True or False

I saw this video on Good Morning America yesterday and was amazed!

 

Watching this I thought of a few questions I would ask students if they watched this in class with me:

• Is it real? 


• What evidence do you have to support your opinion? 


• Is everything posted online real? 


• Is everything "caught" on video tape real? 


• Can you believe everything you see/read online? 


• How can you verify your information?

This video is not real, but was put together for a commercial.  But the rumor went around that this really happened.  Just a thought on how to address the need for critical thinking skills when using online resources.

Any other ideas out there?

How to Podcast - sort of...

This post explains a work around to posting audio files when you don't have the space to host and stream the files.

Back in the fall the US History teachers wanted to post student created audio files and videos quickly (24 hours turn around). We didn't have a space to host these types of files for easy access.  I could handle the video portion with the help of TeacherTube.  But where to host the audio files easily?  We decided to try TeacherTube as well, but first needed to transfer the audio to video files.  Here is our solution:

1. Gathered audio files (created with Audacity) saved as wav files.


2. Created a splash page using a PowerPoint slide and saving the slide as a jpg.


3. Using PhotoStory 3 - import the PowerPoint slide. (Note: take off the pan and scan option in customize motion - scanning across text slides can be annoying!)


4. Import your audio file. 


5. Preview the file to make sure the entire audio file plays.


6. Save the project and save it as for best for playback on your computer.

We then uploaded all the video files and the "audio" files (now videos) to Teacher Tube.  This allowed us to embed the files into the student's wiki pages. 



This started the school on the path to podcasting, even though this was technically not podcasting.  Now we have a blog space that can hos the files and provide the syndication needed to classify it as a "podcast."

Web Wandering Wednesdays - June 4

This week's installment is short, just a simple video from YouTube.  I love this video as a way to show students that just because you don't "get" it the first time, it still can happen.