KleinPod: Podcasting in Klein ISD

I got notice that the Ed. Tech. Department is following up with the podcatching issue and that I’ll get more information in a day or two.

My wiki is currently still blocked. Looks like worst case scenario is that I’ll be doing all the grunt work and uploading the content. My students have been working so hard and they are really taking this seriously, so I’m going to give them their voice. I just don’t know when I’ll have time to do it. I barely have time to grade papers, let alone transfer information from the LMS wiki to a public wiki. Using the wiki as an editing tool is going brilliantly, however! Students are choosing whether or not they are good at editing for content or editing for mechanics, and I am letting them utilize their strengths. In fact, I may split the class into two groups and let them deal with the wiki that way.

I’m scared that this pilot isn’t going to accomplish all that I wanted it to accomplish, and it makes me wonder what I could have done differently this summer to prepare. I would have pushed harder for a podcaster to have been approved earlier, but I really don’t know all of the steps that are needed for that process.

I’m now three months into the school year and haven’t started anything yet. I have created my own ramshackle curriculum because there is nothing available and the people who have the material aren’t responding to e-mails.

I tried to go to NECC last summer since it was in San Antonio, but there was no money in the school budget and I did not personally have the money at the time. I even offered my services to one of the people who helped organize the event in order to help cut down on the conference costs, and even though I was initially met with support, I never heard anything further.

No one really seems to know what it is that I am doing, and I am starting to feel a little lonely. I’m worried that my name keeps coming up at meetings and that I’m being seen as a troublemaker. Peggy (my principal) keeps reassuring me that the reason that I am having so many roadblocks is because I’m utilizing technology in way that has never been utilized in Klein ISD, but I never realized that this would be so exhausting.

There was a Web 2.0 meeting yesterday in which the podcasting roadblocks were discussed, so I decided to head down to the Educational Technology department and see what was going on.

Mark, my usual contact, had taken half a day off, so I nosed myself into Rosemary’s office where she was talking with Melanie. They invited me to pull up a chair and tell them exactly what it was that was going on in the classroom.

We prioritized a list of needs and they are going to get back to me on Monday with some suggestions and guidelines for letting people know about problems when I encounter them.

The school wiki was unblocked today, but the log-in page is blocked, so the students still can’t log in to edit the wiki. I don’t think that will be too big of a hassle, so my main concern was that we need to get a podcatcher that the students can use. I suggested two options:
1. All students get (an edited?) version of iTunes, or
2. Each student gets a different product (iTunes, PodcastPickle, etc.) and tests it out so that we can make a decision on a standard product for the district.

Everyone seemed agreeable and happy, and I left the meeting happy.

I am SO glad that I decided to use the PBWiki instead of Wikispaces as I had originally planned. PBWiki allows the teacher to set the control level for students, so while my students can edit my wiki, they can’t join other wikis or create their own. That’s good, because while practicing with the LMS wiki today (it’s starting to work!), the students were already trying to figure out ways to use it to chat. I told them that there was no real reason to mess up the wiki to chat because I already had a chatboard for them. Once they realized that, they stopped clogging up the wiki with “DUDE! JOE IS AWESOME!” posts.

I shudder to think what would happen if they had free reign on Wikispaces.

Once again, I am so grateful that I am doing this with a small number of students.

Well, we are just about ready to start podcasting. We have spent a lot of time working on a wiki for the school, and I do want to finish that before we start working on the podcasting, but we keep having setbacks in that area as well.

1. Our LMS wiki is only viewable to our class, and we want a larger audience.

2. www.pbwiki.com is blocked for student use and while I have requested that the site be unblocked, I have not gotten a response just yet.

3. I decided for rough draft purposes, we could use the LMS wiki as an editing tool. I spent about 45 minutes working on topics when I realized that depending on what IP address the user logs into, you may or may not see the content. So, my students can’t work on the LMS wiki either. I could go back to the traditional way of editing, but they are so excited and motivated to use the technoogy that I feel like it would be a punitive measure to go back right now. Whoever heard about a class that’s actually excited to edit?

In other news, I have been trying to gather good podcasting resouces on the internet to use with my students. However, it is very hard to find podcasting resources when every web page that our filters places under the Audio/Visual category is blocked.

I am trying to find sites that have interesting and relevant podcasts, sites that have copyright-free music and sound effects, and sites that have specific information about copyright laws that affects podcasters. I really want to hit copyright law hard before we start podcasting because I think it’s something that the students really need. From anticipation guides, I have gathered that students think it’s ok to copy and share music that was not obtained off of a CD and that you can legally DOWNLOAD music but you can’t legally UPLOAD music. They were so convinced that they even attempted to find web resources that supported this claim.

In any case, I cannot access these resources. I fully understand that some music sites need to be blocked, but I feel that by blocking copyright-free web pages, we are encouraging students to illegaly share and downlaod music. As a 1:1 campus that uses Web 2.0 stategies, music and images are integral parts of our classroom tools.

I have asked for the desired links to be reconsidered, mentioned that this is for a grant, and even used links that were suggested by NetTrekker, the school safe search engine that our district pays for, but so far have been denied.

I suppose that if this issue is not solved by the end of the week, I can start out teaching the students how to use Audacity. Since I am not that familiar with it, I think I will ask Stephanie Green to come in and team teach with me that day. It will be a great time to show off Atomic Learning as well.

At least I always have a back-up plan!

Well, yesterday, I forced my podcasting students to listen to a short “State of the School” podcast. We listened and we completed an evaluation rubric that I borrowed from Region IV’s podcasting in-service for teachers.

One thing that I learned from teaching writing is this: students love to find fault with other people’s products, and giving them a rubric gives them a chance to exercise this to the fullest. They weren’t overly mean, just creative in some of their responses.

They all decided that we could create a much more professional podcast that the one that we listened to. I think they saw it as a challenge. Hooray! The motivation is there!

A teachable moment today: The Klein ISD wikipedia page was edited with derogatory comments (with an especially stinging comment about Vistas) that was quickly changed back, but not before they were seen. I decided to use this to our advantage and pressed the idea that all of the materials that come out of our school need to be professional and appropriate so that we could shake the negative stereotypes that harangue our school (Wikipedia users are still debating on whether or not we are *actually* a school – The word “Program” throws them off.). This too, they took as a challenge and are eager to dispel any myths about the intelligence level on our campus.

The problem that I am now facing is the filter – nearly every page we try to access for example podcasts is categorized as “audio-visual” and is blocked. Podcasting is a pretty “audio-visual” field, so we are trying to figure out a way to allow access to appropriate sites. Copyright-free music and other sound files that we want to use are blocked, and it’s a pain to save on my home computer and transfer the files over to my school computer. It’s very hard to get the students to listen to podcasts that they aren’t interested in, and I can see why. It’s hard work.

1. I know I can’t export an RSS feed from LMS, but can I import a RSS feed into LMS? That way, my students can have a feed when they log in to LMS.

2. If they use iGoogle as their home page, the students can subscribe to a catgory feed (i.e. English IV or English I), but can they even use iGoogle with Lightspeed?

3. I need to learn how to *really* use Audacity. Right now, I have just been recording one large audio file and if I mess up, I go back and do the whole thing over again. I am ashamed to admit it, but it’s true. I just don’t have the time to really learn anything right now.

4. Did my students even listen to the podcasts? If they did, how did they like it? For most this time, I asked them just to listen to the podcast and if they needed the script to contact me. I am little concerned that pocasting is a little too aural and not enough visual. Perhaps I could have questions or an “assignment” that coincides with the podcast, something for them to look at. I know need to give them the option here, but I feel a little selfish here because I’m scared that if I do give them the option, they will not choose the podcasting. I know that if I were given the choice between reading the material or listening to it, I’d choose reading. I do that in my master’s class – the speaker is too slow and monotone. I suppose I have time to work it all out.

5. I’m almost ready to start playing around with the *real* podcasting equipment. I want to start playing around with music and sound effects to help break up the monotony of my podcasts. Oh! Here’s an idea! What I had students write commericals for whatever it is that I am teaching (Beowulf – bard services, Middle Ages – Black Plague Cures, etc) and then use THOSE for the breaks in my podcasts!

I don’t know where I am going to get the time to do these things.

 I just went back and gave all of my old posts categories and tags, so hopefully once this site gets more information, it will be easier to find information. At least I did it now, instead of at the end of the year!

It looks like I’ll be posting a lot more this week – between my podcasting students and my English students, I’m sure I’ll have some information to pass on.

We made it through Hurricane Ike with little damage other than the eight days of school that we lost. For a school on an accelerated schedule, that much time lost is devastating. We finally went back to work last Wednesday and we have been playing catch up the entire time.

My original plan was to publish the podcasts on the district’s LMS site because they have an RSS feed, but we were having serious problems with LMS and Lightspeed the week before the hurricane, so I was never really able to post an RSS feed and see how the students responded to it. Luckily, any problems we had this past week have been short-lived and are usually solved if we restart Internet Explorer.

The best news is that I have created two podcasts for my students! One was going over the answers on a quiz that they took and the second was a test review! I’m so excited! I really hope it works, because at this point, it really saved me a lot of time in the classroom. This way, I also made sure that each class got the same material.

The problem that I’m facing now is publishing these RSS feeds. We are using LMS right now, but I can’t publish them to iTunesor Podcast Alley because I need a public forum to post on. I’m going to poke around on Edublogs and see what options are available. I am a little concerned about this, because Klein’s system does not seem to be very compatible with Edublogs. No one can get an e-mail from Edublogs! I’ll look into that, because I find this to be a very user-friendly site.

Looking back at previous posts today, I already feel months behind. I had wanted podcasts ready to go for the first day of school. Here it is, almost the end of our grading period, and I’m just starting to identify the kinks rather than solving the kinks.

At least my group of students is excited about the process. Right now, I feel like I’m leading them on because I haven’t really given them much podcasting. I’m working on the curriculum as we speak, but for now, I feel like I’m dragging the process out. The great news is that they all seem to be on board and eager. I think they feel special because they know they are involved in the pilot project for a grant. I won’t say that they are looking froward to TAKS testing reviews, because they aren’t, but when I explained my TAKS plan to them, they were agreeable. The students who still need to take TAKS are going to create specific tutorials for middle school students. Each student will create tutorials for the objective that she/he needs to pass.

I passed out the TAKS study guides yesterday. As I expected, they groaned and all told me to keep the book. I agreed to do so, but had them look at their TAKS objectives and pointed out to them what we’d be podcasting later on. I didn’t hear a single groan – in fact, they were asking me questions. I’mnot going to go so far and say they were excited about TAKS tutorials, but I think they are now looking at it in a new way. It was really what I needed to keep my head afloat after the past few weeks.

The Good: After days of pounding heads, searching help forums on-line, and even (gasp) watching the tutorial video, Derek and Micheal discovered one of our problems: we had the speakers connected to the computer and not the M Box. Problem fixed and everything seems to be working just fine now. Monday’s goal will be how to save a file with a workable extension (we can’t seem to save them as wav’s or mp3’s) and the best way to publish them.

The Bad: We still have not gotten our microphones. I called the company again and was told that the items were delivered. After a little more investigating, it turns out that they weren’t. Or, if they were, they weren’t labeled appropriately. What bothers me the most is after I got off the phone the second time with the company, I realized that I was given conflicting information/

6/23 – I called about the mics. One mic was being shipping first thing tomorrow morning (6/24) and I did not hear back about the second mic (I think they called the school’s main number which is being answered during the summer).

The next time I called, “Eric” looked up the tracking number and said that they were both delivered on the same day: 6/13.

Wait, what?

Is this the same mic that wasn’t even getting shipped until the 24th?

The other bothersome thing about the company is that they open at 9:00 Pacific time, so that means that I have to wait until 11:00 *my* time before I can get an answer.

I think we are all getting a little anxious now, and Peggy has decided to call the company herself.

The Ugly: I have a few pictures that I’d like to post, but I keep forgetting to download them from the camera. I also have a few sample videos from the camcorder as well, but I am not even going to mess with that until I feel comfortable with the audio.

Stacey’s working on lesson plans, which is good, because at this point, I think I’d go overboard with pre-learning and vocabulary (probably just because I’m feeling a little insecure and intimidated, but I am confident that I’ll be ready to go by the end of the month).

I had another meeting with Peggy and Julie yesterday, and I left in such good spirits. I really didn’t know what to expect when I realized that I’d need to be in such close communication with the front office. Would our goals conflict? Would this be considered a priority? Would they see this project as innovative as I think it is?

After yesterday’s meeting, all fears have been calmed. It was so invigorating watching them get excited about the project! Of course I’m excited, but it’s validating when other people can see the possibilities as well. It’s amazing to see all of the ideas that other people have that I would have never even imagined. It’s incredible.