November Learning: Expanding the Boundaries of Learning

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November Learning Workshop Handbook

This handbook is a compilation of the how-to documents below. It provides information that supplements November Learning’s hands-on workshops. Topics includes RSS, wikis, podcasting and much more.

PDF NL Workshop Handbook

Instructional Handouts

Directing Learning with Google Custom Search
Would you teach your students to read without teaching them to write? Probably not. Educators know that linking these two pieces together makes for a more complete learning experience. Transferring this knowledge into the world of online search, does it make sense to teach students to search without teaching them what’s involved in creating and managing a search engine? [ Read More ]

Global Broadcasting with UStream
You’re at work and it’s 1:30. You know that your daughter is headed to history class where she will be presenting the research that she and her classmates have been spending the past two weeks preparing. Not wanting to miss a moment, you quickly logon to the class’ live video feed to watch the presentation. Excited to see the result of their work, you also call your spouse to remind him of the broadcast. Unfortunately due to a meeting, he can’t watch at this time. No worries. He’ll catch it tonight as it’s been archived every step of the way. [ Read More ]

Leveraging the Power of RSS Using Bloglines
RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a simple yet amazing tool that has the ability to streamline the way you currently view many of the websites that you click through on a daily basis. This is done by way of a special (XML) file that sits alongside of a webpage file on a website. The file strips the website of all of its bells and whistles and brings the user a basic chronological summary of updates to the website. Usually, these updates contain a headline, a brief description, a URL to the full story being summarized, a date, and the creator’s name. [ Read More ]

Podcasting
Podcasts are audio or video content that can be downloaded on a computer or fed to a mobile music player (mp3 player or iPod.) Podcasting allows anyone to create and self-publish a syndicated “radio or video show” and gives broadcast radio or television programs a new way to distribute content. [ Read More ]

Recording Mobile Podcasts with GCast
Imagine, for a moment, that your class is on a field trip to your city’s local aquarium. Small groups of six or seven students are moving around from tank to tank with their chaperones, and they are collecting information on what they are seeing to discuss back at school. Sound pretty typical? What would happen when one of these groups see one of the aquarium’s marine biologists? Hopefully, they would take the opportunity to discuss what they have learned with this scientist and even try to learn more. Unfortunately, only this one small group had this experience. Most of the other students return to school without being able to have taken advantage of this fantastic learning opportunity. [ Read More ]

Real-Time Assessment with Poll Everywhere
Stand around with a group of teens for any given length of time, and it won’t be long before you see one of them brandish a cell phone and begin texting a friend. Text messaging has become a primary communication tool among many students we teach, and it’s also become a popular tool for providing information to and capturing responses from large groups of people. I have recently seen one presidential candidate sending out text message updates to their constituency, CNN provide text message coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and shows like American Idol receive millions of text messages from voters everywhere. What if we could harness the power of this communication method within our classrooms? [ Read More ]

Recording Skype Interviews
Skype gives students and teachers the power to make authentic, collaborative connections with anyone around the world. Use this valuable tool to encourage global discussion and debate or to interview leading experts. And don’t stop there! Record conversations and upload them to a class website, blog or podcast series. Expand the boundaries of learning in your classroom. [ Read More ]

Screencasting
Show your students how to become directors, publishers and producers. Help them create authentic, content-rich tutorials for their classmates and audiences around the world. Screencasting is a quick and easy-to-use tool that can help you create slick demonstration tutorials in any subject area, using any computer application. The software allows you to record a movie of what you are doing on a computer. Along with your movie, you can record voice-over audio to provide a series of instructions. [ Read More ]

Social Bookmarking with Del.icio.us
If you are using the same computer on a daily basis, chances are you have a list of favorites or bookmarks that you’ve saved and compiled within your browser over time. Your favorites or bookmarks are a quick list of websites that you visit on a regular basis – or great resources that you found at one point and want to revisit. The problem is that if you switch computers throughout the day, your list of bookmarks doesn’t come with you. [ Read More ]

Submitting a Podcast to iTunes
So, you’ve spent some time working with your class developing podcast episodes that you would like to share with others in your school community or even around the world. If you have a blog, you can easily post your podcast episodes there. But if you stop after doing so, you have not tapped into one of the easiest to use podcasting directories around: iTunes. [ Read More ]

Using Skype
Of all of the newer tools out there, Skype (http://www.skype.com) is probably the one that you can easily make use of on a daily basis. In a nutshell, Skype is a phone service that allows users to make computer-to-computer phone calls to anyone in the world absolutely free, using your Internet connection. Imagine the possibilities. With this tool, you can collaborate and make global connections with family, classes, and professional peers using something we are all very familiar with – a phone call. [ Read More ]