TED is a small nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting “Ideas Worth Spreading” and brings together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design. Live events include the annual TED Conference in California, the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, the TEDIndia Conference and the new TEDx community program.
On the TED website, the best talks and performances from TED and their partners are made available for everyone. Currently there are over 450 TED Talks to choose from, with more being added each week.
The talks and presentations are indeed excellent, being both entertaining and thought provoking. Many of the talks relate directly to education as highlighted by the two samples below.
In the first, Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind the open source Connexions online education system, covered in a previous post.
In the second, Arthur Benjamin explains his bold proposal about making math education relevant in the digital age.
It would be well worth adding the TED RSS feed to your reader if you have not already done so!!
Several teachers from St Columbas College, Dublin have just produced this very useful podcast about blogging in education.
This podcast is a great CPD resource and would be beneficial for encouraging teachers, especially those new to blogging, to incorporate this technology into their teaching.
The value, purpose and motivation for blogging in schools, and in particular in relation to subject departments, is discussed and concrete examples are explored. Even some practical advice about setting up a new blog is provided.
Not surprisingly, two of the St Columbas College blogs, SCC English and the Frog Blog, have been shortlisted in the Best Blog Category of this year’s Eircom Golden Spider Awards. Good luck lads!
Need to know more about using mp3 files in the classroom? Then, tune in for what promises to be a very interesting webinar this Tuesday 22nd September 2009 (5pm to 7pm GMT).
Sean Banville will be speaking on “The use of MP3 files in the classroom – as a management and pedagogical tool”
There is no doubt that the advent of mp3 technology has opened up a wealth of opportunities for teachers to create purposeful recordings and exploit listening in the classroom. During his presentation Sean will demonstrate how he uses mp3 files for a range of purposes, from classroom management and games to providing student feedback and school news.
Webinar Details:
Date: Tuesday 22nd September 2009
Time: 5pm-7pm GMT
Link: Connect via: http://breeze.lpm.uni-sb.de/mp3/
All you need to participate is a headset (no standalone microphones, please and no loudspeakers)! Sound checks should to be made during the 30 minutes before the start of the meeting.
Feel free to join in on the day or confirm your participation by contacting the host Jürgen Wagner by sending an email to JWagnerATlpm.uni-sbDOTde
The Big Book of iTunes is a great little manual which introduces iTunes to beginners and provides basic information and instructions about performing various tasks when using iTunes (for both Mac and Windows).
The manual also explains how iTunes can actually be more than just a music player and it introduces some interesting software to complement and extend the functionality of iTunes.
Format Factory is a one stop shop for many of your file conversion needs. Easily convert graphics, audio and video files.
All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF. All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV. All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA.
Format Factory also includes features for repairing damaged video/audio files, reducing file size and conversion for iphone & ipod multimedia file formats.
Blip.fm allows you to access millions of streaming songs and create your own music station. Effectively, Blip.fm is a social network for music lovers since you can connect and share with other ‘DJs’.
What I really like about Blip.fm is that you can easily embed you favourite song/s into any blog or website. Simply select the song/s and then select the ‘Embed Blip.fm on your site’. This gives you the necessary embed code.
I can see this being very popular with my music loving students :-)
Thanks to Elaine Talbert, I came across this very useful slideshow on using an iPod in education. The author, Grace, includes lots of useful ideas and links to further resources.
Of course, Apple’s iTunes U is also a must as it includes free lectures, language lessons and audiobooks. You can “explore over 100,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world“.
JamStudio is a great flash based website that allows you to easily create music.
With JamStudio you can script and construct your own song using chords and then mix in different instruments (guitars, drums, bass, etc.) – all done with simple clicks. There are several versions and styles to choose from for each instrument depending on the mood that you want to set.
JamStudio is a nice tool to use for creating your own backing tracks for slideshows etc.
I’ve added a little sample snippet below which includes a mellow guitar, sit back drums and bubba base!
Patricia Donaghy
