Using Audio Files with Students Online

While the web has well and truly embraced video, it does seem that audio alone has been somewhat neglected... However there are times when using audio only, without video, is preferable - especially if you are a music or languages teacher - in these situations you are likely to find the Internet a frustrating place.


Fear not, I have some suggestions for alleviating this.

First you have to decide whether your goal is to PUSH content or PULL content - both are important and the distinctions are critical:

PUSH content, means to use the web to share media with your students, you may expect them to just listen to it, maybe comment on it, but there is no expectation that they will reciprocate by returning the same content to you; eg, you want to them to listen to an audio file you have shared with them, but you do not expect them to create an audio file and send it back to you. Yet.

PULL content, this means that you expect the students to create/acquire/choose content and share it with you; eg, create an audio file and share it with you., like a GarageBand composition or a voice recording etc.

If your goal is to push audio content to your students, here are some ways:


Push
There are many ways to incorporate audio into a Google Site, click here to see this demonstrated, but none are as easy as just using video, even if it doesn't 'need' to be video, it's just a fact that the web is a easier place to use video than audio.

Probably the easiest way to use audio files in a Google Site is to just place audio files into a shared Google Drive folder, these files can be played back right there in the browser using the 'Preview' mode, or they can be played with Drivetunes, or downloaded and played using locally installed software. if you insert that folder into a Google Site they will display in preview mode - easy to play:

Find the songs on YouTube and share the links, maybe by inserting the video into a Google Site, or simply an email. Yes I know this is actually video, but the web is very video friendly, which makes this quick and easy, really. Make sure you check that the video does not contain any *unexpected* content though...

Turn your songs into videos - by dropping an image into iMovie with the audio track as a 'soundtrack' - loads of kids use this method for sharing their favourite tunes on YouTube. When the video is finished, upload it to the web via YouTube or Picasa or Google Drive etc., and share with your class.

Create a Soundcloud account (free) and upload your songs - Soundcloud is like a YouTube for audio -  then you can send a link to those songs to your kids, or post them on your class site. This does not work if the audio files are copyrighted (like songs in your iTunes library - even if you've paid for them, you don't have the right to share them online) - SoundCloud has some clever tech that disables the sharing of copyrighted audio files.

So ... what if you want to pull audio content from your students?

This is little tricky, but not impossible:


Pull


You can flip the methods for pushing outlined above, and depending on the age and skill set of your students this will be more or less successful.

Some other methods for pulling content could be:

*SoundCloud - this time you create a SoundCloud group and by embedding a widget into your class site, you can invite your students to just click the widget, (or a link in an email) and they will be invited to upload an audio file to the Group you have created.

This also works nicely on iPads - especially useful for sharing GarageBand compositions - but you will have need to create a SoundCloud account on the device, or have an account you have prepared that the students can sign into and use.


Google Site
There is one more techy way you can do it, using a Google Site Gadget. I've created a rough mock up of this here.

By using the File Cabinet template in a Google Site you can add the audio files you wish to push to your students. Now they can just download and play them offline - but by installing a funky widget on the same page you can link the mp3 files you've added to the File Cabinet to the playback the files right there.

Details on the link above, but in a nutshell:


Insert ... 'More Gadgets', search for a player, eg: 'Embed Music' 

In the URL, the code needs to point to the file on the page that you want to play back, you can get this by right clicking one of the files in your File Cabinet and copying the link address -  you need to edit this URL to delete the bit at the end you don't need, everything after the bit that says .mp3

Save. Done. Share.


*Many online tools prefer mp3 as the audio format of choice, if you're buy your music from iTunes you might have some weird audio files like m4a, but you you can easily convert an audio track to mp3, just choose the file > Right click > Create MP3 version.

* Soundcloud is amazing - once you start using it you will discover all sorts of other uses for it, like allowing students to comment on sections of the audio track - great for assessment purposes.



http://www.avsmedia.com/images/big_icons/AudioEditor.gif
http://comparativeadvantage.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/2201440179_1f0c24b792.jpg
https://soundcloud.com/

Quizlet - revision tools and flashcards

Quizlet is an excellent free tool for creating revision activities for our students and has been very successful in lots of Middle School classes.

You can quickly search and find revision cards that other people have created, or sign in to create and share you own sets. The best use of Quizlet is for terminology and it has been really popular with our language students as they develop vocabulary or to activate prior learning. Click here to see a nice example from French.

The following presentation explains the important aspects of Quizlet or click on the links below to get started.

• Search and find sets that others have created
• Merge and edit sets that cater to your students
• Share sets with your class via a link or create a Quizlet classroom
• Invite students to your classroom and track student progress
• Ask students to create flashcards then share them to the class.
• Play with different formats; flashcards, learn, speller, spacerace and test.
• Add images to your flashcard sets using the simple search button
• Change languages for the flashcards and click on the audio button to have them read out.

More examples

• Geography - Energy Sources

• Maths - Perfect Squares and Square Roots

• Spanish - Bar and Cafe Vocab

• English - To Kill and Mockingbird Research

• Biology - The Human Heart

• Economics - Market Failure examples (with images)

• Economics - Market Failure Key Concepts

Text Analysis and Visuals with Keynote

In Grade 6 English, our students are reading a book called the Big Wave and are spending time analysing quotes for how they illustrate the atmosphere of the book. To support their analysis they created a visual essay with a voice recording in Keynote. The aim of the activity is to scaffold and develop the students text analysis skills. 

The Process

A nice approach we have trialled is taking quotes from a book and then finding images that depict the atmosphere. The process of finding images helps students analyse the meaning of the quotes and think in a visual way. It was also a nice way to introducing the concepts of Creative Commons, Compfight, Flickr and the photo attribution.

Once students have found three appropriate images to support three quotes, they added these into Keynote and choose contrasting colours and appropriate fonts to layout the different slides. Once they have organised a layout we ask them to record their analysis using the voice recorder tool built into Keynote. They were allowed a few post-it notes to prompt their discussion, but the aim is to encourage kids to verbalise their thoughts in a less formal way and adhoc way.

Asking students to voice over their analysis is very powerful, as it captures the students thoughts in a different way than writing and supports different forms of communicating. Overtime these types of analysis tasks scaffold our students into writing deeper pieces of analysis, whilst at the same time being fun and a little different. 

A nice ending to this project was sharing the videos through a Picasa Web Album. This allowed the students to share each others work and celebrate each others successes. This time they really ran with the commenting functions, most students would have watched most of the presentations. In a traditional class setting it is impossible to show each students work to the class, but an album is a nice alternative.

Resources

• Creative Commons Images - Compfight is perhaps the best way to search for photos that can be borrowed. Once you have searched for a topic, click on the creative commons filter. These Creative Commons images can be referenced back to the original photographer using an attribution page as a last slide. 

• Voice Recording within Keynote - you have a record button in the top menu bar. This allows you to record using the internal microphone and narrate over the slide show. You need to click the arrow button to proceed to the next slide and then click exit once you are complete. You must record from the beginning to the end, and not try pause or re-record over the top. 

• Exporting as Quicktime Movie - Once students have saved the Keynote, they can click File then, Export. Choose the Quicktime option and then click save to place the movie on to the laptop.

• Picasa Web Album for Sharing - from the link picasaweb.google.com any staff member can sign in and create an album. You need to upload and image first using the top menu option. Once you have done this and labelled the album, chose the share option from the right hand sidebar. You can type students email addresses or just share to your class group from the contacts. See tutorial here on creating class groups in contacts. 

Troubleshooting Google Drive

Google Drive is currently being used very heavily in parts of the school and is a very good option for sharing files between teachers and students and vice versa. Everything however relies on the magic black triangle to keep synchronising the files back and forth across the internet. Once this triangle disappears from the status bar you are in trouble :)

Solutions

Firstly reopen the Google Drive application from Spotlight, then wait for the status bar to change to spinning black. You can also check the the little green arrows are appearing within your Google Drive folder within Finder.

Secondly, you might be best reinstalling the Google Drive app. Click here to download. This seems to fix most problems and ensures that the app always runs in the top status bar. Watch the following tutorial which explains how to update your app.

1. Quick the Google Drive app by clicking on the icon in the top status bar
2. Delete the Google Drive application from within Finder -> Applications. Do not delete your Google Drive Folder. 
3. Click here to download the latest version of Google Drive.
4. Once the file has downloaded, open the .dmg file and then drag to applications.
5. Finally open the Google Drive app from Spotlight.

Thirdly, please visit the IT Helpdesk on Level 4 of the Middle School Block and one of our technicians will be able to help you out.

Video Questions in YouTube - increasing student engagement

A current piece of research by the Digital Literacy team is looking at how video tutorials can be created and then shared to students. These ideas fit with the UWCSEA Learning Principles and the idea of providing feedback to students through the learning process. It also links to the idea of the Flipped Classroom to provide students with time in class to apply, discuss and evaluate ideas.

Currently YouTube is the best option for teachers to share videos that they produce, both to students and to the wider community. Some of the educational features of YouTube are outlined below.

• Single sign-in to YouTube using your Google Apps accounts
• Unlimited storage capacity
• Ability to create channels to curate material for students.
• Ability to add annotations and comments to videos.
• Build in multichoice, popup questions to a video to enhance student understanding.

The last feature is the newest education idea that YouTube has developed and is the feature that we see the most benefit in. The following example from Grade 11 Economics demonstrates how this works.

The first question appears at 1.10. When you click on the correct answer "true" the video will proceed. 

If you would like to try these ideas in your class or develop some tutorial videos, please be in touch with Andrew McCarthy who can provide some guidance and additional resources. 

To turn on multichoice questions you need to be signed into your account and then click on this link. Video Questions Beta. This will activate the beta testing of this product, which has not been realised to the public yet. 

Future posts will explain how to create channels and curate material for your students. 

Kids, Concentration & Boredom

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/26/boredom-lively-history-toohey-review

Photograph: John Slater/Getty Images


An article in the New York Times on this subject brought this issue to the fore:

"Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say"

See also

"Technology Creating a Generation of Distracted Students"

The general gist of the arguments could be summarised thus:

Teachers (from middle and high schools) say today’s digital technologies “do more to distract students than to help them academically.”

"There is a widespread belief among teachers that students’ constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans and ability to persevere in the face of challenging tasks, according to two surveys of teachers..."

".. roughly 75 percent of 2,462 teachers surveyed said that the Internet and search engines had a “mostly positive” impact on student research skills. And they said such tools had made students more self-sufficient researchers.

... nearly 90 percent said that digital technologies were creating “an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.”

... of the 685 teachers surveyed in the Common Sense project, 71 percent said they thought technology was hurting attention span “somewhat” or “a lot.”

That said, these same Teachers remained somewhat optimistic about digital impact, with 77% saying Internet search tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on their students’ work.

Arguments abound, although ones like this strike me as quite strange:

"This could be because search engines and Wikipedia have created an entire generation of students who are used to one-click results and easy-to-Google answers."

Wait.

You're saying that if you can get an answer to a question with one click, that is a bad thing? Sure, there will be times when you will have to do a lot more than one click, because you have not been able to get a satisfactory answer to the question. But... if I could get a good answer in one click, believe me I would. If anything, access to the treasure trove of information that is the Internet, makes it much easier to get a multiplicity of sources, rather than only one, much easier than I could with books - yes I said it.

If your students can get the answers to your questions with one click... You're asking the wrong kinds of questions.

Image credit: TRF_Mr_Hyde

So. To the hordes of disgruntled teachers who are so quick to blame technology for short attention spans, I have this to say.

Get better. Get creative.

If your kids are bored, that is because, you are boring them, you are allowing them to be bored. Face it, move on, build a bridge, get over it, and use this as impetus to improve. As Dylan Wiliam says, teaching is the hardest profession because you can always get better at it; and, "A complaint is a gift" (Although it won't feel like that at the time).

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." 

(Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker)

Here's another article from TIME that might help to put this in perspective:

"Why Long Lectures Are Ineffective" Salman Khan

It is unfair to blame technology for short attention spans… We (the human race, not just kids) have had short attention spans for many years, it's just that students are now less inclined to put up with it. Certainly the Time magazine article cites research from 1976, well before the advent of digital technology as we know it - I was a (bored) 6 year old.

Attention span for direct instruction via @twoguysde 

I know this may come as a huge shock to anyone who knows me, but I have always had a short attention span; and that predated computers by at least a decade... I am not the only one. Chances are many of them are in your class (and are also your students' parents).

In 1996, in a journal called the National Teaching & Learning Forum, two professors from Indiana University — Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish — described how research on human attention and retention speaks against the value of long lectures. They cited a 1976 study that detailed the ebbs and flows of students’ focus during a typical class period. Breaking the session down minute-by-minute, the study’s authors determined that students needed a three- to five-minute period of settling down, which would be followed by 10 to 18 minutes of optimal focus. Then — no matter how good the teacher or how compelling the subject matter — there would come a lapse. In the vernacular, the students would “lose it.” Attention would eventually return, but in ever briefer packets, falling “to three- or four-minute [spurts] towards the end of a standard lecture,” according to the report.

Just in case you didn't catch that. Let me just make that a little clearer:

10 to 18 minutes of optimal focus. 

That's it.

Then what you need to do, instead of complaining, get creative.

http://technorati.com/technology/article/running-from-boredom/

GarageBand & SoundCloud

Got Grooves to get from GarageBand to share on the Web? Easy:

1. Share the groove by going to the start screen, click My Songs, then click 'Edit' and choose a 'choon' while it's dancing (well, jiggling)
   
   
   
2. Click the Share button
3. Email it to yourself
   
   
   
4. Now use a computer to download the track from your email
5. Click on a link to a group you have created, or a widget like the ones below to upload your class files to Soundcloud for sharing:

Send us your sounds
Send us your sounds