Podcasts/Audacity/iTunes/VoiceThread

Emily assisted me with my podcast today. I did a podcast on how to use a scientific calculator to enter numbers in scientific (exponential) notation. This is a question I get routinely from my sophomores. They get incorrect answers on their problem worksheets and it usually ends up being how they entered the measurements in scientific notation into their calculator. They do not know what the EE, EXP, or 2nd Func keys are - or at least they say they don't know - they have probably forgotten from previous years, right, math teachers? :) Emily and I did experience some difficulties saving the podcast, so she is checking with Gene about the issue. I hope I will be able to add my podcast to my blog at class on Wednesday regardless.

I did attempt to download Audacity on my home computer but did not have success. I kept getting an message that said the "system administrator" has to download it. So I suppose I will be using Audacity and doing podcasts solely at school unless Becksfort or someone can troubleshoot for me.

I do not have an iPod or iPhone (Keep It Simple is my mantra, folks!) but did download iTunes at home. Unfortunately, I could not get into any iTunesU sites. I clicked on each of the universities listed at iTunesU but kept getting the "cannot display this page" message. Perhaps I did not download iTunes properly. I already knew iTunes had music, movies, movie trailers, audiobooks, and TV shows, but did not know there were also podcasts and courses there as well. I will definitely be trying again to access iTunesU. I will have to ask someone in class if iTunesU is the "free educational stuff" that we were supposed to locate on iTunes.

I went through the VoiceThread tutorials and looked at several examples on VoiceThread. I really cannot say that I find VoiceThread too terribly exciting or interesting. Perhaps that is because there are not a lot of high school science examples available for viewing at this time. Also, I had a hard time even thinking of an idea to use VoiceThread for. I did see a VoiceThread on variable stars (astronomy), one on the water cycle (7th grade science), plus a few others. I was not particularly impressed with the quality of the recordings (volume, images, etc) nor could I see a pressing reason why the information presented was more well-suited to VoiceThread than some other media tool, like plain old PowerPoint, for example. I thought that the pop-up comments were sometimes annoying as well. I did have a vague idea, probably too closely related to the variable star VoiceThread I viewed, that could be a collaborative teacher-astronomy student project on the Sun after we finish studying the Sun later this semester. Not too terribly original of an idea and I cannot say that I am really itching to get started on it either. Anyway, although I cannot picture myself using VoiceThread in the near future, I am open to ideas for teacher-student collabortaive projects from all of you out there. I teach Astronomy, Geochemistry, Biology (occasionally), and Anatomy & Physiology, so if something pops into your head, please let me know.

So far, I think I can see myself most comfortable with and using Skype, screencasts (I have more planned), and podcasts for educational purposes.