[eMINTS] Free Programs for Teachers

[Sharon Sumner]

Ok.....just one more thing.

AUDACITY

I taught my 83 year old mother to use Audacity.....yes, my hair is much grayer than before I started this project.

Our goal was for her to record stories from her memory of her family history.  She is the only one left of her immediate family and we were getting ready for a reunion.  She wanted to share these memories with all the children and their families.

I gave her some step by step directions and worked with her several times until she got the hang of starting a new project, clicking on the record and stop buttons and saving her individual stories to a folder.  Then, she was on a roll.

She started by creating an outline of major events such as "Moving from Colorado to Missouri; Camping by the Rivers; Skinny-Dipping; Mary's First Date."

My mother loves to talk and soon she became one with the microphone.  It was amazing.  She started out talking about her brothers and sisters and soon she was so caught up in her stories, she began talking to them as if they were right there with her.

Once she was finished, I put all the clips together into one long audacity file.  I then burned it to a CD and made copies for all the family members.  My cousins loved it.  Many had never heard some of these stories.  They are still talking about the CD a year later and have told me they play it again every once in awhile.

This whole project was priceless and worth all the gray hairs I endured.  I highly recommend doing something like this with your older relatives.  Their stories are too important to lose.



Sharon Sumner
Technology Coordinator
Sullivan School District
1073 East Vine Street
Sullivan, MO  63080
573-468-5181
sumners at eagles.k12.mo.us

-----Original Message-----
From: emints-bounces at lists.emints.org [mailto:emints-bounces at lists.emints.org] On Behalf Of Julie Fessenden
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:11 AM
To: emints at lists.emints.org
Subject: Re: [eMINTS] Free Programs for Teachers

I used Audacity for the first time last week.  My husband uses it to convert sermons for our church website so he gave me a few tips, but it was amazingly easy to use.  I recorded my kids, deleted dead space, enhanced the quiet voices, exported as mp3 and then uploaded to my website.  I thought podcasts would be really hard, but this really changed my mind.  Since it is summer school my only goal was just recording the kids.  I'm hoping to do a lot more informational ones next year and want to add music to the next one.

Julie Fessenden
5th Grade
Oakwood Elementary

>>> "Josh Bennett" <JBennett at sparta.k12.mo.us> 06/11/08 9:50 AM >>>
I am like you, James... I just discovered PhotoStory and Movie Maker. I
also have seen people talk about Audacity, so I am going to experiment
with that over the summer and see how I can incorporate that into
instruction.

I'm also looking for different widgets and other tools I can make
available to parents.

In regard to the Worldwide Telescope, have you looked at Stellarium?
It's an open-source program, and allows students to manipulate space to
see different stars, planets, etc.

Josh

Josh Bennett
4th Grade eMINTS
Sparta Elementary School
jbennett at sparta.k12.mo.us

>>> HOSKINSJ at troy.k12.mo.us 6/10/2008 3:58 PM >>>
Just wondering if anyone has any cool new programs or "application"
sites that they are looking at using for next year.

I am going to be putting out picasa, google earth, photo story 3,
moviemaker and some free plugins etc...
Maybe worldwide telescope - similar to google earth only for space
-made by microsoft.

Has anyone ever tried tuxpaint? or tried the student/teacher tools from
Microsoft called Learning Essentials?

Always welcome new ideas!

JJH

James Hoskins
Technology Specialist
Lincoln County R-III Schools
951 West College
Troy, MO 63379
636-462-6098  - 212


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