My Beauty Best Teacher

I love podcasting in the classroom. I just think there are so many uses for it. But sometimes it can be difficult to find a program that allows you to record and publish for free or minimal costs. I'm always on the lookout for a good, free website that might fit my needs more closely.

I recently stumbled upon Audioboo, and I thought I would share it with you. Like most other recording and/or hosting sites I've found for podcasting in the classroom so far, there are pros and cons to the system, but I'll let you decide for yourself whether or not Audioboo is for you.

Before I write anything further on Audioboo, you should know that Audioboo classifies users' uploaded/recorded audio files as "boos." Knowing that information will make deciphering some of my points below much easier! :)

Pros

1. Anyone can sign up for Audioboo for free. 
2. You can record/upload "boos" straight from your smartphone, via the free apps. I love that you can record/upload on the go like that! Audioboo is also in the process of adding more apps for other smartphones and products, because its mission is to become the "go to" audio file website.
3. Other users can choose to "follow" you, which means they will see all of your updates automatically. 
4. You can link to various social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc). 
5. Your "boos" can be listened to via iTunes, which I find really neat!
6. You can add photos, tags (to categorize your "boos") and locations to your uploads.
7. If you've upgraded to a Plus account, you have the option of recording up to 30 minutes. If you've upgraded to a Pro account, you can record for as long as you'd like. 

Cons

1. Recorded files can only be 3 minutes long, unless you want to upgrade your account.
2. The company is based in London, so the upgrade cost is not in USD. The upgrade cost for a Plus account is £60, and you have to contact the company directly to inquire about a Pro account's costs. According to this London Currency Converter website, that equals about $83.25 in USD, which is much more than I'm willing to pay yearly for 30 minutes of recordings...
3. No real privacy options. I'd be wary of letting my students post much on the "boos" because I'd be scared that there would be too much identifying information included. Private "boos" are available for the Pro account, but

In any case, as long as you're willing to limit your recordings to <3 minutes each,  I think Audioboo would be great for the classroom! You can check out my ideas for podcasting in the classroom by clicking here, and you can check out my other suggestions for recording/uploading audio files here by clicking here.
How Do I Start?

1. Go to http://audioboo.fm and click "sign in/sign up" in the top right corner. 
2. Verify your account via an e-mail that Audioboo sends to the e-mail address with which you used to sign up. 
3. Make sure your pop-ups are disabled.
4. Once you're logged in, click the "start recording/upload file" in the green button on the upper right side of the screen. 
5. A pop-up window will appear and ask if you want to record or upload. I clicked record, but I suppose you could click upload and add a file that you've created with another program (such as Apple's GarageBand). 
6. Start talking and recording (with the help of your computer's microphone). Save and upload it to your profile. 

It's really that easy. 

I'm attracted to Audioboo because of the free 3 minutes deal, but I LOVE the fact that it has its own free iPhone app. I use my iPhone for everything, and I'm so much more likely to use a product when there's an app for it, just because it presents such flexibility, mobility, and convenience. I'm anxious to try Audioboo in my classroom!

Since my my last post (My Personal Experience Fighting the Worship of Earth Hour) was so serious, I'm going to follow it up with a lighter post today, about stuff that I find funny.

First, take a look at the picture of the bear- according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service office in Kalispell, Montana, that little fella has taken to sitting every day at the picnic table apparently waiting to be fed and to have his winter den dug by government employees. Although he once was self-sufficient, he now begs for a handout every day from our generous government. Because of this, residents have taken to calling him Bearack Obama!

Next, according to the Detroit News, a new industry is starting up in Detroit, and I suspect that it actually is the fast-growing industry in the city (other than working for the government). The new industry is urban hunting and skinning. Yes, like a scene out of I Am Legend, the wilderness is retaking the city of Detroit, and the animal population is moving into areas that were once inhabited by productive men. Years of Democrat control in action!

The story in the Detroit News is the story of a young 69-year old entrepreneur, who has to supplement his Social Security checks by hunting raccoons in the city of Detroit. Apparently this guy kills coons with the help of his rifle and coon dog, butchers the meat, and sells it to local residents, and he also sells the skins- but doesn't pay taxes on these sales (must be a Democrat). The meat is not USDA approved (probably something to do with rabies), but the video about the story (go to the link for the article to watch it and howl with laughter) shows coon meat being served with liver and onions and Faygo red pop- just the way mom made it!

In other news, Obama recently was in England, and since he had to talk to people over there, he brought with him 5 speech-writers and 12 teleprompters for the weekend. I don't think that was enough- I heard some of his stammering and stuttering in a press conference- but still- 12 teleprompters? Can't you just bring one and move it from place to place? Or do they have to put a separate one up everywhere he goes and load it with his thoughts?

Sadly the teleprompter didn't let his wife know that you aren't supposed to touch the Queen of England- it's apparently a big no-no. Doesn't anyone on his staff do any research on this stuff? I guess not- Michelle put her arm around the Queen and gave her a noogie on national television- probably not a good idea, but at least her arms were fantastic!

Lastly, least we forget how low the bar was for Presidents (and yet Obama still gets under it), here is a hilarious clip from a George W. Bush press conference where he is talking about fighting the biggest threat to our lives- zombies. That's right- laugh if you want, but apparently zombies are a big threat, and I am glad our President did everything he could to wipe them out- click on the link if you don't believe me. Enjoy!

NOTE to NEW READERS: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to blog-curhatanku.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

UPDATED: Wash. Post writer Bill Turque Confirms The Wash. Teacher's blog story: (click on link) "DCPS has confirmed Candi Peterson's weekend report in The Washington Teacher that Spingarn High School principal Blanca Reyes was replaced on Friday. No word yet on who will replace Washington. Lloyd Bryant will be the new assistant principal."

Pop quiz for you. Who said the following statement- US President Barack Obama or Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao?

The complete formulation of our economic policy is to give full play to the basic role of market forces in allocating resources under the macroeconomic guidance and regulation of the government.

Who said this statement- the leader of a a Chinese authoritarian state that operates under principles of unlimited government and no constitutional checks or the President of the US government controlled and run by the Democrats? The idea is that capitalism and market forces are good, but need to be controlled and guided and regulated by government.

Time is up- it was the Chinese Premier! But that was a tough question, right? How about another?

Did this happen in Russia or America recently?

Imagine you're a senior executive at a large business. Hard at work in your office, you're informed that, for reasons unknown, your leader wants to talk to you. He tells you that you are charging too much for your product. You assure him that prices are determined by the market. Unimpressed, the leader demands you lower your prices. Days later, government agencies announce an investigation into the business practices in your industry.

Come on now... it's tough... but did this happen recently in Russia or America? In a former communist nation now run by a dictator who operates in an increasingly tyrannical manner, or did this happen in the good-old-USA? Which country has a leader who thinks it is the proper role of government to set how much businesses can charge for products and is willing to use the power of the state to attack industries that he doesn't like?

Time is up- it was Russia! Nothing like that would ever happen in our nation, would it? State-run capitalism? Nah!

G. Pascal Zachary writes:

"Saving" Africans is all the rage among celebrities. Hollywood is releasing a string of African morality tales, from "The Last King of Scotland," about Idi Amin's capricious rule, to "Blood Diamonds," the story of a white smuggler in West Africa who has pangs of regret over his misdeeds....By reducing Africans to the status of props in an American morality play, Africans are themselves robbed of some measure of their dignity, which is why a number of Malawians are upset by Madonna's fast-track adoption.

• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 5 Fantastic Things to Do Over Winter Break

  Blogged: #education 5 Fantastic Things to Do Over Winter Break http://t.co/urPRT9u7

  tags: education twitter

• The Tevatron's enduring computing legacy | iSGTW

  A fascinating article on the mind blowing influence the Tevatron particle accelerator has had (and will have) on technology and the world we know it. This will be required reading for my computer science students when we return in January.

  tags: Education technology innovation

• How Smartphones Are Changing Photography: The Numbers Are In | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

  27% of photos taken this year were taken on smartphones.
  
  I am not sure why schools are banning cell phones and buying cameras.

  tags: Education photography

• Pudding vending machine tells kids to scram

  No undoing for you! Face scanning uses the measurements between your eyes and a few other dimensions to determine if a person is old enough to buy something out of the machine. But the fact that it is put on a jello pudding machine is pretty funny to me. Guess junior will need an older sibling tonget that jello for him. Humor aside, there could be use for this in areas served by kids and adults although kids do get around obstacles when they want to.

  tags: Education health

• Facebook and iPhone Lead Way on Klout's Top Topics of 2011 Lists [INFOGRAPHIC]

  This infographic from Kliut depicts the most popular conversations and people on Twitter. No doubt,MIT is a hub for pop culture. But there are great microconversations happening in education using this site so don't let the trivial steer you away.

  tags: Education twitter trends

• How to Recalibrate Your iPhone’s Home Button to Make it More Responsive

  So, you want your iPhone home button to behave like it did when you got it. This very simple tip is spreading like wildfire through the iPhone networks and just involves a simple recalibration with the power off switch. Try it if you are having trougble or if you have had your iPhone or iPod touch for a while. Very cool.

  tags: Education iphone

• Kinect Educators - Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

  As some of you experience Microsoft's super cool Kinect system for the first time, you'll be thrilled to know this tool is being used in school as well. Here, my go to Microsoft blogger And dear friend Alfred Thompson gives an overview of Kinect in education.

  tags: Education kinect

• Paul Stacey

  Paul Stacey writes an excellent overview of Open Education (hat tip Stephen Downes edcurator extraordinaire) that is a great read for those trying to keep their finger on the pulse of the very rapidly changing landscape of education.

  tags: open education opened

• Esther Wojcicki: Give Yourself A Free University Education at University of the People

  University of the people, a site offering free degrees in business administration and computer science continues to gain momentum as leading the effort to "democratize education." Things are underfoot that will radically change the expensive landscape known as higher Ed. The bottom line is that universities without solid online platforms won't be ready for the changes they will need to made. Their greatest commodity will be excellent teachers who can now be beamed from one end of the planet to the other. This crazy upheaval in education is only beginning and the competition is no longer limited by geography.

  tags: Education highered

• Zootool – Visual Bookmarking

  Zoo tool is a new bookmarking tool that is more visual. I am a huge Diigo fan but this tool is worth a mention.

  tags: Education socialbookmarking

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Last week, I logged into Linked in to update my profile and accept new link invitations. I got a pop up asking me if I wanted to scan email to find people I'm already communicating with in email that are ALREADY on linked in. So, sure, yes.

Julie Lindsay had just told me that she had done it and found quite a few new people. I wanted a little scan of my personal gmail account.

Well, Linked in not only scanned my personal email - it also scanned my school email (which I didn't realize) it also put people on the list who AREN'T ON LINKED IN at all including:

• students
• parents
• My disqus comment emails (which are generated for each disqus post)
• Some group email lists where I've made an email in my google apps for domain account that point to multiple people. 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes in the Globe & Mail:

Fifteen years ago, what little Nigerian pop music existed was niche. Today, it is mainstream cool. The young musicians are legitimate stars; some are very talented, others leave me puzzled about why anybody would listen to them, but what is never in doubt is how central they are in the newly energized self-image that young Nigerians have of themselves. The music is cross-cultural, polyglot, derivative, but is also, at its core, very nationalist. It is music whose centre is its Nigerian-ness.

More here

• Not Your Grandma’s Conference | always learning

  Great post by Kim Cofino about the Flat Classroom conference. It is worth looking at this post just to see the quality of the photos she takes! Scroll down and look how they Pop! She taught us how she did this - but oh, wow!
  
  She just did an amazing job!

  tags: education flatclassroom

• National STEM Video Game Challenge Winners announced

  "Aneesh Chopra, United States Chief Technology Officer, announced today the winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning by tapping into the natural passion of youth for playing and making video games, at the Newseum in Washington, DC. The first year of the Challenge featured competitions for students and developers. Twelve students from across the U.S. in grades 5-8 were selected as winners of the Youth Prize for their original game designs. In the Developer Prize category, for emerging and experienced game developers, the science themed game You Make Me Sick! was awarded the Grand Prize and a collection of math games titled NumberPower: Numbaland! received both the Collegiate and Impact Prizes."

  tags: education gaming gamebasedlearning

• Decoding Writing with The 39 Clues featuring Ruth Culham and the Traits of Writing | Scholastic.com

  Upcoming free webinar from Scholastic
  
  Tuesday, April 5, 1pm ET 10 am PT - my friend Tyler Reed says:
  
  "Scholastic has an exciting video webcast for students and classrooms coming up with Ruth Culham (of “Traits of Writing” fame) and the authors of The 39 Clues series to help inspire good writing in kids.
  
  
  
  It features four of the authors from the book series, and is anchored by writing instruction from Ruth. The idea is that these authors and The 39 Clues series are perfect “writing mentors” and “mentor texts” for kids."

  tags: education writing

• Late Nite Labs

  Virtual Biology and Chemistry labs. These have a lot of potential in science education!

  tags: education science_teacher science curriculum

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Whether you are moving to Italy or just planning a vacation, you’ll want to know some key words and phrases to make sure everything’s va bene.

Italian For Dummies Audio Set has everything you need to introduce you to the language so that you can start to communicate with other Italian speakers (without memorizing a bunch of boring grammar notes and long vocabulary lists!). Each of the three hour-long CDs is filled with interesting conversation topics that allow you to listen to what you want to listen at your own pace. Soon, you’ll be able to communicate in Italian about:

• Work, jobs, and office life
  
• Making small talk
  
• Traveling and making arrangements
  
• Asking for directions
  
• Getting help and assistance
  
• Ordering at a restaurant
  
• Booking a room in a hotel
  
• Exchanging money at the bank
  
• Shopping in a store or boutique

Along with all these topics, these CDs cover essential rules and building blocks of the Italian language, such as verb conjugation, tenses, and sentence structure, as well as a list of essential words. With this beginner audio set, you can pop any of the CDs in your CD player or computer and discover the joy and fun of speaking Italian!

 

Click here to buy from Amazon

After this election, it is a time for self-reflection, on both this website and others. Contributing to this self-reflection is Republican Representative Thaddeus McCotter, who today wrote a great article on what it means to be a Republican, via Hot-Air.

“re-branding” — as if the Republican Party was a corporate product to be repackaged, not a transformational political movement to be led. Despite what the media will tell you, and what so-called “conservative leaders” will discuss ad nauseam during “secret” meetings, this situation is not a crisis. It is an opportunity. Today, we are as the Great Emancipator proclaimed during another time of national trial: unbound by the tired dogmas of the past; and free to think and act anew.

First, we must not mindlessly mimic the momentarily triumphant Left. Sleek, detached, media savvy non-entities posing as existentially anguished leaders are neither in our nature nor our future. We are not teeny-bopper, pop-star politicians or the ideological dinosaurs of wealth redistribution.

At heart, we Republicans are flesh and blood and backbone, the proud servants of people. If we re-orient our vision, renew our purpose, and reaffirm our principles, the times will demand us — not as we were, but as we must be!

McCotter goes on to ask and answer several questions. First, what are the Republican Party's principles? McCotter identifies several- here are the major ones- that our liberty is from God not the government, that our security is through strength not surrender, and that our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector. Second, he asks what are the Republican Party's goals? In his mind, they are to advance liberty, preserve tradition, and achieve constructive solutions to policy issues.

This is not meant to project Republican ideas- this is meant to convince you to change the Republican party to one based on the ideals and beliefs of our founding fathers. This is not meant for you to support Republicans, but to push Republicans to believe in its principles and to push for the right goals.

Joshua J. Omojuwa writing in African Liberty:

As Nigerians celebrate 50 years of nationhood today, the promise of independence- a nation of free people living at peace with itself and neighbours, undergirded by individual and economic well being is still a distant dream. The President and his Governors may cut mammoth cakes and pop champagne and toast to success, perhaps personal success. Yet, this artificial success is derived from plunder and supervised penury foisted on the poverty industry and fueled by years of bad governance.
Little wonder remnants of the disaggregated development plague us; dysfunctional educational system, bad energy policies, bad roads, offensive electricity supply, armed rebellions in resource-rich regions, religious and tribal wars, kidnappings and a habitation for corrupt political grand masters and scammers. Clearly we are a nation of perpetual anomalies. Yet, we are one of the richest oil-producing nations on earth able to dish out billions of Naira for the wasteful jamboree in the name of Independence...[continue reading]

A superb crossover title of enormous appeal to the vast selection of the population that enjoys classical music, but would like to know more about it. From Gregorian Chant to Henryk Gorecki, the first living classical composer to get into the pop album charts, here is the fascinating story of over a thousand years of Western classical music and the composers who have sought to express in music the deepest of human feelings and emotions. Polyphony, sonata form, serial music - many musical expressions are also explained - with the text illustrated by performances from some of the most highly praised recordings of recent years (all but a few taken from the Naxos and Marco Polo catalogues).

 

Click here to buy from Amazon

Earlier this week I wrote about the incoherence of liberals in my post Teaching and Brain-Dead Liberal Students. Today I direct you to Victor Davis Hanson's article The Imaginarium of Barack Obama, where he touches on the incoherence of the Grand Marshal of the Liberal Parade of Economic Doom, President Barack Obama:

The presidency of Barack Obama is full of funny things that need not follow any sort of logic. Images and ideas just pop in and out, without worry of inconsistency, contradiction, or hypocrisy. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of strange heroes and bogeymen, this imaginarium of our president.

In the imaginarium there are no revolving doors, earmarks, or lobbyists. So Peter Orszag did not go from being OMB director to a Citigroup fat-cat. Once chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel did not make $16 million for his well-known banking expertise. The more you damn the pernicious role of lobbyists and the polluting role of big money, the more you must hire and seek out both. Public financing of campaigns is wonderful for everyone else who lacks the integrity of Barack Obama who understandably must renounce such unfair impositions.

Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.

Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.

A million Iranians protesting a soon-to-be-nuclear theocracy is false revolutionary consciousness and to be left alone; a few thousand Israelis wanting to buy apartments in the Jerusalem suburbs is subversive and worthy of presidential condemnation. And when atoning for supposed American lapses, what better place to begin apologizing than in Turkey, the incubator of the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish mass killings? We need to deny history to make the case that America is not exceptional, and to invent it to persuade us that the Muslim world is extraordinary....

...There are lots of ways to bring Americans together across class and racial lines. One in the imaginarium is to focus on the “teabag, anti-government people.” Another is to encourage Hispanics to “punish our enemies” — or have the attorney general lambaste Americans as racial “cowards” and to defend “my people.” Joining foreign governments to sue a fellow American state is no more red/no more blue state unity. Still another is to divide up the people between the suspect who make over $200,000 and the noble who make less, or yet again target the dubious “1%” at “the very top” who do not pay “their fair share,” a mere 40% of the aggregate income tax.

Inside the imaginarium, the way to demonize the “1%” is to vacation among them — whether at Martha’s Vineyard or Costa del Sol. Buying a corporate jet is a waste of the people’s money — unlike daily flying on a much bigger private jet paid by the people....

...The president regrets that we are not innovative any more, and have gone “soft” and “lazy.” You see, his efforts at ensuring cradle-to-grave health care entitlements, of granting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, and of extending food stamps to nearly 50 million are apparently incentives that should have led to a “hard” and “industrious” populace that was more self-reliant and willing to take risks on their own. “Spread the wealth” is a time-honored way of galvanizing people to become more self-disciplined and sufficient....

...In the imaginarium, community organizer Barack Obama never lived in a small mansion. John “two Americas” Edwards never lived in a big one. “Earth in the balance” Al Gore never lived in a few of them, and yacht owning John Kerry never lived in lots of them. You see in the imaginarium of Barack Obama you can be whatever you wish to be. Just wishing and saying something can wonderfully make it so.

FYI: Grand Marshal of the Liberal Parade of Economic Doom is going on the list of nicknames for Obama that I've been compiling.

Emmanuel Opati writes that:

The major factor that is being ignored all these efforts is the role of Africa’s image. Africa is a “product” that has been produced and pre-packaged by the mainstream western media to meet the presumed demand of juicy African stories for the Europeans and North Americans. The Africa that most Europeans and North Americans know is Africa made in the media....Mainstream western media would rather have their senior correspondent stationed in Iraq compiling stories from a hotel room, than have one stationed in Nairobi. When it is Africa, they only pop-in-and-out of the continent.
As a result, the term Africa has become pejorative that North American and European investors have shied from investing on the continent despite the enormous resources and cheap labour.In addition to the media, some international non-profit organisations have exacerbated the damage done to Africa’s image.