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Podcasts as Assignments
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Do you have assignments where students create their own
podcasts?
If you're thinking about having students create their own
podcasts, this is a very insightful and honest piece about the mistakes one professor made
with a podcast assignment. The follow-up to that article is this
blog post about getting student feedback on
podcasting assignments (note that you could adapt this survey
for any type of instructional technology used in your course).
The Koehler center has podcast-related info on our audio resources page.
On a related note, I think podcasts made by others (either
radio professionals, scholars, or community members) make wonderful
"reading" assignments. Have you used podcasts in this way in your
classes? Are there certain topics or podcast producers that worked well for
you? Are there lessons you've learned the hard way? Please share in the
comments.
Last, if you've had
to adapt a podcast assignment (either a production- or listening-based one) for
accessibility concerns, we'd love to know the accommodations you made_____________________________________________________________________________
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Digital Note-taking
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I was a pretty traditional spiral-notebook note-taker in
college. My one organizational innovation was to color-code them by subject and
then keep using the same notebook semester after semester until it was full.
Also, of course, I still have them all. Why? I have no idea.
These days, there some great digital options for note-taking.
You can use these tips for your own organization
or share them with your students (Bonus: your students can hold dear your
lectures without clinging to old spiral notebooks years down the road!).
Evernote: A free, cloud-based note-taking
program / app with a premium upgrade option ($9 per month / $45 per year) that
gets you collaboration rights, video privileges, faster uploads, better
support, and increased offline access to all notebooks. In addition to text,
notes can include images, audio and video files, and Word and PDF files.
There's even a web interface with a bookmark clipping tool. In addition, your
notes are searchable, tag-able, and easy to share with others on a wide variety
of different devices and via Facebook and Twitter. This is a succinct summary of Evernote and a profile of its use in the
elementary/secondary setting. In my mind, use in such settings
is a plus since it suggests that the program must be fairly user-friendly.
However, don't let the elementary/secondary use lead you to think that Evernote
lacks functionality or reach: December 2012 is expected to bring Evernote for Business,
designed with enhanced sharing, security, and clear content ownership rules.
OneNote: A
Microsoft product, with apps for the iPhone and iPad (you can use OneNote on an
Android phone, but some users claim functionality is limited). Note that you
won't find OneNote on the Mac version of Office, but it is included on the
Windows version; if you want to buy it as a stand-alone program the cost $79,
although student / university discounts may bring that price down. The web app
is free and the mobile app allows 500 notes for free. Your notes can contain
typed or stylus-written text, images, audio, video, and Word or PDF files.
OneNote will even index audio/video files, making searching within your notes
much easier. OneNote will sync your notes among multiple devices, and will
indicate the contributions of collaborators in your shared notebooks by adding
their content in a new color.
This is a very detailed comparison of Evernote and
OneNote.
Google Docs: A cloud-based solution with a
price that can't be beat (free, although extra storage can be purchased).
Accessibility to all types of content in Google Docs may be limited on some
mobile devices, however. Unlike the other note-taking set-ups in which you are
essentially adding text or files to pages, Google Docs lets you begin with
different document types: spreadsheets, drawings, presentations, and the
traditional document. This can be very useful, depending on what kind of
information you're taking down. You can insert images, links, equations,
drawings, and special characters (and video, in a Google Presentation).
Simultaneous collaboration is easy, and you can download your Google Docs
into Word/Excel/PowerPoint, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip files for
back-up.
Simplenote: Another free, cloud-based
option (although $20 per year will rid you of advertising). The goal here is
simplicity: you type, your notes are tag-able, searchable, and shareable, and
then you can share you notes by exporting them to email (or using a third-party
program to get them in other formats). There are no bells and whistles, but
what it does, it reportedly does very, very well.
CourseNotes: A student-focused note-taking
product for Macs and iPads (each version costs $4). In addition to typed text
notes, drawing, and the ability to import and annotate photos, CourseNotes also
allows lecture recording, the creation of to-do lists with assignment due dates
(and alarms!), and note-sharing with others via Facebook, email, or over a
local network. CourseNotes will also wirelessly sync between Macs and
iPads. (Although marketed for students, I actually see a lot of potential
for instructors to turn this product on its head and make great use of some of
its features.)
Penultimate: This $1 iPad-only app is
designed for stylus users who want to able to hand-write notes on their iPad as
if they were using a tablet (or even a piece of paper!). You'll need a stylus,
as there's no keyboard option - but the program's ability to capture detail
combined with the variety of color, line-thickness, and paper background
options (including importing / taking photos) means that you can produce clear
and comprehensive renderings. And, for clumsy folks like me, there's even a
wrist-protection feature, so stray marks from your wrist are not accidentally
recorded. Your notes can be exported to PDF and saved for back-up or emailed,
and you can also share files via iTunes. However, there doesn't seem to be a way
for multiple users to actively collaborate simultaneously in one notebook.
From a device-specific standpoint, this is a thorough round-up
of iPad note-taking options.
Are you a digital
notes-taker? What are you using? Do you use a stylus? If so, do you have a
favorite? If you're on the stylus fence (and what a stylish fence it is! Sorry,
I couldn't resist!), this is a nice review of the many stylus
options out there. If your students are taking digital notes,
what products do you see your students using?
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