2.0 tool for my classroom! At first glance, I nearly skipped over it because it looked like the hundreds of other slideshow tools available to students.  However, PhotoPeach has the added advantage of integrating multiple choice style questions in the presentation. Yes, I know this can be done with other software, but I haven't found any of them as easy to use as PhotoPeach.  With a baby at home and the demands of an ever changing classroom, my time is limited, so anytime I can combine fun with an easy-to-use tool, I get excited.


Anne Frank on PhotoPeach


Ease of Use
From creating an account to publishing on my blog, the entire PhotoPeach process took about 15 minutes.

1. Create an account.  There are three different types of accounts- free, premium, and education class premium.  If you like PhotoPeach as much as me, at only $3 a month, the premium version is worth a closer look.  Although I had to supply an email address to create my account, I did not have to verify it making this a great tool to use with students without access to a real email address.  I also had no problems logging in to a single account at the same time using multiple computers.

2. Upload your photos and select your background music.

3. To add quiz questions, select Edit > Edit Caption and Photos > Quiz.  Three clicks and you're done!

Student Centered
Release the reigns and have students create their own slideshows and questions. This type of activity lends itself well to a KWL graphic organizer. Have students generate their own questions to direct their learning, research the answers, and then share & quiz each other on their results.  Students will enjoy the building and design process and gain new knowledge at the same time.

Tutorials
There are many videos available showing PhotoPeach in action.  I found this one documenting a science project that is easy to follow for novice users.