Recording Podcasts with TwistedWave in Middle School

Here's a relatively short project we used in our middle school Computers class this week. It takes students through the planning, recording and editing of a short podcast. We used TwistedWave on Chromebooks.

Here is an example created by a pair of our students. While there's plenty of room for improvement, this was a good first attempt at an audio recording. What I loved most about the project was how students got excited about their podcast topics. You can hear that clearly in that recording.

Here is the assignment document. It includes all the directions and it links to the video below. I created that video several months ago and posted it elsewhere on this blog. It serves as a good tutorial for anyone learning to use Twisted Wave.

A couple notes about the project:

• In order to use TwistedWave, we required the students under the age of 13 to return signed parent permission forms. Even though they sign in using their school Google accounts, I felt this was important after contacting TwistedWave about their Privacy Policy.
• After assigning this project, I added a part at the bottom of the directions about the important differences between this simple recording and professional podcasts.

17 Short Learning Activities for Extra Computer Time

I wrote this list of learning activities for middle school teachers so they'd have some options to give to students who finished work early in the lab. There's nothing terribly innovative here, just some open ended starting points that result in exploration and a written reflection or summary of what they learned.

What are other sites or activities come to mind for this purpose?

This is the list as a Google Document.

Complete one of the activities below.  In each case there’s an opportunity to learn something new and to sum it up.  Do not copy and paste writing from websites unless it instructs you to.  All assignments will be checked for plagiarism.

1)  Wolfram Alpha - This is a computational knowledge engine that creates knowledge by combining several sources.  Go to http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/ and see some examples.  Click on one that looks interesting.  Search for something similar and write a summary of what you find in either a Word document or a PowerPoint presentation.

2)  Wikipedia - Start with an article related to a personal interest.  In that article, find a link to another article that teaches you something you didn’t know.  Read that new article and write a summary of what you found interesting or what you learned.

3) Physics Simulator - Go to http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/by-level/middle-school  Browse and experiment with the simulator.  Summarize something you learned.

4)  Blogs - Search for a recent blog or news article about something that interests you.  Summarize the author’s points and write your response.  Be sure to quote parts of the original blog post or article in your response.

5)  Reviews - Read a review about a movie, book, music or game that you like.   Summarize the author’s opinion and write your response.  Quote parts of the original review in your response.

6)  Another Middle School - Look up a website of a middle school that you don’t already know about.  Browse the pages of their website until you have learned some things about the school.  Summarize what you find.  Here are some questions you might answer:  What appears to be the best thing about that school?  What suggestions do you have for their website that would help you learn more or make it easier to use?  What do you dislike about the school based on what you see on the site?

7)  World News - Use Google news to find a current World News event that is of interest to you.  Summarize the article and write your thoughts about it.  Be sure to quote parts of the news article you read.

8)  U.S. News - Use Google news to find a current U.S. News event that is of interest to you.  Summarize the article and write your thoughts about it.  Be sure to quote parts of the news article you read.

9)  Local News - Use http://www.mlive.com/flint/ to find a current local news event that is of interest to you.  Summarize the article and write your thoughts about it.  Be sure to quote parts of the news article you read.

10)  Khan Academy - Watch a video on any topic you don’t already know.  Summarize what you learned.

11)  Fascinating Facts - Make a PowerPoint presentation with at least five interesting facts about a topic of your choice.  Pick facts that might make anyone want to know more about your topic.  Make a slide that lists the websites you used for your information.

12)  Found Poem - Read this article about how to write a found poem:  

http://www.creative-writing-now.com/found-poetry.html  

After reading it, find any webpage that you want to use and create a found poem from it.  Write your poem and list the URL for the webpage that you used.  Write a sentence or two explaining why you picked the words and phrases that you did for your poem.  

13)  Suggestion for Class - Find a website, game or online program that you wish a teacher would use in class.  Write the URL of the resource and explain why you think a teacher should use it and how they could use it.

14)  Computer Terms - Find definitions for 10 of these computer terms.  Copy and paste the definition you find online, include the address of the site where you found it and then rewrite the definition in your own words.

Hard Drive Monitor VGA Cable Processor Speed RAM PDF Desktop CPU

USB IP Address HTML URL PNG Intranet Internet GIF

Browser Search Engine mp3 Open Source Blog Virus GUI Router

15)  Make a Timeline - Use this online tool to make a timeline with at least 6 events from start to end.  It can be about your life (from birth or maybe just a single season of life) or it can be about some famous person or event(s).

http://www.softschools.com/teacher_resources/timeline_maker/

Get a screen capture and paste it into Word.  If it’s too long to fit on the screen, copy it in parts.

16) 100 Word Challenge - Go to http://100wc.net/ .  On that blog you will see many prompts and some links to responses that other students wrote.  The object is to write 100 words based on the prompt.  Pick a prompt you like.  You might have to do a lot of scrolling and go to other pages to find one.  Write 100 words as a response.  You can read some sample ones first if you need to get an idea of how these should look.

17)  Career Research - Do some research online and find information about a job that you would like to have.  Summarize information about the career and explain why you think it would be a good career for you.  Also copy and paste the address to the website(s) you used for your research.

Wikipedia Math Mazes - Fun filler activity for math class

When I was a high school math teacher I would often do games and activities on the days before breaks.  One of the more popular ones that I created was a "math book maze" that would take the students through several pages of the textbook and ask them to follow steps that usually involved math operations.

For example, it would say, "Take the last number you see on page 257 and divide it by 6.  Go to that page and do problem 16."

If I made the challenges just right students had a lot of fun racing through the steps hoping to get the correct number at the very end before anyone else.

Recently a high school math teacher asked about some technology activities for a similar "fun day" he was having in his basic algebra class.  I updated my idea of the math book maze and called it a Wikipedia Math Maze.

The idea is the same.  Students do some basic math problems and follow directions while they search through Wikipedia.  It went over very well with the students I tested it with.  Here it is as a Google Document:

Wikipedia Math Maze 1 - March 2013

I quickly realized that Wikipedia is updated frequently and it can throw off my maze!  The day before the activity I found I had to change some of the numbers because new footnotes had been added to one of the entries.  If you base it on a well known topic it would be possible the details could change even during the day you hand it out.  This is not an assignment to copy at the start of the year!

An obvious extension of this assignment (possibly for an advanced class) would be to have the students make their own maze.  While just solving one of the mazes requires accuracy and careful reading, making one is even more challenging because one has to be sure the directions are not ambiguous.

For the First Time - Starting something new with the power of technology

I was inspired when I read Seth Godin's book Poke the Box last summer.  This past week I assigned a journal project to the high school students in a Digital Media class that I work with.

I encouraged them to reflect on some things they did for the first time in 2012.  Going beyond just the message of the book, I also asked them to evaluate the items on their list of "first times".  The assignment then ended with some goal setting.

To tie this into technology, I firmly believe the tools that allow us to connect with others nearby and around the world require us to start big things that make a positive difference in the lives of others.

A high school technology course should not be about the technology, but how the technology can help the students achieve their potential. 

If you're interested in the presentation and assignment:

First I spoke to the class about the book and some examples from my own life.  Here is a recording of that talk that I made later.  It's about 4.5 minutes long.



Then I showed them the video about Caine's Arcade.  This a great example of people starting something new.  I make sure students consider the action of the filmmaker in this story.  He is really the one who "poked the box" by seizing an opportunity that grew into something powerful.  Students can appreciate something that gets over three million views on YouTube and results in a scholarship for a young boy.


And finally, here's the journal assignment that I gave to the students.  I was very pleased with the response the class gave to the presentation, the video and the journal assignment.