Posts made in November, 2011

Grant Writing Tips & Tricks eBook

Posted by on Nov 30, 2011 in school technology | 0 comments

#edchat #edtech

Eradiquer la pauvreté

I just found that Atomic Learning is giving away this eBook to help schools get money from grants. I call it “Begging for Bucks” but we all have to do it. Many of the great tech items that I have for my kids came from grants.

Here is a quote from the forward that Karl Samp wrote…

“We would be naïve to think that all changes resulting from our current economic challenges are good for education. Larger class sizes, fewer support services, and decreased resources for upgrading texts and supplies are all having negative outcomes on student learning. Yet, with the help of grant funding, you may find your school district in a position to greatly advance its use of technology.”

Here is the link to download the free eBook.

- Brad Flickinger, Tech Teacher, Bethke Elementary School

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Moving Podcast to SchoolTechnology.org

Posted by on Nov 28, 2011 in school technology | 0 comments

Hey everyone,

I have decided to move my podcast from my other website www.BradFlickinger.com to here. The next few episodes will just be to test the system — so don’t listen yet. I will let you know when I am up and running again.

- Brad Flickinger, Tech Teacher, Bethke Elementary School

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Differentiated Tech Instruction by Flipping My Classroom

Posted by on Nov 28, 2011 in school technology | 0 comments

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How could I "flip" my U.S. Constitution podcasting lesson?

In the past, trying to differentiate instruction in a tech class was almost impossible.

Take for example, teaching my fourth grade students how to edit their newly recorded podcasts in Audacity. I could only go as fast as the slowest student, because I didn’t want to leave anyone behind. “Okay everyone, let’s add music to our podcast. Under “Project” select “Add Track.” I would say. Then I would have to go around the room and help those students that were now lost. Meanwhile my tech-whiz students would just sit there bored out of their minds. This kind of instruction was not working, two or three students were holding up the entire class.

Then the idea of a flipped classroom came along, where the students learn content on their own and get help from the teacher later when they are working on their skills. But the thought of making all those screencasts of the steps involved made my great idea fade. I just do not have the extras hours that doing something like this would take.

If only I had some screencasts…

Students learning from screencasts about Audacity.

I chewed on that for a few days when it suddenly hit me — I use screencasts all the time to learn new tech skills. My school has a subscription to Atomic Learning for our teachers, but I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t use it for my students. So I had the guys at Atomic Learning set up a generic log-in for my students and then assigned them the Audacity lessons that they would need to do their U.S. Constitution podcasts.

Boom baby! Instant differentiated instruction by flipping my classroom with Atomic Learning screencasts. Besides, there screencasts are way more professional than I would have done. Now my students can go as fast or as slow as they want when it comes to building new skills. My tech-whiz students now just pick and choose any video tutorials that they might need while other students will watch the same tutorial three times until they get what it is talking about.

Now I can spend my time “working the room,” helping students one on one without slowing down the whole class.

- Brad Flickinger, Tech Teacher, Bethke Elementary School

Below is one of the U.S. Constitution podcasts that my students made.

01 U.S. Constitution

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10 Steps to Successful Student News Podcasting

Posted by on Nov 27, 2011 in school technology | 0 comments

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I had a little extra time over the Thanksgiving break to finish my new video how-to guide called 10 Steps to Success Student News Podcasting.

In this Video How-To guide I give you all the secrets that I use to get my elementary students to do the best student-news podcast on the web, and how our news podcast makes our school over $1000 a year.

Step 1: Developing a Show Format, Step 2: How to Set-Up your Studio, Step 3: Writing your Script, Step 4: Setting Up your Show in iTunes, Step 5: Putting Together a Great News Team, Step 6: How to Train your Team, Step 7: What to do Before the Show, Step 8: Doing the show, Step 9: What do do After the Show, Step 10: Extras.

Here is the intro video so you can see what it is all about. I have it for sale in my store (above) for $35.

- Brad Flickinger, Tech Teacher, Bethke Elementary

 

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Fireside Chat About Edtech

Posted by on Nov 20, 2011 in school technology | 0 comments

#edtech #edchat

My friends over at Atomic Learning have organized a little “fireside chat” to talk about technology integration best practices. Here is a link to their info. http://blogs.atomiclearning.com/youre-invitedtechnology-integration-best-practices-fireside-chat

- Brad Flickinger, Tech Teacher, Bethke Elementary School

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