Audacity & Second Life

Since my project for this class involves podcasting, I decided to investigate the use of the software Audacity for creation of podcasts. The software itself seems relatively easy to navigate once the user gets the hang of it. Recording is easy and the program also allows for easy mixing and fading of music. It also seems easy to post a completed podcast on podomatic.com for sharing in a community. I can think of a variety of uses for podcasting in the Social Studies classroom. One way that I think would be really neat is having students report on current events through podcasts and then share their podcasts with each other.

The only limitation that I have found on Audacity is that there doesn't seem to be a way to add visual content. For my project I would like to not only record my voice, but record my voice over a video for training purposes. I have done some preliminary research for this challenge and it seems that jing.com could serve my purpose of following my screen while I narrate.

I found the content for this week pretty interesting. I'm most intrigued by Second Life, although it does seem very odd to me to have another personality in the virtual world. I'm attending the TIE conference this week and I found that there is a session on Second Life for educators. I'm planning on going because although Second Life creeps me out (for lack of a better phrase) I think that I just need to experience it to understand it. Paul told me that many colleges & universities are creating Second Life tours for students to get an idea of the campus, and I'm extremely fascinated by the idea that people are making real money in a virtual world. I think I need to get over my hesitation and jump in to experience what Second Life has to offer.

Week 1

This week was mostly review for me, but I did learn about a few new applications of the open source software. I was really interested to learn that you can create forms and surveys with Google docs. I'm especially excited about the ability to have Google docs compile the survey data! I know a lot about Google apps as I lead a professional development class at my school on Google uses in the classroom. I have been exploring options for my project. I want to create a video that I can post on my website for my students on using the open source applications such as Google docs or Open Office. I feel like this will ease a lot of my frustration as a teacher because these tools are available everywhere. I have been dealing a lot with computer excuses; it has become the new "my dog ate my homework" excuse. I see a lot of potential with the tools we covered in class to alleviate this problem!!