Haugen’s Tech Tips Blog

I think I mentioned VoiceThread before – the marvelous web site that lets you present a slide show and record comments, captions & doodles. The other innovation of VoiceThread is you can invite others to comment as well, creating a visually guided dialog about… well, anything.

One of my favorites:

See also Kenya Escape, the incredibly powerful story of one family’s experience in Kenya, during the election upsets of December 2007.

Every now and then, a new product comes along that takes nothing for granted and comes up with a whole fresh new way of doing things …that actually really works. Enter Scribbles… a delightful new paint program for Mac OS X. Gone are the busy tool bars and obnoxious sound effects. Instead you’ll access 12 beautiful brush styles, infinite colors, multiple layers and quick easy tools for resizing your art. Getting your art where you want it to go is also easy, with menu option to export in a variety of formats, send to email or post to Scribble’s free gallery
Better yet, the individual price is only $20, just $14 for educators, and AteBits has a generous site license agreement for schools in the works. Download it, make a nice cup of tea, and have some fun… Your inner artist will thank you.

Screen shots, left to right: drawing screen, layer chooser, color picker…

• Create Your Own Podcast – A step-by-step tutorial on podcasting from About.com
• Educational Podcasting – Extensive list of podcasting resources, from Gary Stager. Links to tutorials, articles and tools.
• PoducateMe – Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education
• Gcast – Create your own audio broadcast online, where you can easily record voice messages, mix in your favorite music, and share it all for the world to hear. Includes ‘Podcasting 101′ tutorial.
• Podcasting Toolbox – From Mashable.com, a list of over 70 podcasting tools and resources
• Podsafe Music Network
• Ziepod, Your Podcast Receiver and Player
• Willowdale Elementary – WillowWeb – Web site for Willowdale Elementary, publishers of Radio WillowWeb, a podcast by and for students
• Voices Of The World – Voices Of The World was created by Sharon Tonner to connect children from around the world using their voices rather than the standard text and images and prepare them for their globalised future.
• Voices Of The World – Voices Of The World is a global project uniting children’s voices from around the world, with a different task each month for students to contribute to.
• Student Self-Advocacy | Don Johnston Incorporated – Video podcasts by students who are advocating for the tools they need to address their unique learning styles and needs.

I’m leading a workshop on Podcasting in the Classroom, and have started to gather some tips and resources on my wiki.  Stop by to check out the presentation as well as my podcasting links.

We’ve just had our first of two weekend workshops for students interested in stop motion animation with Legos and other stuff. I worked with 2 students (4th & 5th grade) who helped lead the workshop, and another 5th grader who signed on for tech support. With 14 other 4th and 5th graders as our students, we piled into school on a Saturday to build sets, set up cameras, and snap away as each group of kids patiently moved their Legos and clay one step at a time until their stories were complete. Next weekend, we’ll pop the photos into iPhoto albums and then into iMovie, adjust playback timing, add sound tracks and sound effects, titles and more.

Our goal is to create a DVD with all the movies that we can then copy and give as gifts to friends and family during the holiday season.

When I work with kids in this way, I am always so impressed by their enthusiasm, hard work and creativity, as well as their willingness to work with and help one another.

We have created a wiki for our program, which you can explore at:

edisonanimators.wikispaces.com/