You Can Now Listen to iTunes Podcasts on Your Chromebook

Till now, the only way to download an iTunes podcast was through iTunes itself, which you cannot get on a Chromebook. Whether you are already using podcasts from iTunes in your classroom or would like to start and your students are using Chromebooks, here is a great workaround that we learned about from Bryan Weinert on Leyden Techies.  

Normally what you would see when you go to a listing for podcasts that are in iTunes would be this:

Just have your students install the iTunes Audio Prevgiew/Podcast Downloader extension from the Chrome web store

Now, when you go to your chosen podcast page, the extension will add a Download link next to each audio file that the students can click on and listen to or download to their chromebook or Google Drive.  This will also work on your laptop when using the Chrome Browser.

Once on the new tab, you can get the url for that specific podcast to share with your students...  Check out the iTunes podcast listing page, for thousands of free podcasts organized into dozens of searchable categories.  Once you find a podcast you'd like your students to listen to, you can share the URL with them by posting it on your website, in your LMS (Moodle, Edmodo, Schoology), or just email it to them. Unfortunately this extension only works for audio podcasts and not video podcasts.

Update - 10-10-14

Aside from iTunes, there are many Chrome apps for listening to Podcasts.  There are too many to mention them all, but just based on ratings in the Chrome web store, here are 3 you may want to consider

Cloud Caster is a podcast player for Chrome that keeps track of all your podcasts in the cloud.Cloud Caster can be used on your Chromebook, PC and Mac as well as on almost all mobile devices running iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry. This means you will always have access to your podcasts and have a playlist in sync. Cloud Caster remembers where you left off on one device and lets you resume from that position if you continue to listen on another device. You can start listening to a podcast at home on your desktop computer, keep listening on the bus with your mobile device and finish the podcast on your computer at work/school when you get there.

Airing Pods as a Chrome web App is a shortcut to launch airingpods.com.

Airing Pods give you various ways of finding Podcasts (Shows). Comes with an easy to use Podcast Player, which plays your podcasts all in the browser. No plugin/software to install, and it make this a well suited podcast manager for your Chromebook as well.

ShortOrange is a cloud-based cross-platform podcast player with which you can listen to your favorite podcasts via the ShortOrange Chrome app, online via our web application, or with our iOS app (android coming soon!). In addition, ShortOrange syncs your podcast data between all platforms via the cloud to enable a seamless transition between devices. ShortOrange is the ultimate app to listen, subscribe, and manage all your favorite podcasts in the cloud. 

What Did you Create Today

There is a message from Jamie Casup's Keynote address at this years NYSCATE Conference that continues to resonate with us.  It is is a variation of a message many of us have been haranguing our own children with for years (usually when they have parked themselves in front of the TV or a video game for too long).  That message is that we need to move from being consumers of information and consumers of entertainment, to be creators of content and leaders in this world of technology. Advances in Technology for the last 30 years have put devices in the hands of more people than ever.  In fact, a"Cisco report says number of smartphones, tablets, laptops and internet-capable phones will exceed number of humans in 2013" enabling more people to consume more media than ever before.  If we are going to succeed in preparing our students to be "College and Career Ready," we need to teach them (and model for them) how to use this technology to create content and be true leaders with technology.

This explosion in technological advances that has created an ease of media consumption has also created devices and software tools that enable everyday people to be published authors, software developers, web-masters, video directors and more, putting their ideas and creations out there for world to see (and to buy).  As educators, we need to not only embrace the use of these tools in the classroom, but use them in a way that puts the students as creators of unique and meaningful content.  As tech coaches, we have the privilege of working with many talented teachers who want to use more technology or use it more effectively in the classroom.  Many of them are just beginning with using these tools such as Edmodo, Google Apps for Education, and Screencast-O-Matic. The first step in using these tools is for teachers to become more familiar with using them, learning how to efficiently use them in the classroom, and to better engage students in each lesson.  The next step is allow students to create their own content and be leaders of their own Learning.  Free tools like Google Sites, Voki, WeVideo, Animoto, and Pixton make it easy for teachers to turn a simple class project into opportunities for students to truly be creators and collaborators.

When we speak of College and Career Ready, we need to be mindful of what kind of careers we are preparing students for.  The Department Of Labor has determined that 65% of the jobs that our grade school children will have when they graduate haven't been created yet, so what is the career/job that we are preparing them for?  In order for students to be successful, they need to have solid set of academic skills, as well as problem solving and teamwork skills, but they also need to know how to be producers using digital tools. Over this same time period of major growth in technology, there has been a 49% increase in the number of small businesses.  Many of our students will be the architects of not only their own job, but their own business!  This will only happen if we move our trend from traditional methods of teaching, through the paradigm of teachers using technology to create lessons, to the future where students are actively engaged in using technology to create and not merely consume.

Education 3.0

Web 3.0

The world wide web is influencing education just as it is the rest of our culture (albeit much slower...), and a lot can be inferred (or hoped for) about the future of education by looking at the trajectory that the Web is on.  

The term and concept of Web 3.0 is a natural progression from the Web 2.0 term coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci and then made wildly popular by Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly of O'Rielly Media with the Web 2.0 Conference that was first held in 2004.  Web 2.0 took us from static content much like a library to a place where information was easily created by anyone and contributed to through Wikipedia, blogs and feedback in a myriad of forms.  Social media like MySpace and Facebook evolved to allow not just sharing of content and ideas, but connecting people with like interests.  Nova Spivack, founder of Radar Networks among other start ups defines Web 3.0 as a period of time (see image below) so as to eliminate the possibility of the term being co-opted and capitalized on.  His take on the direction of the web is the ability of a more personalized experience building on your browsing history, likes, dislikes as well as a Semantic Web where we are not merely able to search keywords in content on the web, but able to find content based on the meaning in that content. 

Knowmads and Invisible Learning

John Moravec, PhD is a scholar on the future of work and education and is the editor of the Knowmad Society project and co-director of the Invisible Learning Project.  He looks at the convergence of changes in the world of work, the advances of the World Wide Web and Education.  He created the following meme to help elucidate the changes in the Web and how they have changed or will change education.  This is a futurist view of how he sees that education must evolve to meet the changing world we live in and to do so by capitalizing on the technology that exists and is being created.

Education 3.0?

It is easy to see the potential for Web 3.0 applications in education.  Personalized searches of content that are based on past web activity applied to learning activities and tutorials would be a huge leap forward for what technology can do to help teachers differentiate learning. These advances are years down the road and Education is often one of the last arenas to adopt new technology so we can't rely on the technology to change schools.  Education 3.0 is achievable with today's technology. We simply must move away from the teacher centered, mass produced education system that defined the 20th Century if schools are to be relevant in today's economy. John Moravec presents a vision of schools and learning that is worth striving for regardless of the advances made in Web 3.0 technology.   

Tech Tip - A Fondness For Folder Functionality

Now that you have been using Google Drive for a while you may have realized a need for organizing all those files so that you can actually find what you are looking for.  The beauty of folders in Google Drive goes beyond just organization.  It allows you to organize your sharing of those files.

Creating and Organizing Folders

Creating a folder is as simple as creating a document.  You can either click on the Red Create Button and select Folder or click on the Folder Icon above the list of documents.  Once you have done that, then give your folder a name and click on the Blue Create Button

If you don't see your folder in the menu on the left, be sure to click on the little arrow next to My Drive to see all of the folders you have created.  Viewing your folders in the left menu also allows you to easily nest folders for organizational purposes and allows you to drag and drop files into your folders.  

Once you have created your folder you can add things to it two different ways - either drag and drop, or select the item and use the Move To button at the top of the page.

Organizing your folders works in the same way - either drag and drop them into the folder you want to nest that folder into, or select that folder and click on the Move To button at the top of the Page.

Sharing Folders

You can share your folders in the same way that you documents.  The benefit of sharing a folder is that anything that is either created in or moved to that folder takes on the sharing settings of that folder.  In that way, you don't have to share each individual document with your colleagues or your students.  Whether it is editing, just comments or only view rights you give to someone for a folder, those rights apply to everything in that folder.  To share a folder you need to select the drop-down arrow to the right of the folder as it appears in the lefthand menu when you mouseover that folder and add that person to the folder the same way you would for a document.  

Google Nation

Google has become an integral part of our internet / information based culture and has even become part of our lexicon with  Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary listing Google as a verb since 2006.  It is no surprise that Google has become one of the tools commonly used in schools and now, with Google Apps for Education providing their suite of communication and productivity tools free to schools, it is no surprise that many school districts have decided to get on board.  While the savings on servers for email and storage are attractive to districts, the ease of collaboration and communication between teachers and students and the engagement of students is profound.

District Savings

Districts can migrate all of their email to Google apps saving them thousands of dollars in server space and staff time by not having to maintain their own servers and monitor email quotas.  One district in Michigan estimates that they saved over $400,000 by switching to Google Apps for Education and the State of Oregon Department of Education estimates that they will save $1.5 Million.  The benefits to districts don't stop there.  In my mind, the benefits to students and teachers is even greater.

Increased Engagement and Collaboration

Students live in a digital world and embracing this allows educators to help move and mold that energy instead of fighting it.  Google Drive exists in the cloud enabling students and teachers to access their work from anywhere, from any device.  This fluidity allows students to share their documents with each other and with their teachers, work on those files together in real time making the process of collaboration easy and fun.  The students light up when they see that what they are typing on their project is immediately seen by others in their group.  The chat feature is something that is familiar to them and is an easy way to ask each other questions without talking if they are right next to each other or without the use of a phone if they are working from home.

No Dogs Here

While "the dog ate my homework" is an overused cliche it speaks to difficulties that students do have with keeping track of their work and for teachers in tracking and grading assignments.  Google Drive allows students to store their documents in the cloud and access them anywhere.  This levels the playing field for those students who don't have technology at home, or have it, but can't afford more expensive word processing software. By simply sharing their documents with their teachers, students can turn in their work even when they aren't at school, and teachers can track when work was completed and who did how much work on group projects. Tools like shared "Drop Box" folders or Learning Management Systems like Edmodo or Schoology, make the process of turning in work to teachers more easy to track.  These Learning Management systems also simplify the process of tracking assignments when they were "Turned In" and providing feedback to students by keeping it well organized in an easy to use interface.

Increased Accountability

The File Revision History of Google Docs is a very useful tool to educators.  It makes it easy to spot copying, track how much time was spent working on and revising work, and see who in a group project was doing the most work.  The history shows who wrote what and at what time, so if a document was started at 10:00pm and was completed by 10:04 with 3 pages including footnotes, chances are, there is something fishy going on that students will have a hard time explaining away.

Whatever the reasons for moving to Google Apps, the benefits are many.  If you are looking for ways to use different features in your classroom, be sure to check out our many workshops being offered.  (see calendar to the right or check out My Learning Plan).

Tech Tip - Chrome Tabs

Tech Tip...

Chrome Tabs

Are you tired of typing the same urls for pages you want to visit each time you open Chrome?  The following shows 3 ways you can streamline your use of tabs in Chrome:

1. Setting your startup tabs:

You can set what page or set of pages open up when you start up Chrome.  That way you can have immediate access to your email, your district webpage, your calendar or whatever you prefer.  To get started click on the  Chrome Menu icon in the upper right hand of the browser 

Then select the "Set Pages" under the On Startup section

You will then see a dialogue box that allows you to type in any number of urls that you want to have open each time you start up Chrome.  (Please note - If you haven't yet logged in to Chrome and you open it, your pages won't open automatically once you log in.  This only works where you are already logged in to chrome and open it up)  

2. Setting your home page

Your homepage in Chrome is a page that you often refer to that you don't want to enter the whole url every time you want to go there.  Whether it is your Gmail, Google Search, or your district's webpage, this is a handy tool to use.  The Home button is hidden by default so you need to go to the Chrome Menu to both view it and to set it.

Look at the second section entitled Appearance and check the box to Show Home Button (if not already appearing to the left of your address bar) and then select Change to set the page you would like to use.  (Please note - If you are a Google Apps school, they may have disabled the ability to change this)

3. Pinning Tabs

Another tool for managing your browsing experience is to Pin a tab to your browser.  This only stays as long as you have that browser session is open, but it will allow you to put an oft referred to tab all the way over to the left and shrinks the size so that it isn't crowding out your other tabs.  To Pin a tab, simply right click the desired tab and select Pin Tab.  You will now see it move all the way over to the left and shrink down to just the size of the Favicon.  

I hope that you have found this Tech Tip useful.  Come back each week for more.

Welcome

Welcome the Orange Ulster BOCES Model Schools Blog.  

It is an exciting time to be involved in education technology.  There are so many web applications out there that provide students with unique opportunities to engage in what they are learning, express themselves and what they have learned in novel and remarkable ways.  Students can collaborate with each other on projects in real time using Google Docs, they can create engaging multimedia presentations using Prezi, they can publish their own podcasts using Vokki, and their cartoons using Pixton.  All of these are free to use for teachers and students and require very little prior experience.  With all of these tools out there, the technology space can sometimes be confusing and overwhelming.  Jaclyn Christine and Jim are here to help you find which tools are most effective in different situations, learn how to use those tools and see how those tools are being used effectively in other schools.

Model Schools offers Instructional Technology Workshops in the use of old standbys like Smart Notebook, document cameras, Microsoft Office and Moodle, and emerging tools like Edmodo, Schoology, InstaGrok, Vokki and more.  These workshops are designed to build technology skills and support teachers with the integration of technology in the classroom as a tool for instruction. The courses demonstrate how to integrate technology with curriculum, assessments and the New York State Learning Standards. All of our workshops are listed in MyLearningPlan and are listed on the side of this blog for your reference.

We also provide Shared Staff to school districts allowing them to bring our expertise to their district to work one on one with their teachers to ensure comprehensive use of the district's technology resources.  Ask us how we can help you to foster the use of technology in your district.

We look forward to serving you in the coming school year and welcome your feedback.  We would also like to welcome you to share your technology success stories to share with other districts so that we can celebrate the work that you do.