Repurpose

Here’s how simple this is.
Go to Postcard.FM.
Upload a picture.  Upload an .mp3.  Enter an e-mail address.  Click “preview.”

Voilà! You have a link to a picture and audio file hosted on the web.  Congratulations.  Now you can share what your students created!

Here’s the Postcard FM interface.

It really is that easy.

The biggest concern most teachers will have right off the bat is the e-mail.  That is to say, not wanting to use a student e-mail or your own, since the e-mail used appears at the top of the “postcard” that’s produced.  Postcard.FM’s terms of service prohibit making a false identify, which is what you’d be doing if you entered an imaginary e-mail.   I e-mailed Postcard.FM’s support folks, and in their response they said they were really trying to prevent spammers from abusing the service.  The solution would be to have your tech folks add “students@myschool.org” (just fill in your school name) as a valid e-mail that you monitor, or to get a free web-based e-mail–such as Gmail–to use just for this purpose.

Postcard.FM would be great for a fast student project.  Since the interface is so simple and streamlined, even young kids and less-technically-inclined grown-ups are going to be able to do this, since it requires only the ability to browse for and locate a file.  The most difficult part of the process will be making the mp3 file to upload, but with a free download called Audacity (for us Windows people) and a desktop microphone, you’ll be all set.  (Mac computer people have iLife and so don’t get to complain about making mp3’s.)

The uses are unlimited–use a copyright-friendly historical photo and have kids record commentary about that period in history.  Have a child draw a picture and tell the story.  Use the postcards to greet students or staff who are recovering from illness at home.  Make a monthly or weekly series of postcards and you have the world’s easiest “radio show.”

Here’s my postcard!

My friend Jody has this theory that you should never buy a new car. For one thing, buying a used one is so much nicer to the planet–why let one more car rust in a junkyard? But she also makes the point that it’s nicer to get behind the wheel of a car that you know has been driven successfully, and all the bugs shaken out.

Web apps are kind of like that. I tried a site called Glogster a few months ago, and was really hooked. The site has only gotten better and more educator-friendly over time. Glogster lets you make a “glog,”–think of it as a poster that you build online. Just imagine that old posterboard science fair tri-fold, now with all kinds of multimedia build right in! You can include pictures, video clips, audio, music, and text. There’s an extensive file of clipart and animated goodies free for the using, too. Glogster accounts are completely free.

It appears to me that the original target audience was teenagers, who jumped right on the social aspect of the site–you can comment on other people’s creations, invite them to be your friends, and send little messages about everybody’s latest work. However, the potential for educational use is huge: it can be used to build interactive web pages without the least knowledge of HTML; to feature a student project, as a student news website…and lots more. You can also make a glog and embed it in your own webpage, as you would a TeacherTube video.

If you have ever located a file on your computer, you’ll find Glogster easy. You can even try building one without registering. Click on the kind of element you would like to add, such as text, audio, or graphics, and follow the prompts to choose from Glogster’s library or to upload your own images and sounds. Click on any element to select it, change it, or delete it.

Here’s an example. Click on the little arrow on the “TV screen” to play the video portion.

I will confess that I had to look at the HTML code and change the “width” and the “height” figures in order to fit into my edublogs page, but that was an easy fix–I changed the height and width to something around 400, to fit into a blog post. Most of the time, the easiest thing to do is just provide a link to the whole page.

The site is not without problems–some school districts may look askance at the social aspects–friends lists, commenting, etc., and also at some of the graphics. Browsing the site, you can see one heck of a lot of copyright issues. Making glogs with kids would be an excellent opportunity for some brushing up on citations, copyright, and fair use. (Bring on those ALA 21st Century skills!) In an e-mail exchange with a friendly Glogster rep, he commented that Glogster was considering some educator features. We’ll see soon what progress they’ve made.

Here’s a glog (I know, the word is SO strange…just keep thinking “poster” or “interactive webpage!”) for professional development Here’s an interactive glog for kids, embedded in a PBwiki page. And a glog made by a seventh grader as a student project.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so what’s a picture with words attached worth? How about if we add music?

If you haven’t yet played with Photostory, run right over and get it. Yes, it’s from evil giant Microsoft and it won’t run on your Mac (but you have iLife on your Mac, so no complaining!) but it’s easy, and it’s free. How easy? I’ve used it (with guidance) with kids in first grade. If you can browse for files, something everybody does, and have access to a computer microphone, you can use Photostory.

Basically, the program asks you to upload your pictures. Then you can add narration for each picture, add a pre-recorded audio file or some music, and save. It’s a little harder to get your video online that with Animoto (see below) but you have much, much, more control over your content, and no limits on length. Once you’ve saved your .wmv file, you can easily upload to Teacher Tube or to your own website or blog.

How could this be used? To record and share library or classroom events, to create narrated stories (just upload images of kids’ artwork instead of photos), to create slideshows without the hassle of all the “stuff” kids want to add to PowerPoints. I, for one, would like to see a student slideshow with no clipart and no flying text! With Photostory, the kids are focused on the images and the audio. Older students can add more sophisticated looking transitions, or alter the timeline to keep a particularly important image on the screen for a longer time. Titles and text can be added to any slide.

Here’s my video.

I did discover that Photostory has an annoying habit of “fading out” the last few seconds of your music or audio file, but I solved that problem by recording about 10 seconds of silence when I was done recording my voice. Worked like a charm.