New Features on Webster Teacher Webpage Toolkit

This post is just for Webster School District teachers as it provides an update for new features on the Teacher Webpage Toolkit. Three new features were recently added. The first feature to be added is the My Podcasts feature. This allows teachers (or students) to create their own audio or video podcasts, post them to their webpage to have others subscribe to the their content.

The second feature is a My Puzzles page. You can create a jigsaw like puzzle with an image or a word search with different levels of difficulty. The puzzles are timed and the results can be sent to the teacher.


Finally, a My Blog feature has been added as well. You can set up multiple blogs and receive comments on each post. There is a setting which allows you to moderate the comments as well.

You can find all of these features under the My Applications tab on your teacher toolkit. They will be listed under the "show inactive sections" initially. You will have to activate the feature for it to show up on your website. I also had some issues with the podcast appearing when the Firefox browser was used but it worked fine with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Gabcast #2

Gabcast! TechnoCoach #2
Ok...just a bit of an explanation how this GabCast with my daughter got to this page. I used my cell phone and called into the Gabcast 1-800 #. Second, I entered a passcode to set up a conference call. Next, I had my daughter use another cell phone to call the same 1-800 #, enter my channel # and my conference call passcode. Next, I pressed "1" to start recording our conversation. At the end of the conversation I pressed #, then "2" to publish the conversation automatically to this blog. Have your students set up phone interviews, give the interviewee the numbers/passcodes and have the entire interview recorded and automatically posted to the web.

GabCast #1

Gabcast! TechnoCoach #1
Press Play!

60-second Lecture? Last Lecture?

Since starting this blog, I've come across 2 ideas that I find interesting. One, is what would I share with my students if I knew that my next "lecture" was going to be my last lecture? And two, what if I only could give a 60-second lecture? The Last Lecture series is done at Carnegie-Mellon University and the 60-second lecture is done at Penn. So, I was thinking it might be interesting for staff and students to participate in a lecture series. Maybe have one-minute lectures during lunch? Maybe have a last lecture for retiring teachers? It might be a good way to spark intellectual curiosity and model public speaking. So if you are interested in participating, answer the poll on the right side of the blog. If there seems to be enough interest, then I will pursue these ideas. If not, then I'll go grade some papers.

iTunes University Revisited

I've promoted iTunes University before on this blog but I wanted to point out that there is a little something for everyone here. You need to have iTunes to check out the following links.
Art Department: Check out MOMA programming.
Speech Class: Check out One-Minute Lectures.
Environmental Science: Check out Stanford's Environmental Series.
Government & Politics: Check out Public Policy @ Berkeley.
Government: Supreme Court's Greatest Hits
All Courses: Check out MIT's Open Courseware (where you can literally attend but not get the degree)