Edustange

It may not be all that new to most people, but I got very excited today embedding Ustream into my wikispace and this WP blog. I probably should have explored some other other software options, but I had this Ustream account established already. I was home ill this morning. Just for the fun of it I started a broadcast my students could watch and respond to where they were working in the computer lab. They thought it was wonderful. I imagine one or two of them will begin broadcasting themselves. When I returned to the school this afternoon I paused to speak with some older students. One of them had been in the computer lab when I came on line. He enthusiastically told the other boys he was with all about it. That felt good.

I continued playing with the embedding and added a twitter feed to the wikipage. Dean Shareski caught my tweet and patiently watched my next non-broadcast. I mentioned that Ustream was nice but I thought Elluminate was a better option. My free Elluminate Account is limited to three users; not something useful with my classroom. Dean quickly rattled off some free alternatives. I’ll have to ask him to repeat some of them.

I was playing with the program before I went home this afternoon. I was curious about the efficacy of my little webcam with its built-in mike to pick up a a presentation at the front of my classroom. I set Ustream to record and went to the front of the room to ramble in my teacher voice. It worked far better than I thought it would, and I was quite surprised to discover this evening that the recording is now on my broadcast list. The feeling of excitement is salutary. I am not travelling over uncharted territory here. It may no longer be cutting edge. It is new to me and I am excited to have learned something. Thats howI want my nine and ten-year-olds feel.