Jack_Elizabeth

Jack_Elizabeth
Originally uploaded by Eliza T.

Season's Greetings

WiAOC - Randall Davis on audio online

Randall Davis mentioned several good sites and tools that I will simply list here--

EZ slang site:
http://www.ezslang.com/
has short audio with slang expressions. One thing he cautioned is that 20 sec. to 4 min. is about the max that you can do with audio without other kinds of support (e.g., photos or video or script). Listening is just plain hard, as I learned when testing Chinese EFL teachers years ago--they were scoring 80-90% on the practice TOEFL grammar, and 10-18% on the listening part.

Questions for student discussion/interviews by Randall Davis:
http://iteslj.org/questions/
This is a great site also for students to use as TOPICS for making their own video projects.

Here are some of my experiences with Audacity, which I have begun to feel is workable on the Mac (OS 10.3 or 10.4):

>>>>>>>>>
Open Audacity, hit Record button. Click Yellow >Stop button when finished.
Select >Export as...mp3 for smallest file size.
You will need the LameLib plug-in to export to mp3, which is accepted by most players, including RealPlayer and QuickTime, but not Windows Media when you are in a Mac. (LameLib can be found on a number of Apple sites, I believe--google it.) I assume the PC version of Audacity exports to .wmv files.
You can also play the Audacity file while recording it in WireTap, which creates a much smaller .aiff (QT) file.
<<<<<<<<<<

For a tutorial in using Audacity to respond to student writing:
PC Tutorial - http://www.daniel.uklinux.net/tutorial/
MAC tutorial - http://altec.colorado.edu/howto/audacity/aud_hlp01.shtml

WiAOC - Virtual Learning Environments

This session showed a lot of potential for language scaffolding (although that term wasn't used, as I recall). Some research is being conducted and you can join the Chinese students on the Quest to restore the planet.

Quest Atlantis on the Univ Indiana server
http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/
You need to download the interface software at the entry portal first (PC only, unfortunately.

Self-contained (hence safe) environment at Indiana Univ, and students are assigned specific quests and tasks. The introductory video is very beautiful, and inspires students to find ways to save the environment of the mythical planet (aka earth). The script of the video is found in comic book form for lower level learners. Good help apparatus: Quck Start Guide, Teacher Manual, Starter Quests, etc.

Contact Mike DongPing Zheng to join the QA research or explore the Quest with students. dongping.zheng@uconn.edu

For research check:
http://www.education2.uconn.edu/epsy240/dzheng/index.htm

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thingy.

San Francisco time

This is the evening before another trip into SF. The routine of back and forth, sun and fog, is good.

I have to start over again everytime, remembering how to do add a picture or a link. The edit buttons are making it easier.

Experiment with linked photo

This should work to add a picture from offsite:



This is a picture of Mariana linked from her Flickr page.

Polyhedrons

I am hoping this shows up as a clickable image. It is fun to take the quiz, but you need a little D&D knowledge to make sense out of it.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Enjoy--Elizabeth

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Audio post from audioblogger

This is the recording I made today--it seems to work from my cell phone, but I'd like to see what the phone charges are--should be free, as this is President's Day holiday in the USA.

Leave a comment if you can hear this:

Cheers--Elizabeth
(back in rainy Sacramento-- "in California it's cold and it's damp..."

Time management

Still have trouble figuring out how to get things posted to my own blog. I'd like to see a simple box--"Post a new Comment here..." Maybe the change in settings will help??

I'm having time management problems--my husband wants to use the laptop too. Oh no! And EVO is having it's little quirky problems. Ah the cyber-life...

Any visitor is welcome to see my homepage:
Computers for Education