Ed Tech Talk: Recent Episodes
Chris Zirkle
I am a Digital Learning Coordinator for the Wake County Public School System. I love technology, but I always first say that technology is just a tool, it is not the solution. I integrate technology to engage students and to enrich and enhance content and curriculum. Visit my website at https://mrzirkle.edublogs.org/
Teachers us Canva for Education of Adobe Express to design elements for their Canvas courses. This podcast discusses both digital tools.
Do you have more than one subject? Do you want to have one course or more than one? We will discuss this in this episode.
Pages are powerful. This podcast episode discusses home pages and how to use a button to get your banner to disappear.
Canvas may be new to you. When you look at it you may not grasp what you see. This podcast compares Google Classroom to Canvas to help you begin to understand the concept of Canvas in relationship to Google Classroom.
The Wake County DLCs exist to support schools, staff, and students with digital learning design and execution. The list below highlights some of the most requested areas of support. Contact your DLCs today to schedule a consultation to determine how the DLCs can collaborate with your school, staff, and students.
Visit bit.ly/swdlcsupport for more details.
🏫 DLCs Support School Leaders and School Based Teams by: * Supporting the Canvas Implementation Plan and Canvas Crews. * Provide Canvas Kick Off Presentation : Fun & Functional Features of Canvas. * Assisting with visioning and the inclusion of blended learning into school based plans. * Sharing the DLC newsletter with Instructional Facilitators and School Library Media Specialists. * Maintaining the DLC website that houses the podcast, blog, newsletter, digital resources and more. * Providing District level online and face-to-face courses for digital learning credit through Wake Learns. * Providing guidance to teachers and the MTAC in choosing digital tools and resources for learning.
Show Notes - to access the show notes please visit mrzirkle.com.
This episode looks at the file import options for the digital whiteboard application, Explain Everything.
Math Teachers, calling all WCPSS Math teachers. This Friday April 24th at 1:00 we will demonstrate how to use a whiteboard app to create engaging and impactful math screencast videos for your students. This app will work with your new touch screen laptops and stylus.We will have time for questions and answers. Join the Google Meet meeting by clicking on this link to get the nickname to join. You will not want to miss this demonstration. Contact czirkle@wcpss.net to officially be invited to the demonstration.
Show Notes
We have been recording our podcast episodes remotely. We would meet online in a Google Meet meeting. I would screen cast the meeting, then I would edit the audio in Adobe Premiere Pro. I would then upload the audio back to Anchor. The problem is that the quality of our audio was of poor quality. Some of us have external microphones and our audio was acceptable. Others were using the internal microphones on our laptops. Our audio levels did not match and there was a dramatic difference in the quality.
There is a solution to this issue. The Anchor app has features that the browser versions does not have. The phone and tablet app allows you to invite guests to your recording. The guests do need Anchor accounts. When the guest join the recording starts. If all of you use your phones, the audio levels will be at similar levels and the quality will be acceptable. I still edit my audio to level the audio level to -6 decibels.
The app also has a few other features that the browser version does not have. I recommend you install the app on your Apple or Android tablet to explore them. The following tutorial demonstrates how to invite guest into your recording.
Show Notes
Some teachers are wanting to use their new touch screen laptops and the stylus. I have been researching various digital whiteboard applications, testing them, and noting the features each one has. Teachers can create screencast videos of their lessons using a digital whiteboard to house the content of their lesson. Teachers can then deliver their lessons to their students via the LMS they are using. Students can then access the lesson at their convenience.
In my school district, Seesaw is approved to be used by students k-2. Third-12th grade teachers can not use Seesaw with their students. The following video tutorial demonstrates how to use the digital whiteboard in Seesaw to create screen cast videos. Seesaw has some attractive features, you can import backgrounds, add text,add images, and create movable/drag-able images and graphics.
Show NotesTeachers across the world are meeting online with video conference tools like Google Meet. These meetings are not intended to be used to deliver instruction to students. The deliver of the instruction occurs asynchronously for a variety of reasons. Live/synchronous meetings with students are intended to be utilized to check in with students, facilitate discussions, answer questions students may have about the instruction that was delivered asynchronously, and provide students with feedback.
This episode features best practices for video meetings and they were developed by the Wake County Public School System.