iDreamers

I’m starting to edit some of the recordings my students have made in class but I’m hitting a huge hurdle.  While I can download the student recordings onto my Mac and save them in folders and edit them, the school PCs will not let me near them. (cursed PCs!!)  Has anyone had any success getting files off the iPods onto a PC?  I think I can get the raw recordings off, but not if they have been moved off and onto another iPod.  My only other thought is to email students with their individual recordings.  Any ideas?

Not sure if anyone else is reading this blog however I and my grade 3-4’s have been having lots of fun with and without our iPods. My students are still researching as recorded in Middlepod at http://middlepod.learnerblogs.org/. I am still finding out lots of things at http://mrps.edublogs.org/ and to top things off my grade 3-4’s are messing about with Microsoft Photo Story 3 at http://middlepstories.learnerblogs.org/. Comments would be appreciated

On Wednesday the 19th, the Melbourne community TV station Channel 31, broadcast a program about our school Bellaire where the use of technology was featured quite extensively. Some of my class actually got to feature demonstrating and talking about the SmartBoard and wikis. At the very end of the program, Graeme, the presenter alluded to the fact that he was about to have the tables turned on him as there were two of my students waiting to interview him for a podcast segment.

It seems a few of us are having problems getting the iPods to record. My students have found that the skins can get in the way and in fact are more of a nuisance than a help as per http://middlepod.learnerblogs.org/2006/05/21/problems-with-recording/. Maddy came up with a neat idea the other night when she took it home to record an interview by using a ziplock bag to keep the iPod safer.

OK, so I had two students who I have felt were not quite sold on the value of podcasts and living in my virtual biology class 24/7. But yesterday one of these two students told me that he had spent some time using the podcasts, website and blog - and his quote: “It’s the best - It’s like having a teacher there with you all the time!” - (”no kidding - that’s what the rest of the class have been realising all along”). The other student - so I found out this morning - bought an iPod last night. Why? to listen to my podcasts. She had borrowed one of the ones Rita gave - i mean loaned - us for the weekend (she hadn’t wanted to, mind you, I had to practically force it into her hand and said ‘I really want you to listen to these this weekend’. - Anyway, all it took was one weekend listening to podcasts (there was nothing else on there to listen to) to convince her that she needed to have one all the time. No doubt now that she has an iPod of her own she will put some music on it as well. Aparrently some students use iPods for music! Who knew?

Via another email list I came across this great online tutorial suitable for all levels of podcasting from beginners through to the podcast professional. How To Podcast is a step by step guide written in everyday language. It also features some excellent Flash movies that show you how to podcast tools including Audacity. I learnt heaps and this is a must see site.

If you go to http://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/set/pace/podcast/guide.pdf
you can download a neat pdf guide on podcasting from Michael Abulencia at RMIT via Rita. It makes interesting reading.

Well the first thing I did after unpacking all the iPods (which took about an hour!) was to load all my podcasts onto them and hand them out to kids to listen to. I’ve hardly seen them since. I have kept all the USB cables so they have to come back in to be charged. That way I know where they are. One thing that wasn’t so good was that of the 8 iPods, there were 3 that didn’t work. Did anyone else have the same experience.

New links and a resource link have been added by John P under the Link and Resource Tab at the top of this page. The Middlepod blog from Bellaire PS has been added to the Blogroll.

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