Open Source Solutions: Audacity

Last week, I participated in an open forum discussion with Bryan Behrenshausen from Communications and Theatre, Josh Hartranft from the Technology Support Center and Jesse Holden from Library Services.  The event was planned as part of Millersville’s theme “Remix the Future, Remake Our World” and the group met to discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing open source software programs.  For those of you who might not be familiar with open source software, the term “open source” refers to a process where software is designed, developed, debugged and supported by a cohort of people who volunteer their services simply for the love of it.  Open source software is free which, if the software is good, can be really attractive. Besides the economic advantages, however, I really like the open source philosophy and how they view the end-user.  In open source software, every user is a participant in the development process.  Through their use, any user could suggest new features and help troubleshoot problems.  The open source is completely anathema to the big software companies who own and distribute propretiary code, controlling its distribution, use and development tightly.  Besides being free, open source software supports open collaboration, creating a system where no one (and everyone) owns the software at the same time.

Because of this discussion, I thought I’d feature an open source application this week called Audacity.  Audacity is audio editing software that can be freely downloaded for Macs or PCs.  If you’ve ever thought about podcasting, Audacity is the software for you.  It is really easy to use.  Unlike some other applications I’ve featured, Audacity is not web-based and you have to actually install the software on your computer.  Once installed, however, the application is almost as easy to use as a wordprocessor.  I use Audacity extensively with my students and find most of the students take to pretty quickly.

Educationally, Audacity has a multitude of uses.  An educator can record presentations to share with students in an online class or record a classroom presentation from a face-to-face class to share with absent students.  Audacity can also be used for assessment purposes with students creating radio dramas or audio stories instead of writing a paper.  Since the software is free and is available on Macs and PCs, students wouldn’t have to invest any extra money to purchase the software for a class.

For a short tutorial on how to use Audacity, check out the YouTube video below.

Creative Expression with Glogster

Glogster is a free web-based application that allows users to create multimedia posters.  The site is really easy to use and works incredibly well considering that it is not running off of the hard drive of a local computer.  Using Glogster, students can incorporate video, audio, text and images to create a “glog.”   When the students publish their work, their glog lives online and can be visited by anyone around the world.  Since this large-scale publishing might concern some people, Glogster (http://edu.glogster.com) also offers an EDU companion to allow educators to create “virtual classrooms” where students’ glogs are protected behind a security wall and are only viewable by classmates and instructors.

In our classrooms, Glogster can be a great tool for engaging students and can be used to have students introduce themselves in an “About me” activity at the start of a semester.  Glogster can also be used as a creative alternative to a paper for a class or as a “presentation” in an online class.

For more information, be sure to check out the Glogster tutorial below.

Check out this example by Millersville students

Glogster Example

Reaching ALL students with Web-based resources

This week I’m featuring a few tools after a colleague asked me about accessibility during a Web 2.0 presentation recently.  His basic question was “How can we insure that the web-based resources we use with students are not marginalizing them?”  After an awkward pause, I answered, “Let me look into that.” So, after some research, I’ve come up with three easy-to-use sites that can be used to evaluate how accessible a webpage is for ALL students.  Besides the descriptions, I have also included a short tutorial that demonstrates the tools and the reports that each of the sites generated when evaluating my professional webpage (http://web.me.com/oliverdreon/Site/Home.html).

WAVE (http://wave.webaim.org/) is a web accessibility evaluation tool that examines a web page and gives a report on potential problems.  While the site itself cannot insure that a webpage is accessible by everyone, WAVE highlights potential problems by overlaying icons and error messages on top of the scanned webpage.

Juicy Studio’s Image Analyzer (http://juicystudio.com/services/image.php) When individuals with visual impairment access the Internet, they count on Alternate Text and Long Descriptions to replace information that may be displayed through images.  Image Analyzer examines whether a webpage has included sufficient data to replace any images and creates a short report detailing any warnings or errors for the webpage.

AccessColor (http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html) tests the color contrast and color brightness between the foreground and background of text displayed on a webpage.  As someone who struggles with certain colors, I often have difficulties seeing text on some webpages.  A tool like AccessColor can help educators choose more accessible text colors for webpages they construct.  It can also be a beneficial tool for evaluating web resources that we incorporate into our lessons.

Used in tandem, I think these tools will help us as we select web-based resources to use with our students and as we build web-based modules for both online and face-to-face instructional environments.  If you’re creating a webpage for your classes, be sure to use the tools to evaluate the finished product and to help insure that you’re reaching all of your students.

Social Networking with Ning

By now, most people have heard of social networking.  Whether it’s the evening news with MySpace stories or you’ve been barraged with Facebook invitations, social networking is one of the real hot topics in Web 2.0.  The problem, however, is that the popular social networking sites expose our students to some safety issues that concern many educators.  While these tools may be great assets to our classroom, I think the negatives of Facebook, MySpace and even Twitter out-weigh their educational usefulness.

Ning (found at www.ning.com) is a unique social networking platform.  Not only can you create private networks for a class or a hobby, you also have the ability to choose which features can be included in the network.  Want chatting?  Want blogging?  Want discussion forums?  Each can be added easily within the Features section found under the Manage header.  The really great feature is that Ning stores its own videos and audio files within a network.  This would be useful for having students share podcasts or digital stories they have created as assessments for a class.  Or consider pairing the video and blogging features and having students reflect on teaching demonstrations they’ve shared in a Ning network.  It’s reflective practice for the 21^st Century!

With all of its features, Ning can be a powerful supplement to a class, without opening students to the safety issues that are inherent with Facebook.