Session 10: July 24, The Last Podcast

The Last Podcast Part A
Session 10A: I got the idea to do this show from Joe (aka: Mr. Big Sexy of Math Comedy Theater) after he interviewed his son about becoming a teacher. I figured that I was never shown these things and had to learn the hard way. As a thank you to Mr. Sexy for the entertainment over the past 5 weeks this is my thanks to him.

Shownotes
Part A: 6:26, 5.90 MB
Intro (http://www.676engman.blogspot.com/)
Topic discussion on Professional Credential File
Discussion about Professional Credential File
Transition to Part B

Session 10B:July 24 The Last Podcast

The Last Podcast Part B
Session 10B: Shownotes
Part B: 5:56, 5.44 MB
Intro
Recap of Professional Credential File
Google Search: teaching+professional+portfolio
Discussion about Staff Development and Step and Column Movements
Closing remarks
Closing

Session 9: July 19th The DISCUSSION

Session 9:
I decided to list a few of my favorite Educational Websites that I like to use in my room. Please post a reply with some of yours. If you are unaware of this enjoy. :-) Of course all of these would be used to enhance your blogs. In fact you would probably create a blog with specific links to pages and have students Blog on them. For Example: Below Joe, Keith, and Robert could all link the first 3 to their Blogs, pick a math topic, and then have the students respond to a prompt or quesiton about that skill.
1. AAAmath.com
2. Math.com
3. Aleks (paid service, but worth it)
4. UnitedStreaming.com (Awesome videos)
5. Digital Frog (disection without the annimal)
6. Brain Pop (annimated viedos)
7. Intel Journey Inside the Computer (great intro to computers)

If you don't have any, see how Cancer you are. Happy Birthday to all you Cancers (this is a fun thing you can put into your blogs pretty easily by clicking on Edit Html above this text field, over there on the right side, that is if you are in the Edit Post or Create Post) these are free if you click on the link below my results:

You are 80% Cancer

How Cancer Are You?

I have used these survey's in the past 2 classes to have fun while learning. There are many out there I cannot put on my Blog, but there are many that you can use in your classroom to help your blog along. I can see the kids now saying, "I wonder what survey Mr./Ms./Mrs. _____ has us doing this week? Enjoy.:-)
Enjoy,
Dale

Session 8-July 17 the Discussion

Podcast 3 for Session 8
Session 8: The discussion
Podcast 3, Session 8 Show Notes:
Intro with mention of show notes located at http://www.676engman.blogspot.com/
Recording from EDUC 605 on July 13,2006 with Dr. Crowell discussing that students can learn anything at any age, see if you can hear SpiderDuncan or Mr. Sexy himself, FlyFishingforMathJr.
News update on the Sawtooth Complex Fire and Mallard Fire, check out the progress at these websites:http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/, http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/ and http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html
Lastly, a tech tip about double spacing a paper.
Closing riff

*Special thanks to BB King and www.wavcentral.com for sound bites*

Notes and comments:
I tried many things on this project. I used three different microphones, and you should be able to notice the difference in qualities. I prefer the microphone I ended the show with which is a Logitech USB Headset microphone, the other two microphones were: a headset microphone from my cordless phone (used for the Fire Report), and a Macintosh circle microphone from the olden days (used in Part 1 for EDUC 605).
I recorded with my laptop and my personal computer to spice it up.
I downloaded sounds from WavCentral and placed a few tidbits in the show.
I played bits and pieces of a BB King CD I had for the intro and the cheesy tech tip (yes, I know I cannot sing, that’s why I teachJ).
I messed around with the settings in Audacity for example: Amplify, normalize, fade in and out, I played around with the input and output levels, the playback speed, tempo, and pitch.

Questions maybe someone can answer:
How can you copy a sound bite to a place in the middle of a show so it shows up on a second row?
How can you add silence to just one row of audio?
How can you adjust other media to match your recording speeds and tempo so it sounds alright?

Session 7-July 12th-the educational podcast

Session 7-the educational podcast, review at leat 1 educational podcast....
Review 1:
Description: Mathgrad.com, 7min 19 seconds, the Zero podcast, 15 episodes to date, from the site, "We discuss the some interesting points of the number zero." link to website: mathgrad.com.
Review: Chris Frederick is a grad student at Colorado and puts together a nice short podcast about a math topic. He strted out the show with a 10 second music intro and then ended with a 16 second exit song (note to self: make mine longer). After the intro music he briefly states what todays topic is about, 10 seconds, and then reviews some former podcasts. He mentions some improvements and suggestions that viewers emailed him that he is implementing in this 'cast. Pros: I liked the structure of the 'cast and that he was adressing technical difficulties, I liked how he has a contest that he states a winner (you get nothing, but pride), I liked that it was short, and I like that he is a college student. Cons: it is short (hey it can be good and bad), he had problems pronouncing some words during the 'cast (granted many people would and he apologized for it), and thats it. Overall if you are a math teacher and are looking to find some interesting math topic for a Friday downtime, this is your podcast. The topics might be over the head of a typical elementary, middle, or maybe high school, but then as a teacher it is good to introduce these concepts wheter or not they are learned in your school year. I say go for it.
Review 2:

Learn Chinese
Description: 15 min 9 sec. 530 free episodes and counting daily, From the site, "In a country known for its “Beijing Duck”, Inner “Mongolian Hot Pot” and “Pork Dumplings,” should you not be a carnivore, you need to know how to say it – as even veggie dishes usually have a trace of meat. In this lesson, we help you explain that you don’t eat anything with a face." Link to site: Chinesepod.com
Review: this podcast would be great for any person trying to learn Mandarin Chinese on their own time. I think in adition to that it would serve any classroom teaching Mandarin Chinese well. Why, you may ask? Pros: it is structured with a short intro with music that continues quietly in the background throughout the 'cast, there is a male speaking English, and a lady speaking Mandarin Chinese, they say the statement in Mandarin Chinese three times then the break it down throught the rest of the 'cast, it is very professionally done. The website is awesome. Cons: I am not an auditory man so just listening to the Mandarin Chinese and trying to repeat it is difficult, so I went to the website and tried to get the shownotes, but you have to be a member, or sign up for a 7 day trial period, me no likey this :-( I like free. Also I could not easily tell what the cost was for the basic and premium access. Overall: if you want to spice up your Mandarin Chinese classroom in a school, either use the podcasd mentioned above or recommend it to students for their own personal use. Even though you would have to pay for the regular and premium access, I think I would pony up the monies if I really wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese.

Session 7.5 to 7.7-the NECC days

Howdy folks, I have been requested to say a thing or two about the NECC so here it goes:
First it was in San Diego, you cannot beat that. Next year Atlanta June 24-27, start your beggin to your admins now, its well worth it.
Second: the Vendors! 3000 of them. It sure makes a computer geek feel special:-)
Third: the Podcasting sessions. I attended 2 of them and then a session with Dr. Newberry. The first one was jam packed so I was out the door in the hallway listening to it when a lady from Texas grabbed my ear and told me her story, so nothign to report on that one. The second one was called "Podcasting for beginners" I figured I could classify myself as one, being in week 2 of my masters podcasting class, so I went early to get a spot for this one, lets just say that this room was the size of the vendor hall for CUE in Plam Springs. If this was basketball I would have been watching the Harlem Globetrotters, this session had 5 presenters and 4 of them were the "Quote" unquote pioneers of the Podcasting revolution (I am sure it was reall Al Gore though :-)In fact one of the speakers was a guy I reviewed in my week one podcast named Tim Wilson the host of Technosavy go check it out, he has just about all the cool stuff I need to tell you there.... I have to log out back later...
...Ok, I am back, the Blogger site was scheduled to go down at 4pm and I noticed it was 3:57 on my cpu and did not want to lose the post.
Next was a session with Dr. Newberry and his fellow doctors from University of Kansas. We talked about the events of the NECC and briefly about the session they were holding, I was the only attendee that understood what they were talking about (actuall I was the only one there ). We adjourned for Lunch and then it was vendor time.
Total session attended: 3
Total time in vendors: 13.25 hours!
You must go to NECC :-)

Session 6- July 10-The Interview

Show Feed Location:Same Part 1 but trying something new with link) Part 1, Part 2 (7-11-2006, 3pm posted, Keith can vouch for my woes on this)

Session 6- The Interview.
Since I could not find anyone to interview, my wife interviewed me about my golf coach position. Interesting twist I hope.

Show Feed Location: coming soon (7-10-2006)
Show Notes:

1. Introduction
2. Interview with Dale Engman about his golf coaching position at Indio Middle School. A series of questions were asked like: Did you develop the program? How long has the program been around? Have your kids played before? How do you fundraise for the league? How is the league set up?
3. Closing remarks

The interview is over 10 minutes, 16+ minutes. Enjoy! Dale :-)

Remember if you are a golfer, swing easy hit hard, fairways and greens, a chip and a putt, etc...

Helpful golf resources:

USGA

The Golf Channel

Golf Digest

I have been good so far and it is now time for one of these: :-)

Your Blogging Type is Zany and Charming

You're a popular blogger with a flair for getting attention. But you're not all fluff - in fact, you're far from it. Your blog is full of interesting ideas and fun finds. You're a fascinating person, and it shows through on your blog.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Session 5: 2 Interview Podcasts

Session 5: Find 2 podcasts with different interview styles.....
Evidence of extensive examination: I searched the Yahoo podcast directory for the word interview and returned too many topics on interviewing, so I narrowed it down to the technology link and I looked at the first 40 results. I did nto listen to all of them, but I visited the sites to look at what is discussed and found some good technology stuff, but no interviews. Next I found a bunch that held interviews and downloaded a few of them. I listened to a few of them and picked these two. From performing this search I did find a cool podcasting/technology site run by kids where they give instruction about technology. They only have 6 podcasts but they would save a tech teacher a lecture or 2 on each topic. There are so many to choose from you could go crazy! It was difficult to just choose 2 Podcasts.

Podcast 1: Podcast Studio 53 min 35 sec
Description: From the site, "Episode 14 finds us in a great discussion with Billy Hollis on smart clients and Visual Studio 2005!! We talk about some simple and complex scenarios, the state of data binding and some useful tips and patterns." My description coming soon.

Review: 7-6-6 the first portion was the two hosts talking back and forth. This was not that entertaining, but I did pick up that if one is to get big time into this you would want to pick up a GATE (about $199). A gate helps reduce 'dead time' when you stop talking. It would stop cars honking, and other background noises when you are not talking. Next I picked up a tip to not post 5-6 times on a Blog, instead I should consolidate my posts into one. The reson behind this from their point of view is that the mutiple posts will push the org post down and off the main page on some Blogs.
Then the interview happened via the phone, well at least that is what it sounded like. The things I picked up was to ask one question at a time and let the perrson answer that. Next to ask a further probing question on that answer, or to go to another topic. I am not sure if this is the case, but I would think the interviewer had pre-designed questions ready for the interview to help guide the interview. The questions were on a specific topic so the interview would have a set time limit, depending on the answers of the person giving the answers. I would say that it helps to have a friendly converstaion with the person and it helps to pick some one that has some form of expertise or knowledge on a topic.
Overall the interviews content was not up my alley but I did pick up a few skills that should help my interview skills. Should you spend 54 minutes listening to this? Only if you like Smart Clients and .Net.

Podcast 2: Stop talking to your iPod
Description: From the site, "Show #117: Stop Talking to your iPod * Kreg's Dryer * Chuck's Free Wife * The geek version of snakes on a plane... phones on a UPS truck The show notes are now in the Wiki! Show notes for June 12th 2006." My description coming soon.

Review: 7-6-6, See DiscoverEDU's note for a 'ditto' of my thoughts. Some how I was under the impression that there would be an interview somewhere in the Podcast, but alas, NOPE! I did learn to have a purpose in your Podcast, which they did, but it did not suit my purpose or probably many others in our class. Lesson learned: I need to listen to another podcast.

Podcast 2b: Science Friday, Who killed the electric car
Description: Episode 217, 25 min 49 sec, From the site, "Science Friday, as heard on NPR, is a weekly discussion of the latest news in science, technology, health, and the environment hosted by Ira Flatow. Ira interviews scientists, authors, and policymakers, and listeners can call in and ask questions as well. Hear it each week on NPR stations nationwide -- or online here!" This week was about the electric car and a new movie being released.

Review: I like how Ira (the host) introduced the person being interviewed Chris Payne (sp), and how he told the listener about the purpose of the podcast. The questions were simple and not too wordy which is nice. Ira sounds like he did his research about the topic before the interview, which is a good skill to have. I like how he had call-ins. This made the show more than just a one on one interview. I liked how he mentioned a few times what he was talking about. It sounded like a high class radio show, but via podcasting. I enjoyed the multiple person interviews, to get multiple perspectives. If I could produce this I would be happy.

Session 4: Relax, you got it

Session 4: I think I can handle this one. Here are the fireworks (multicolored of course look for the product catalog and watch the videos of the fireworks), here is my smile.
How is that for a smile? :-)