Digital Imagery Websites of Interest

http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/lessons/index.html

http://www.wacona.com/digicam/digicam.html

http://www.pembinatrails.ca/program/technology/digital_photography_in_the_class.htm

http://clipart.apte.school.aol.com/tools/photography/index.cfm

http://teachers.net/gazette/APR02/camera.html

http://www.esu9.org/~swegenas@esu9.org/midart/digital_web/index.html

Educational Benefits of Digital Storytelling

Initially, I could not rellay determine what types of benefits digital storytelling would hold. Through reading, it seems some of the most obvious benefits include helping students develop skills in voice, tone, mood, sequencing, cause and effect, planning and writing.

I think this type of resource would be especially beneficial for ESL students, non-verbal students and even those students who seem to be having difficulty in the area of reading. The following website was suggested by one of our classmates and it discusses everything from the goals and objectives of digital storytelling as well as provides suggested resources and examples. This site will be very beneficial for Assignment 3 for this class and for any teacher interested in introducing digital storytelling into his/her classroom.

http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/introduction.htm

Teaching hearing impaired students

This topic is especially important to me since my younger brother is deaf. I watched my parents struggle as they sent him "away" to a deaf school all week long from the ages of 3 to 7. I watched them stand at the end of the driveway on Sunday evenings while he boarded the bus to go back to school for the week. When the had finally had enough, he was enrolled in a "regular" school at the age of 8, however, the struggles did not stop there. Learning to communicate with teachers and peers who were unable to communicate with him was extremely difficult. It was 15 years ago when he was first enrolled in a regular school so there have been many advances today and teachers are more educated about students with special needs so they are better equipped and more confident (which is so important) to deal with such challenges. There are, however, simple things that teachers can do when there is a deaf or hearing impaired student in their classroom. Such things include but are not limited to:

• speaking slowly and clearly
• male teachers trimming facial hair (it obstructs mouth movements)
• do not shout (it also obstructs mouth movements and a shouted word does not look the same as it would if it were said in a normal tone)
• ensure the classroom is well lit
• ensure the student is sitting close to the teacher where he/she can easily see the teachers mouth (even if there is an interpreter)
• try to limit background noise (ie. overhead projector, squeaky chairs) because these can be very distracting and interfere with what is trying to be heard if the student is wearing hearing aids.

These are just some of the many things that we as teachers can try to do. Other strategies can be found at some of the following sites:

http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?Article=3207

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/hearing.html

http://www.shef.ac.uk/disability/teaching/hearing/5_strategies.html

http://www.shef.ac.uk/disability/teaching/hearing/6_teaching.html

Audio Learners

I am really interested in studies about different types of learning styles, especially because I think we can all relate. Some of us can read something once and immediately understand, while others (like myself) learn better by "doing". The idea of podcasting and digital storytelling immediately benefit those students that we would consider to be "audio learners", those who learn best by listening.
Characteristics of audio learners that I found include:
Audio learners are very good at remembering what they hear
Audio learners may have difficulty remembering what they have read
Audio learners may have difficulty with reading/writing
Audio learners can find it hard to read facial and body language

These characteristics as well as suggested strategies for students to use and suggested strategies for teachers to use can be found at the following website:

http://www.trentu.ca/academic/geography/swurtele/slr/learningstyles.html

Educational Benefits of Podcasting

As I have been reading through information about podcasting, it occurred to me, if we can't beat 'em, we might as well join 'em! No matter how hard we try as educators, I do not think we will ever be able to compete with the ever-changing, ever-increasing world of technology that our students are so inclined to. So, why not bring this to the classroom? Could this possibly lead to an evolution in the world of education? Through my research, I have found some benefits of podcasting in the classroom which may help to encourage educators to consider attempting to use this new phenomena. Some of the benefits such as cost, audience, communication, usefulness, interactivity, creativity and fun, are outlined at the website below.

http://www.wtvi.com/TEKS/05_06_articles/classroom-audio-podcasting.html

"Podcasting" and "Digital Storytelling" from Wikipedia.com

A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. A podcast is a specific type of webcast which, like 'radio', can mean either the content itself or the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. The term "podcast" is a portmanteau of the name of Apple's portable music player, the iPod, and broadcast; a pod refers to a container of some sort and the idea of broadcasting to a container or pod describes the process of podcasting


Digital Storytelling refers to using new digital tools to help ordinary people to tell their own real-life stories.

What is Podcasting????

Taking a look at Assignment #3, I reliazed I cannot even begin the assignment because I don't really know what podcasting is! I think many of you probably feel the same and so I decided to try to educate myself a little bit about this fairly new phenomena. There is lots if information out there. Here is a little taste of something I found that I liked from http://andywibbels.com/post/272/.

What is Podcasting?
As RSS and feeds started to become more accepted into mainstream use (with still a while to go) the techie types needed a new media format to chaw on. And we got podcasting!
Let’s say you love listening to BBC World News online. You listen to it every morning and again at night to get the updates before you go to bed at night. But each time, you have to go out to the BBC website and click to download the latest audio file.
What if your computer could always have the most recent broadcast on your computer at any time?
What if it periodically checked to see if there was a new audio file and then quietly downloaded it until you were ready to read it?
What if it even put the most recent audio file on your iPod or other MP3 player?
Enter podcasting.
Podcasting takes the ‘customized newspaper’ idea that got everyone excited about RSS and feeds and transfers it to radio - your own customized radio channel. Along with the customization comes the ‘anyone anywhere’ element. Like blog publishing, podcasting allows you to easily distribute audio content easily and instantly.
The pod part is what makes everybody drool but you really don’t have to have an iPod to listen to a podcast.