One True Media

Are you looking for a safe environment to post student videos? Does your district block YouTube? One True Media is the answer! This is a free site that offers two features that I use. First, you can upload videos that are already completed and post them on a private Share Page that only your students have access to. Second, you can create your own videos using their step-by-step easy instructions. Some of the options include: uploading your own images and video clips, editing and sequencing, applying a montage style and adding music. Once you have completed or uploaded your creation, you can burn a professional quality DVD for a very reasonable price and you can design your own DVD case cover as well as a design that is burned directly onto your DVD. Although there is a public gallery of videos, you have the option of keeping your work private. Another advantage of One True Media is that you can share your videos in many ways, including Blogger, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Here is a video that I uploaded to One True Media and selected this blog to share it on by using the Embed Code:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So....what are you waiting for?

Thank You, Some Novel Ideas

Mrs. Friedman's TechTalk has been awarded a Kreativ Blogger Award by Some Novel Ideas!! Thank you so much to Stacy Nockowitz for recognizing me with this wonderful award. I'm still amazed that people are actually reading my blog!

Some Novel Ideas is an awesome blog written by Stacy Nockowitz, a middle school teacher in Ohio. Her blog focuses on book reviews, discussions, and curriculum plans for the Middle school classroom. I highly recommend visiting Stacy's site at: http://somenovelideas.typepad.com/some-novel-ideas/

The next step (it's part of winning this award) is to write seven things about myself that you wouldn't necessarily know. Here goes:

1) Given the choice of ANY single activity, I will always choose to read a great book. If I can read at the beach, it becomes a perfect day!

2) I'm addicted to coffee.

3) I can't sing at all. I try, but it's mostly painful for those around me to listen.

4) I hate cleaning.

5) I love teaching but have a secret wish to be an actress.

6) Someday, I want to drive across the USA and visit as many states as possible.

7) My family is my life.

The next step is to choose other bloggers to pass this award to. I'm going to work on that for my next blog post.

Thanks again, Stacy.

Educational Podcasting

I am really excited about the possibilities of using podcasting techniques in the classroom. I recently introduced my students to Audacity, a free software program used to record and edit a podcast. My 8th grade students created a radio station, WRIS 106.2, to produce segments for our middle school. My 6th grade students create businesses for our Real World Technology class, and I had them use podcasting to create advertising commercials. It's so much fun, and a great way to excite students! Here are the outstanding results:

WRIS 106.2 Radio

Business Commercials

Screencasting

What is screencasting? Well….it’s basically a way to capture the screen activity on a computer to create a movie that can be shown to an audience later. You can use screencasting to demonstrate the use of a software program, Internet research, Google tools, or anything else that you use on a computer. This is a very powerful way to communicate knowledge and ideas.

I began using screencasting this summer in order to provide professional development opportunities online for the staff in my district. Teachers in my district are required to create and maintain staff web pages using SchoolCenter. We offer classes on how to set up a home page, contact page, document manager, blogs, etc. I noticed that after each class, teachers still had questions or forgot some of the basic features. Now, the staff can watch a short video online and usually their questions are answered! Sure saves me a lot of time.

There are many different screencasting software out there, but my preference is Jing. It is free and very easy to use. I then upload my videos to Screencast. This site provides free hosting of screencasts, and then you can link to each screencast from your own site.

Check out my Screencast Google Site

Painting Doors

My school was recently painted. We used to have beautiful art all over the walls of the school, along with the teachers' doors. Now every hall and door is the same color: basic beige. Our art teacher has a program where students can paint the doors of individual classrooms. I took advantage of this and begged him to have my door painted. Luckily, I was one of only a few teachers who got artistic doors this year. (The rest will be painted next year). I chose my favorite artist Peter Max. The image is Heart Series III and I think my students did an amazing job. Thank you to Ellie, Izzy, Lilly, Jessica and Chanel for a job well done.

Photoshop is not just for Photos

My eighth grade students have been using Adobe Photoshop for the past few years. Photoshop is an incredible software program allowing users to manipulate images in many ways. You can simply fix a red eye in a photograph or create dynamic artistic projects using all the many tools available.
After playing with this program for several years, I realized that we could create computer animations as well. My students used different images in one scene, and then imported them into the animation creator. The results were outstanding and a few samples can be seen below.

Chris's Car Race

Matt's Mario

Emily's Fishtank

To see the rest of the projects, click on my Student Animations page.

I Love Roxer!

I have been using Roxer in my classroom for the past two years in my web site design class. It is a great way to introduce students to WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing. The site offers many different options, including YouTube uploads, creative backgrounds, text and image design, and even a Google Calendar.

One of the best features is that students do not need an email address in order to create an account. I basically used the students' website topics for the web address. So, for example, one student created a site for a book report on Animal Farm: http://animalfarmhild.roxer.com

Here are some of my favorite student sites:
http://annie-cookies.roxer.com/ (History of Cookies)
http://cassandra-candy.roxer.com/ (History of Candy)
http://catherine-jk8.roxer.com/ (Jon and Kate + 8)
http://alli-broadway.roxer.com/ (Broadway)
http://moviemaking.roxer.com/ (Filmmaking)

Digital Storytelling

My 8th grade Project Technology class just completed a unit on Digital Storytelling. This is an excellent way to engage your students in the ancient art of "storytelling". Each student chose a topic in which they were interested and created a digital story. This type of activity can be used in many different classrooms, in all areas of the curriculum. At the end of the project, we watched everyone's "story" and many of them brought tears to my eyes! Samples of this project can be seen at my Google Site: Digital Stories Project

Google Historical Voyages and Events

Roosevelt Intermediate School, Westfield, New Jersey is part of "Google Historical Voyages and Events" - a website dedicated to the "explorers, voyages, events, and historical backgrounds of countries throughout the World." The "Google Historical Voyages and Events" website has contributions from schools all over the World, as they tell about the histories of their areas or study famous historical events and people. Our school has joined this project as part of a global learning experience. This project is open to schools all over the World. According to the project site: "We invite a 'global community' of schools to share this site with us. We can learn about each other's countries as we contribute to this site. Every community, every town, every country has a past." Thank you to Carol LaRow for creating this collaborative project!


Students in my 8th grade Project Technology class used digital stories to showcase the biographies and many accomplishments of their personal heroes. Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences and insights. (Leslie Rule, Digital Storytelling Association) The images used in these digital stories were found utilizing Google Images. In some cases, YouTube videos were incorporated into the stories.

The Digital Stories Google Site: http://sites.google.com/site/digitalstoriesproject/
Who Is Your Hero? Google Site: http://sites.google.com/site/herowebsiteproject/

Google Teacher Academy '09

Thank You Kevin Jarrett for this great video! You captured the magic of our day.