Author: Wesley Fryer

Recording audio with Microsoft Word or OneNote

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in guestblogger, Miscellaneous 4 Comments

As usually happens when I’m teaching others about a topic, this evening when I was sharing some tips about using the Macintosh operating system and Mac programs I learned a valuable tip: How to record audio and simultaneously take notes using Microsoft Word. I’d heard of this capability but never seen it demoed, and it wasn’t hard to do. We had to change the “view” in Word to “Notebook” to enable the functionality, and then select audio recording from the “tools” menu.

Interestingly, in doing some Google and del.icio.us searches for a screencast or tutorial about how to use this functionality of Word 2004, I couldn’t find any! I did find some references to this functionality in an old review of the program, but no tutorials. There are quite a few articles about using Microsoft OneNote on the Windows-side to record audio. I haven’t tried that either.

Has anyone had success recording teacher/instructor/professor lectures using either Word 2004 on a Mac or OneNote on a Windows PC? I’d be interested to hear what people think of the functional usability of these features. They sound great, but I’ve never talked with someone (in person or online) who has used … Read the rest

Digital storytelling: Hobby of the present and future

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in digital stories, digitalstorytelling, guestblogger 11 Comments

I had the delight this evening of participating with Dean Shareski, David Jakes, and students in a course Dean is teaching via an Elluminate Live session to discuss Digital Storytelling. Dean shared the following quotation from Joe Lambert, who is a co-founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling:

Digital storytelling begins with the notion that in the not [too] distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be THE PRINCIPAL HOBBY OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE, for hobbies ideas visit eModels.

The fact that the iPhone has a YouTube button which permits people to directly watch YouTube videos directly on their phone is really amazing, IMHO, but I think it reflects the continuing manifestation of the above prediction by Joe Lambert.

Just listening to Dean and David share during our virtual class this evening, I learned about a BUNCH of great digital storytelling examples and tools I hadn’t seen or heard about before. I saved most of these to my social bookmarks and YouTube playlists, but briefly, some of the highlights were:

Digital storytelling examples:

… Read the rest

How can schools join the experience economy?

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in Classrooms, guestblogger 4 Comments

Friday’s headline article from Reuters, “Wii could top record-holding PS2” reminds me of B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore’s book “The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage”. I have not purchased or read the book yet, but I’m intrigued by this idea that our economic landscape can increasingly be described as “an experience economy” where people are more likely to pay for an actual “experience” more than just a cheaper product or widget. The Wii and the iPhone both come to mind as products which seem crafted for the consumers of the experience economy.

seated teacher lecturing at the chalkboard

How can schools be changed to join the experience economy? In his book “The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer,” Seymour Papert observes that before they enter formal schooling children commonly display self-directed learning behaviors. Once kids begin formal schooling, however, adults essentially tell young people to stop experiencing their world and directing their own learning, and instead sit passively in their desk and read about it. Papert notes schools tend to emphasize the development of “lettracy” rather than “literacy,” which he (and I) conceive of as including a broader set of communication and learning modalities … Read the rest

Early report about “Internet”

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in digitalstorytelling, fun, guestblogger 2 Comments

When Dean guest blogged for me awhile back, he introduced a “humor” category and shared a few movies, so I figured I would do the same!

Remember the sound of a modem connecting over a phone line? Remember when the existence of “emoticons” was actually worthy of a news headline? Check out this blast from the past, I suspect from the early 1990s, from a television station in Toronto, Canada!

Wow have we ever seen a lot of changes on the Internet in a short amount of time! Via Linda Uhrenholt.… Read the rest

Looking forward or back?

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in change, guestblogger, workshops 1 Comment

One of my favorite quotations to share during conference presentations and workshops, whose source I unfortunately do not know how to properly attribute, is the following:

Are you preparing students for their future, or for your past?

Missing from this quotation is the idea we also need to prepare students for the PRESENT that is taking place right now, and not just a faraway “la la fantasy land” vision of the future when the world will look just like that of the Jetsons.

The Jetsons

As some authors have observed, our vision for what the future is going to “look like” has changed markedly over the years. Predictions from people like Benjamin Franklin that new technologies would yield vast amounts of leisure time have given way to conditions of information overload and overscheduled calendars, with often little time for people to enjoy unstructured time in natural environments. I’ve never visited Disney’s Tomorrowland in Florida, but I understand the vision it communicates of “what the future holds” has undergone interesting evolution over time.

The fact is, NO ONE can predict with certainly what the future holds. Yet, we still must live our lives today (in contexts which are often dynamic … Read the rest