PortablePD.ca

Holidays seem to be the time for me to get new ideas for how I am going to approach my classroom when I get back. I tend to get these seemingly brilliant ideas and jump in feet first, learning from my mistakes the hard way as I go along. I have a feeling that I am about to do it again. (Nathan is now rolling his eyes and cringing but in fairness – he does exactly the same thing!)

I have this amazing idea to put together a little reading group with some of my students in the new year, a la literature circle idea. I don’t think that I will do it with the entire class to begin with…I have been burned before. As a little incentive to keep them going and on topic I will have them record their discussions about the novel. Ah! What would be even smarter would be to start with short stories, then if things bog down with the group we won’t be trudging through some lengthy tome. My plan is to then take the recorded discussions, and use them as series on the class podcast. I think to get it up and running I will start working directly with the during some of the independent reading time when the rest of the class is doing their silent reading. This is the time that I have been using for guided reading anyway but I haven’t recorded the discussions. I would love to see groups work independently on this but we have to start somewhere.

I will keep you posted as to how things are going. Hopefully the results will be up on Portable Radio at some point and my guided reading lessons will have a little more life to them.

Wish me luck. (I’ll need it).

Altavista.ca
This search engine has an audio search feature as well. Just type in the sound effect you are looking for.

Absolute Sound Effects Archive

Free Sound Project
The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License.

Free Sounds
This website offers free music loops, sound fx, production music and samples to download of various styles for your website or multimedia production.

The FreeSound Project
The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds.

PACdv Free Sound Effects
You may use the sound effects on this web site free of charge in your video, film, audio and multimedia productions.

The Recordist
Welcome to The Recordist “The place for incredible sound effects.” This is also the home of Creative Sound Design, a state-of-the-art sound design facility for the video game industry.

SoundSnap.com
Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD’s. N.B. You now have to register and are limited to 5 downloads a month…or pay.

Soungle

WIkimedia
A collection of sound effects in the .ogg format.

Click here for free and legal sources of music.

^credit

Free and Legal Music

Acid Express
Forget worrying about copyright – make the music yourself. This program allows you to sort of like painting with sound. Download “loops” from some of the sites mentioned here to increase your library of sounds.  The free version limits the number of tracks and formats that you save.

CCMixter
“Browse this site to hear some of the great remixes people have built from sampling music on this site, all licensed for use under Creative Commons license.”

Jamendo
“On Jamendo artists allow anyone to download and share their music. It’s free, legal and unlimited.”

Jimmy G Music
Another composer making his music free to the masses.  You do need to register first.

Jonathon Roberts
Music may be used in any capacity through a creative commons license, as long as you credit “Jonathon Roberts (jmtr.com)”.

Kevin McLeod
He has made his music freely available to download.  Also known as incompetech.

MP34U
“There are so many great songs in the public domain arena. We are ripping and specially mastering MP3 files as fast as we can. We hope you enjoy our selections.”

Open Music Archive
“Open Music Archive is a collaborative project, initiated by artists Eileen Simpson & Ben White, to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to.”

Purple Planet Music
Royalty free.  No registration.  Just browse and download.  Be sure to give them credit.

Podsafe Audio
Wide range of music to be found here.

Podsafe Music Network
We used to use this all the time.  There is a lot of music available here but you have to have your own podcast before signing up.  Be prepared to invest a lot of time to finding music as the interface is pretty unwieldy. Some inappropriate stuff here as well…

Wikimedia
Another collection using the .ogg format.  Not sure if it’s entirely useful for our purposes.  Let us know.

Loops
(snippets of music which are useful for making your own music with software like Acid Xpress)

Free Loops
“With over 6000 sounds and samples it’s easy to get overwhelmed…”

iBeat
“Contemporary music production pack consisting of 16bit wave files available as shots, loops and instrumentals. All available under Creative Commons.”

Sample Net
SampleNet is the world’s first free sample search engine. There are thousands of CD-quality samples here for you to search and download. All of SampleNet’s samples are copyright free.

SpliceMusic
“Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. You can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user’s songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.”

Click here for sound effects.

So here we are in the week before Christmas break. Nathan and I are trying really hard to keep the lid on things in the portapac. Believe me…the creatures are stirring. We were looking for some quick and easy activities this week to keep our students writing and somewhat engaged. Poetry fit the bill.

Nathan found a website that gives a framework to write an “instant I can’t write a poem” poem. It was great and got all of the students working on coming up with excuses as to why they couldn’t write. They quite enjoyed it and everyone was able to produce their own poem. Some sutdents changed the idea around a bit and did “Why I Can’t Walk the Dog” or Why I Can’t do My Homework”. Having the digital recorders available in our classrooms meant that we were able to record the students reading their creations and we will use the recordings on future PortableRadio.ca podcasts. Click here to visit the site “I Can’t Write a Poem” site.

Mary Jane Johnson, a special education teacher at our school, gave us the idea for the “I come from …” poem. This poem follows a formula. The first line is a favourite food. The second line is a place you pass by every day. The third line is a family saying. The fourth line is a treasured item and the fifth line is the place where you keep the item. Again my students really enjoyed the activity. Everyone of them wanted to have their poem published on our class blog, 56js.ca Here are some of the results:

I am from…

by Remi

Leg of lamb and Yorkshire pudding
Park
You can’t get married till you’re 30Princess music box
On my dresser

These little poems allowed everyone to be successful and have something to record or publish in a short period of time. The students enjoyed the activity and we had a great discussion about what a poem is and how you often have to think carefully about poetry to get the entire picture of what the author is trying to say.

Podcasting and blogging without a big song and dance!

By the way…please consider voting for Portable Pd in the Edublog Best Group Blog award category. Click on this link to cast your vote.

photo credit

It’s been a cold and snowy week here in Stittsville.  Maybe that gave us time to get out our fifth episode of PortablePD.  Hope you enjoy it.

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News

The much anticipated cover for our book, Web Tools for Kids, coming out in January.  More information about this book and other titles in Scholastic’s Moving Up With Literacy series is available here.

Vote PortablePD for best Group Edublog

Expanding our Boundaries (two-day workshop in Toronto with Will Richardson)

• View the Flyer
• More information and online registration will be available on the OTF Teaching Matters website at www.teachingmatters.on.ca in early December 2008.

Podcast/Blog Picks

• The Edublogger
• Portable Radio (a podcast by Jane and Nathan’s students)

Web Resources

• GoAnimate.com

Music

Hot Doggin’ – by DeerFoot (Podsafe Music Network)
The Kool-Aid Makes Itself – Psykosoul (Podsafe Music Network)
Mumbo Jumbo – BD Lenz (Podsafe Music Network)
Hook, Line and Slinker – Podington Bear
Bump and Run – Derek Audette

Prelinger Archives

archive

We have been learning about procedural writing in my grade 5/6 class. We have read a number of “How tos” and looked at the characteristics of this form of writing. As a culminating task for this work, the students wrote their own directions on how to do something. I am always surprised by the ideas that they come up with. We learned “How to Get Grounded”, “How to Give a Perfect Manicure”, “How to Check for Monsters Under the Bed”, to name a few. These short pieces of writing lend themselves really well to being included on a podcast. They are short, entertaining and offer the students another way of sharing their work without making podcasting an add on activity.

The real teachable moment in all of this came when, during our writing period, a glazier arrived in our portable to fix our broken window. One of my students immediately came up with the idea to interview our visitor about his job and how he does his work. Having the digital recorder in the classroom meant that we were able to take advantage of this opportunity. We learned about all the steps involved in taking the glass out, cutting glass, replacing the glass and sealing the window. Along with my class I learned about the glazier’s job and the students taught him a bit about podcasting. You can hear the results of this encounter at our student produced podcast PortableRadio.ca – Episode 3 Season 3.

Another window of opportunity for Nathan and me has come with the “Edublog Best Group Blog” nomination. We are both very pleased (and a bit surprised) to get this honour. This nomination has given PortablePd.ca a little more “press”. Our goal with this site has been to get the word out and to provide support for teachers who are interested in podcasting without having to reinvent the wheel. We would appreciate your support in this. You can vote by clicking here.

….continuing the conversation.

It was quite a surprise to find our site listed as a finalist in the 2008 Edublogs Awards.  We are one of 16 blogs nominated in this category. Here are the other fifteen:

Salford University Occupational Therapy Education blog
SCC English
WorkLiteracy
The Stratford Sentinel
Mortarboard Blog
Pontydysgu
Brandon Hall Research Workplace Learning Today
Scholastic News Blog
Digital Learning Environments
Tomorrow’s Trust
The Chancellor’s New Clothes
ECO group
360
Leader Talk
Youth Voices

It’s quite a group to be associated with- kind of humbling, actually.

You can vote for “best group blog” here.  There are lots of other blogs to check out and vote on as well.