I have listened to everyone's threads and comments on the VoiceThread conversation started by Dr. Gleason. I think you all made some great points about how blogs, voice threads and other asynchronous tools can be used with students in the classroom. They are useful for sharing information across space and time and in a way that provides all contributors the time to read, think about, and respond to particular ideas. With so many different types of tools to facilitate discussion and the sharing ideas, I have become interested in figuring out how to link all of these things together. In doing this, information can be shared through several different portals and can be accessed through any given site.
Above, I have posted a link to our VoiceThread. I am working on embedding the thread to a blog post. Once I have figured that out, I will detail instructions below in hopes of guided others of you to use your own VoiceThreads as part of a multimedia blog discussion...
UPDATE: Voila!
Embed your VoiceThread in a few simple steps...
1. Once you have arrived in the VoiceThread site, go to your "My Voice" page.
2. Click the gear tab at the bottom right hand corner of your VoiceThread that says 'menu'.
3. Click on 'Edit'
4. At the bottom of the page you will see a tab to 'Embed.' Click it.
5. You are only given short cut options to embed to Facebook or Twitter so you will need to look down to the Embed code, find the 'Copy This' button to the left of the code and click. The code has now been saved to your clipboard.
6. Now you will return to Blogger. Create a new post to start. At the top left of the post you will see that your are now 'Compose' ing your post. To add the HTML code of the VoiceThread you wish to embed click on 'HTML.' This will change your screen to HTML coded instructions.
7. If you have already written in your post you will see other HTML codes and commands. Press 'enter' to return to a new line and Paste the copied HTML code to the document.
8. Look to the top right of your screen and click on 'Update.'
9. To check and make sure you have embedded your thread correctly click on 'View blog' at the header of your post. (It will be just to the right of the Blogger Logo)
10. You should be Embedded and ready to continue posting!
*Please let me know if any of the instructions are unclear!
Here is a YouTube video detailing similar instructions. However, this post was made in 2010 and the Blogger layout looks slightly different. The commands are all still the same but you will be looking for some of the tabs in different locations of your site page.
ps. I am not partial to this man's voice so if you feel the same way, I apologize. Still, a good visual for learning to embed your VoiceThreads to Blogger.
So, I am new to the whole blogging thing. I have been playing around with everything here and have been trying to figure out how it all works. I realize that there is a recommended book for us to read,
Richardson, W.(2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, & other powerful web tools for classrooms. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
However, I have found that it is often much faster and easier to follow along with videos posted on YouTube when trying to learn a new skill. The RSS feed. What is it? This short video helps explain that to you. Still, it does not apply directly to Blogger. So, if you are posting to Blogger as well, here is what I have found out. If you log into Blogger and come to your home page, you should see a place for your blogs at the top and underneath, a tab that says Reading list.
Now, what you want to do is look down underneath reading list where is says 'Add'. This is where you will add the blogs and news sites you want to follow. This is just like the Google reader discussed in the video but it is directly on your blog. Click on 'Add'...
If you have created a Google reader already, you can import your reads from there. If not, simply copy the URL address from the page you want to follow, paste it in the box next to 'Add from URL' and click the orange box at the bottom that says 'Follow.'
And that's it!
It will take a moment to save the pages you have chosen to follow but then you will have a feed of all the latest posts from that page. As you add more pages to your reader, there will be posts from all of those pages intermittent with the most recent posts listed first.
At the moment, I am only following the posts from Punya Mishra's web page as suggested by JMG. Above is what my feed looks like for now.
* UPDATE: I am now following several of you from EDU 701. This will be very helpful when we need to peer review each other's blogs or simply respond to posts. There is an easy way to do this. Simply copy each blog address from the list under discussion board. Once you have copied an address, paste it into the 'Add from URL' box. Then, click on the '+Add' to the right. This will drop down another box for you to paste yet another URL address. Continue doing so until you have added all the blogs you would like to follow. Final click 'Follow' at the bottom of the screen.
Once you have added all of your blogs, you can look at the updates from each blog one at a time, or if you click 'All blogs' the feed will show the most recent updates for all the blogs you are following.
Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group has identified what he calls a "global achievement gap," which is the leap between what even our best schools are teaching, and the must-have skills of the future: * Critical thinking and problem-solving * Collaboration across networks and leading by influence * Agility and adaptability * Initiative and entrepreneurialism * Effective oral and written communication * Accessing and analyzing information * Curiosity and imagination
"You need to lead by influence...the person who is most effective as a leader is not leading from positional authority anymore. They are leading , rather, from their ability to engage others and to ask the right questions."
“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”
"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings."
-Hodding Carter Jr.
21st Century Skills
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a vision for student success in the new global economy. They have come up with a framework that describes the skills, knowledge and expertise students must master to succeed in
work and life. This framework is a blend of content knowledge, specific skills, expertise and literacies.
First, students must build a core understanding of academic content from which to build on. Then, students must be able to apply essential skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration to that core knowledge in order to be successful in today's ever changing world.
In this model, interdisciplinary themes are interwoven into the core subjects students encounter. These themes are Global Awareness, Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial Literacy, Civic Literacy, Health Literacy, Environmental Literacy. Students need to have experiences that allow them to develop the particular skills to be literate in many different areas of life. To be literate is to be competent and knowledgeable about a particular subject. As educators, we should be striving to produce students who are "life literate" meaning they can work competently in many given situations using a base of essential skills ie. critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. With proficiency in these skills, any one person has the basic tools they need to begin conquering any task and solving any problem.
As the world continues to advance, our lives and interactions with different people and social structures had been come increasingly more complex. The 21st century skills framework has divided the necessary skills for success in a complex life and work environment into three parts.
Learning and Innovation Skills
• Creativity and Innovation
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Communication and Collaboration
Information, Media and Technology Skills
• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) Literacy
Life and Career Skills
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Self-Direction
• Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
• Productivity and Accountability
• Leadership and Responsibility
Using this framework with the support of structures such as the 21st century standards, teachers can better prepare their students for success beyond the classroom. If given the write experiences, environments and supports, students can go beyond the standard course of study and become the great thinkers of tomorrow helping to solve the problems of today.
21st Century Standards
Focuses on 21st century skills, content knowledge and expertise.
Builds understanding across and among core subjects as well as 21st century interdisciplinary themes
Emphasizes deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge
Engages students with the real world data, tools, and experts they will encounter in college, on the job, and in life--students learn best when actively engaged in solving meaningful problems
This is my first entry into the blogging world so I hope it is successful!
For the past nine months I have been working on becoming a master of the art of teaching. I have been learning about what students need to learn and how they learn in different ways. I have been discovering new approaches to teaching in the classroom along with different strategies for meeting the needs of all students. This summer, I hope to add to what I have learned thus far and share the new skills and tools I encounter with you here.
