KleinPod: Podcasting in Klein ISD » TAKS

Term 3, Here I Come!

Vanessa Riley — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:13:53 +0000

The second term (first semester!) has ended! This means tomorrow, we all get a new start. Plans for the podcasting class include creating TAKS review sessions for students at our school and at Krimmel Intermediate! Our Gramma Snob podcast last semester didn’t go over so well, mainly because we needed a visual aspect. Try explaining the differences between your and you’rewithout any visual elements. Yeah. like, I said, this year is a learning process. I had been planning on using the camcorder to help out with vodcasts, but I think that what I really need to do is use the Starboard Screen Capture software on the computers for now.

I am so angry with myself – I signed up for a MovieMaker class on Friday and totally forgot all about it on Saturday until I got the e-mail that I “failed” the course. I thought it was NEXT week. I really needed this for using the movies that we would make in class with Starboard and the Audacity files that we would record to explain the material. Grr. I guess I can try to figure it out myself – it seems pretty easy. I bet I could do it with our AL subscription.

One of my new students is ESL, so I’m *really* excited about having her in class. This could start to be that element that Aspiazu was hoping for – the ESL element. We can have bilingual podcasts now!

Grammar Snob

Vanessa Riley — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:15:33 +0000

We are working on a podcast for a 7th grade class in the district – we are calling it Grammar Snob. I am learning that while I think it might be easy to talk about the difference between “their”, they’re”, and “there”, the students are finding it harder. I had to cut my time limit down from 2-3 minutes to about 45 seconds.

I think it’s because of lack of content rather my too high expectations. We’ll have to come back to this.

Also, I find that final drafts are much harder to come by. What I consider a rough draft is what the kids consider a final copy. That’s something that we will also revisit later.

I’m still trying to figure out a way to best publish these podcasts for a global audience. Any suggestions?

Excel Magic

Vanessa Riley — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:38:02 +0000

I’m the first one to admit that “knowledge of Excel” will never be a bullet point on any of my résumés, but after playing around with Eduphoria today, I (with help from Breanna and Gregg, that is) exported the school’s TAKS data to an Excel spreadsheet, figured out a way to color code scores, and wrote a script to organize the data by color coding. I am going to focus mainly on the first time test takers. I color coded the scores thusly:

score over 2200 = green (strong pass)
2100 – 2199 = pink (passed, but might not pass the Exit test)
2000-2099 = yellow (failed, but is close)
1999 and under = blue

Obviously, this is not a scientific method of organization, but with so few students, I had to give myself a broad enough range to identify who would benefit from this pilot.

This is starting to be a time-consuming process. I was up here two days last week to play with the equipment and talk to Derek. I was up here yesterday from around 8:00 to 3:00 and I’m estimating that today is going to look the same. But I’m with Stacey and Peggy brainstorming and it’s a very energetic, creative process. I love it!

Still no mic – I need to call the company and see where they are. Stacey brought up one of her own mics today so I’m hoping that we’ll be able to play around today. If we get anything, we’ll post it up here.

Planning happiness!

Vanessa Riley — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:10:12 +0000

Now, I know that some will claim that it’s because I’m a Virgo, but I started doing a little more planning today. I think I have the basis for a great rubric for this pilot based on TAKS results.

We’d like to focus our podcasting on specific TAKS objectives that students are having trouble with. This will truly highlight how technology can integrate individualization in a classroom. When discussing TAKS results with Stacey, she mentioned that physics was the objective our students struggle with most on the science TAKS test.

I know very little about physics, but my friend and mentor, Mary Obenauf from Pasadena ISD, is a master physics teacher, especially when dealing with at-risk teenagers. I called her today to tell her how the grant was progressing, and then conversation turned to TAKS (as it always does with teachers). I mentioned what Stacey had said, and Mary made the suggestion that she guest teach for a day. Because of the distance between Pasadena and Klein, and because of the nontraditional schedule that we implemented at Vistas, I did not think that was feasible. Besides, Mary has so many toys and manipulatives for instruction that it would be hard to transport them all.

And then, it hit me.

I guess it takes a while once you get new technology to fully realize its potential, but I think I’m starting to realize it now. Why don’t Stacey and I vodcast Mary and the best practices that she uses successfully? Not only would she be able to share her techniques, she’d be able to share how she does it – projects like her hovercraft and magic circle formula.

I can’t remember the last time I was so excited over science!