Digital Scrapbooking

To read my post for W200 on my experiences with digital scrapbooking, go to http://knicoson.edublogs.org/2009/02/26/emerging-technology-2-digital-scrapbooking/.

I love xkcd and I LOVE Douglas Adams.

Module 4 Part 1 for W200

Click here to read my article summary for Module 4 Part 1 for W200.

W200 Module 3 Part 4

My Module 3 Part 4 Posts are ready on my edublog if you want to check them out.

Technology and the Language Barrier

Click below to read my post on Technology and the Language Barrier on my edublog.

http://knicoson.edublogs.org/2009/02/13/technology-and-the-language-barrier/

Emerging Technologies

This post is cross posted from my edublog.

Module 3 Part 3 for W200 begins with podcasting. I'm feeling a bit triumphant right now because the only thing I knew about podcasting before this module was how to watch and listen to them. I've listened to Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty tips, for instance (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com), and who hasn't checked out a You Tube video now and then? After doing some research, I've now learned to record and broadcast an audio file on this blog and I've even uploaded it to my wiki.

According to wikipedia," A podcast is a series of audio or video digital media files which are distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers." (Click the quote to read more.)

When I embarked on this assignment, I checked out the link http://epnweb.org/report.php?request_id=2885&openpod=9 to do a little research. There I found an audio podcasting tutorial at this link: http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial092.shtml. After going through the tutorial, I made my first attempt to get my voice out there on the internet.

To begin, I opened the sound recorder (programs<accessories<entertainment<sound recorder) and plugged in my little computer microphone. Most laptops have them, but mine didn't produce very good quality audio, so I dug up the one we have in the desk drawer. After adjusting the audio controls (click the sound icon in your system tray and choose properties from the drop down menu), I was cooking with gas.

After I saved my recording as a wav file, I dropped it into i-tunes and converted it to an mp3. To do this I googled "wav to mp3 on itunes" or some such search and got this website, http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2006/01/11/podcasting-part4/, which was very helpful. The conversion was a success.

Then I uploaded it into this post.

Click below to here my first attempt at podcasting. Be prepared to be underwhelmed.

01-isthisthingon

This exercise was very timely for me, because I've been discussing the use of podcasts on the website I administrate for my job http://fh.msdwt.k12.in.us/ with the media specialist (my boss and mentor). I hope to podcast the news program the students produce every week on our website.

Attention fellow W200 Students:

Hi! I'm Kristen Nicoson. I'm a part-time student, part-time school library assistant, and a more than full-time mother. I'm currently pursuing my bachelors degree in Elementary Education with the intention of going straight on for my Masters degree in Library Science. When it's all said and done, I hope to be a Media Specialist in a local elementary school.

I've done a lot of work and play on the internet, including posts on message boards, website administration, diet tracking and learning to knit. I even have a Facebook page. What I've always avoided was blogging. I've read a number of blogs of people I find interesting, but I've long made it my motto not to wax poetic about my fairly ordinary life on an internet journaling site.

Nevertheless, here I am on blogger all in the pursuit of higher education. Setting up the blog was fairly easy. After coming up with a clever title for the blog (I'm a librarian, I like books, see what I mean..nudge nudge?), I picked a theme for the layout and added some gadgets.

The gadgets I added, as you can see are a list of authors I like and a link list of websites I frequent. The user interface for personalizing this blog is pretty easy! The other gadgets I added are a couple of pictures of me that I uploaded from my computer. I wanted to add the picture of my family in the sidebar as one of the gadgets, but it was too big to put there in full size, and too small to make out the people in the photo if I shrunk it to fit, so I created my first blog post to feature the picture instead. On the posting screen, I clicked the little photo icon in the toolbar and uploaded the family picture from my computer straight into the post. Instead of doing a traditional blog post, I just wrote a caption to the picture underneath it and centered the text.

The picture of me in the goofy orange hat on the sidebar is my tribute to Jayne Cobb from the now defunct show Firefly. Fox cancelled it after one season, even though it is the best television show ever created.

If you want to link something in your blog, like I linked the word Firefly to the Firefly wiki, just highlight the word you want as a link and click the little globe with the chain in the toolbar. Then copy the web address you want to link to into that box and voila!

The Family

My parents, their dog, my husband Dave and my kids, Raistlin and Conner.