iPodagogy

Media Coverage

2005-12-12T15:15:00.000Z

I knew one day I'd get my 15 minutes of fame. I always imagined my big break would have been through a rather more fashionable publication than the 'times educational suppliment'. Ho hum. At least the second years seemed to enjoy the experience.

Narnia podcast

2005-12-08T10:27:00.000Z

It looks like I've found a suitable and hopefully interesting site for my French class. It's been difficult to find stuff that fits in with the units we're working on in class and I'm reluctant to just make an add-on project as we're fast-tracking this class through Standard Grade a year early and can't afford the time.

Luckily we're just finishing a unit on tv and films, so for homework this week they were to visit a French site on the new Narnia movie and download the podcast available there. We'll see how they get on.

Instead of getting 'the dog ate my homework' excuses now I'm getting 'my computer is broken'.

They've just finished writing and recording their own movie reviews onto their ipods. I'd like to create some podcasts now, but I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm hoping a fewer of the keener pupils will figure it out for me!

From Stephen Rafferty

2005-11-28T23:14:00.000Z

Stephen Rafferty is a whizz kid teacher who expands the use of ICT in education almost daily....but he hasn't quite worked out how to blog yet :-) Here are some comments from Stephen...

Using IPod every day.
Re-discovered/discovered music.
Started off a bit sad wearing my earphones everywhere. Now have confidence in “sharing” my music.
Very impressed at what Ipodogogy promised.
Have not quite realised the potential of my IPod yet.
I am happy with viewing, listening and sharing photos and music. I now realise that there’s more to I’Tunes than meets the eye. I’m beginning to get a handle on this but Podcasting…?

Music – excellent.
Photo’s and slide shows – excellent.
Calendars – great to be able to view calendars on the go. Discovered more features in ICal. I now make much better use of my notes for events and “to do” items. Excellent for inserting meeting agenda and minutes.

At our first meeting I raised the question of why IPods could not play video. Then, low and behold, Apple release a new IPod with video. Now that would be useful in my subject.

Our mikes came today – suddenly I see potential.
Recorded a meeting tonight and will send, as minutes, to the members of our team.

I just wish I had more time to get my head round podcasting.

So…
Has it changed my life?
Yes
Has it changed my teaching?
Not yet!
Could it?
I think so.

iPods in the History classroom

2005-11-28T23:11:00.000Z

Going Live

2005-11-22T10:13:00.000Z

Have just finished a small narritive on the first mov of Debussy's orchestral tone poem 'la mer'. It has been mixed down from cubase sx to itunes and then into studywiz for the kids to import into their ipods. Tried to drop some text into the 'lyrics' section of the file... the musical concepts used etc but had a bit of difficulty there. Going to persevere though as it would be nice if the kids could see those words appear as they listen to the music and my narrative.
Working closely with the art department as they pursue 'visual' impressionism and the work of Monet.

David R.

Slacker

2005-11-09T16:16:00.000Z

I feel like a bit of a slacker on the ipod front, so I thought I'd look at some podcasts. I found a French grammar one that tries using relaxation techniques to teach verbs, but it was so dull that the only thing I got out of it was relaxation. I also found the Animal Farm in French... not sure I can use that with my S2s. What I did find as I browsed around the existing podcasts is that a lot of it is really inappropriate for pupils - lots of swearing, etc. So I guess I'd better create something of my own. I'm thinking of getting our French language assistant to record Le petit prince chapter by chapter for my Higher class. Anyone have any great cross-curricular ideas to include me in?

Sharing - "blink"

2005-11-09T12:23:00.000Z

Tried sharing some Mathematical mp3 files using

Edit > Preferences > Sharing

on iTunes. Worked well over the school's network even saw some interesting stuff on other shared folders.

But there is this one called "blink" no idea whos it is and no idea what is on it.

Can anybody shed any light on it

Also if I can share stuff over the school network it must be possible for students to do it. How are we going to monitor that?

Few Ideas for Maths

2005-11-07T09:28:00.000Z

Loaded up a few albums onto the ipod.

Played some Beethoven to my Int2 class to see if it would make them work better. When they saw my playlist they just wanted Queen to be played.

When I was teaching my S4 Credit class a bit about proportion between Voltage and Current I played them Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six - they all thought I was a nutter.

Thought of a few ideas for using ipods in maths. Click here to enlarge

Yvonnes ipod

2005-11-01T08:54:00.000Z

Not having access to a computer or the internet at home has been a bit of a problem! However my whizz kid nephew in Carrickfergus just loved the i pod[his is a lot older] and was extremely helpful over the holiday week.Basically I wanted to download some world war 2 materials-peoples" memories of evacuation,rationing etc. and maybe some songs-sing along with Vera_We'll meet again.....Difficult to get hold of sound archives-Adele helped me with this I've now got quite a few from a project by Enfield Museum and they're really interesting to listen to-which is just as well as I spent a lot of time in A and E and hospitals that week and it was the only thing on my I pod!I I'm interested in maybe recording interviews with folk who were children in the war and the kids could make questionnaires and do interviews Have finally also started to self indulge and got lots of my favourite music on to the Ipod.Quality of sound is fantastic! Trouble is I just spend hours listening and nothing gets done!Y

iPod progress

2005-10-31T15:07:00.000Z

I was off to a slow start - I actually carried my ipod around in my handbag with absolutely nothing on it for 2 weeks thinking I was the only idiot who couldn't figure the thing out. Then a colleague informed me that it was my computer that was holding me back. The computing department has since replaced my brick with a compatable machine and now I too can enjoy podcasts on the way home from work.

I Pods are cool!

2005-10-31T14:52:00.000Z

Hi! Have now managed to download lots of cool tracks - as well as some italian lessons - on to "Poddie" Have recorded my italian class and put some photos and files on too! This is fun!!!!
Jennie

birth of i pod

2005-10-31T13:18:00.000Z

Many songs have been imported from my c.d. collection. Up to 600 + now. There are some photos to look at while listening too! Have bought a docking station to play music from i pod in my kitchen too.
Spoke with Barbara Dingwall(p.t art) about liasing over a possible curriculum package on impressionism in music and and art. Possibility of S2 taking some debussy away to listen to while using images of monet as a stimulus. Will speak further with Babs tomorrow!

cheers

Partial success!

2005-10-10T09:21:00.000+01:00

Tuesday Evening 4/10/05
It is always scary when you start to input new software on computers, especially if your husband runs his business from the one at home! So I decided to get from behind the sofa and tackle the ipod installation CD, whilst remembering to charge up the actual ipod. I took the route of loading the software without the ipod being connected to the PC. Not a decision taken lightly...I swithered over it for about 15 minutes. Will I , won't I!! The installation was swift and I then progressed onto loading the latest version of itunes from the apple website. Again this was straightforward.

After all that exertion I decided to leave it for the night, also making sure the ipod was fully charged.

Wednesday afternoon 5/10/05

Attended a meeting about this blog+ then being a slacker (sorry part -time job sharer!) I went home and continued where I left off...I connected the ipod to the PC. I had to run an initialisation procedure and it asked, sorry told me to re-format the ipod. Was going to phone Steve, but instead decided to be bold, brave, stupid and just pressed the OK button. Well it seemed to work.

I was on a roll so quickly located some of these podcast things. I downloaded them to itunes and then transferred them to the ipod.

Thursday morning 6/10/05

In anticipation of a trip away to see my teen idol, I took advantage of downloading a couple of his CD's to listen to. This is extremely easy, once you notice the massive 'Download CD' button on itunes. The rest of the day (instead of cleaning house + preparing kids clothes for school next day) was spent familiarising myself with how to control the ipod. Did this with trial + error. Similar technology to a laptop, you need to use your fingers!

Monday 10/10/05

Quickly typing from my fly infested library! I will now attempt to think of educational uses of the ipod (shame!) I do have to work out how to put photos onto the ipod, as my initial attempt failed. Also I need to use it as a portable disk.

I'll report any more findings later. Now where is the fly spray?...

Curriculum areas

2005-10-05T10:30:00.000+01:00

The staff involved with the project will be getting access to the blog today. We are well represented in terms of curriclum areas. We have staff from:

Art and Design

Craft and Design

Modern Languages

Geography

Physical Education

English

School library

Computing

Science and Chemistry

Music

Mathematics

History

Since most staff have had a few days with their iPods we'll be asking staff to post a comment about their initial experience so far and their personal aims for this project.

Friday

2005-10-04T09:01:00.000+01:00

It was great to see so many down here on Friday; apologies again for the rather cramped rooms - the enthusiasm of the Gracemount staff for this project has pleasantly taken us by surprise which is great. Glad to hear from Steven in this blog that you've begun to make progress and I llok forward to seeing how things develop.

Staff receive their iPods

2005-10-03T15:03:00.000+01:00

Most of the staff involved in the project received their iPods on Friday 30/09/05 at Edinburgh's eTeam offices.

They also received an introduction to iPods from Apple representatives Jim Elder, Claire MacRae and Stuart Anderson. Garry from Kudlian also demonstrated their new podcasting software which is freely available from their website while it is still in development. Geoff Elwood, CEO of Etech also gave a short presentation. We'll be using Etech's virtual learning environment Studywiz to support the delivery of content to the staff and student iPods.

Staff took their iPods away for the weekend and at least some have already managed to get some music and photos onto them.

This week the staff will get access to the blog so hopefully we'll start to see comments from them.

What is the Gracemount iPod Project?

2005-09-30T10:21:00.000+01:00

Gracemount High School is located in the south-east of Edinburgh, Scotland. We are a secondary level school and we cater for students in the age range 12-18.

We are about to undertake a project that will look at the potential benefit to learning and teaching of Apple iPods.

A number of staff will receive an iPod each and on the 25th October 2005 a class of pupils will also receive an iPod each.

This blog is for staff to share their experiences of using the iPods.