Podcast- Make Your Own Chai Tea Risotto

 

When I started surfing I Tunes for cooking podcasts, a lot of what popped up was video pods.  I can’t help but feel that these video pods are impractical for cooking.  I know I can’t cook and watch a screen at the same time.  Yet I can easily cook while listening to my mp3 player.  So, I set out to make a user-friendly recipe podcast, outlining a recipe I created.  During some of the cooking time, you will hear some Creative Commons licensed music that I got from the Jamendo website, by Jordan’s Folk and Plastic Alibi.

I recorded this podcast using Audacity for the first time.  It was a bit of a trial-and-error process, and I actually ended up re-editing the entire thing after watching a tutorial on podcasting with Audacity.

Also, I thought I’d share a quick anecdote about a recipe I tried from one of those video pods.  It was for an aisian tofu “salad.”  I really wouldn’t call the resultant dish a salad, due to it’s cat-food like consistancy (and matching smell).  The creator had made it more visually appealing for her show by scooping it neatly with an ice cream scoop, and adding some garnish.  Despite how frightening it looked and smelled, I tried to eat some anyways, and wasn’t very impressed.  Sometimes, you run into a few cooking disasters when you try recipes at random.  I assure you, this recipe I’ve recorded tastes, smells, and looks delicious!

If you try my recipe, please, let me know what you thought of it here!

 

Having a Photoshop Freakout, Must Share

When I read it, I nearly burst with excitement.  I’m sure some squealing noises followed.  On the most recent post by Photojojo, a blog I’ve mentioned frequenting before, there was an announcement saying that Adobe has released an on-line express Photoshop!

Now, don’t go into this expecting all of the advanced Photoshop features; the full version of Adobe Photoshop is far too expensive to be giving out on-line (Although, as I’ve mentioned before, I use an ancient version of Corel Photo House that has a bunch of similar, but less user-friendly features to Adobe.  I’ve gotten away with using Corel for some on-line Adobe photo tutorials quite nicely, if I do say so myself).  However, if you’re currently clogging your computer’s hard drive with one (or several) of those uber-confusing, trashy photo-editing suites that comes with your camera, you should consider unloading it, and doing your basic photo touch-ups on-line.  It’s so slick, and everything is well laid out, so that you can actually find the tools you want to use!

This site has the potential to develop into the next Flickr.  It’s also meant to be a photo sharing site, with 2 GB of storage per account.  I haven’t played with all of the features yet, but I know that currently, you can send images in emails, create links to them, or embed them in blogs.  It doesn’t have all of the photo networking features that Flickr has, but if you give it time, I bet these features will appear.

Now enough talk, it’s time to see some examples!  These are just some quick examples of features you will find on Adobe Photoshop Express.  I am aware that some of these may be a little over-the-top, but I’m just having fun.

 

Four Photos Showing How My Mind Works

I love how digital editing allows us to change photographic images to suit our artistic needs.  For example, when I compiled these images, I wanted to create a certain intensity of colours, representing how vivid the world is from my perspective.  I altered the contrast and intensity of the colours using Corel Photo House, and compiled the images on a Power Point slide.

This was an assignment where we were to sell ourselves with four photos, and minimal text.  I chose to describe a bit about how I approach my artwork; an approach that I intend to carry over into my teaching career.

 

Garbage Art!

I use the term garbage art not as an insult, but in a most endearing way.  You can call it recycled art if that makes you feel better.  I love making things out of found materials, and knowing that I prevented the materials I used from ending up in some dumpster.  After reading a blog post by Katherine Moore, I felt so inclined to share some of my garbage art!

One day my art teacher came in with a stack of old books.  She told us to choose one, and turn it into art.  Since my book was called Dragonsdawn, I decided to turn it into a dragon, stealing inspiration from Harry Potter’s the Monster Book of Monsters, and one of my favourite movies as a kid, the Pagemaster.  The scales are from pop cans, the map the book is standing on, as well as the maps on his wings were once inside of him, his toungue is cut out of his title page, and the teeth and claws are used art razors (which, of course, one must be cautious holding).

Garbage art is a great activity for highschool and elementary art teachers.  On top of being really amusing, and environmentally friendly, it’s nice on the school budget, and teaches kids to look for inspiring materials all around them.

I would love it if anyone reading this would post a picture of their own garbage art with a little story on their blog, and link to the page in a comment here.  If this post could turn into a resource of examples for garbage art projects, that would be just awesome!  Or, if you have never made garbage art, get out there and make some, and tell us about the experience!

Happy trash hunting!

 

A Google Map of my Memories of a Small Town

Playing around with this Google tool, I realize that Google Maps could also be a great way to tell stories.  Each point can hold a little more of the story, and you can see beautiful satellite images of the story’s location!

View Larger Map

 

Power of the Pod

 

Image courtesy of Fanboy30on Flickr.

No, I’m not referring to people who don’t quite seem human, like they hatched from a pod yesterday (although pod people can have some extraordinary powers).  I’m referring to podcasts.

I only recently started downloading these I-Tunes-based radio shows.  And this week, the show that has been accompanying me to the local YMCA on my mp3 (that’s right, no I-Pod is really required) is Colleen from Compassionate Cooks’s podcast, Vegetarian Food for Thought.  I chose this one because it is actually about veganism, and while I am not a vegan, my health may be pushing me in that direction, and I wanted to learn some more first.

My first thoughts, before I had even started listening involved a lot of doubt.  I have always been skeptical of vegans.  Things ran through my head like, “I bet this is going to be really preachy,” and, “Can this person really spread vegan-ism through a podcast, if the people who download it are likely going to adhere to the idea in the first place?”

I listened to a few, and while sometimes conclusions were jumped to a little hurriedly, the majority of the points Colleen makes are really well researched and thought out, and not preachy at all.  Sometimes, you could say that “scare tactics” are used, but when those scary things are the reality, should we really be turning our backs on them?

However, more importantly, I would like to look at the second statement that I said ran through my head, about how her podcast likely wouldn’t affect anyone who wasn’t already vegan.  I listened to the 2nd year anniversary show, where Colleen read out letters of people who felt touched by her show.  They weren’t all vegans; they weren’t even all vegetarians, or at least several of them weren’t until they listened to her show.  I realized just how powerful and widespread a podcast’s influence can be.  It takes the freedom of speech to the next level- you can throw your voice out there internationally, and actually have people listen.

I suppose I am also evidence of the power of this podcast.  I’m not vegan, but I tuned in, didn’t I?  I haven’t decided if I want to make the switch yet, however, I have changed some of my ways of thinking about the whole issue.  After listening to an episode on eggs, I immediately asked my dad if we could start looking for a local egg supplier instead of buying from the grocery store, so that it would be possible to actually see the environment the chickens were living in.

I’m not trying to force anyone to change how they eat with this blog; I am simply showing you how much of an outreach a single podcast can have.  If you are in fact interested in learning more about vegan-ism and vegetarianism from a source that will provide lots of well-supported facts, check out Colleen’s podcast here.

 

‘Travel Through Space and Time” K12 Online Conference

This is a picture from the Flicr account of one of two teachers that San Hose Episcopal Day School sent to China in 2006 as part of their unique curriculum focusing on different countries in each grade to create a greater sense of world community.  In the K12 Online conferences you can watch a presentation on how these teachers connected with their students back in Florida while on this trip.  All of these online tools helped the students feel integrated, almost as if they were along for the journey.  The school also had many activities back at home to incorporate students, such as an Amazing Race challenge relating to the traveller’s findings, and the tracking of the mascot Hose the Bear (who came along for the trip) for the younger students.

Online tools used to stay in touch with students included WordPress (at the recommendation of Jeff Utech, who some of you in ECMP355 should remember), Movie Maker, Audacity, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Skype.

 The K12 presentation for this topic itself wasn’t entirely aesthetically pleasing, though.  It flipped through pictures too fast, included irrelevant pictures, had awkward sound transitions, and used hand-held camera footage that panned too fast for you to focus on anything.  It gave great info, but the presentation itself needed a little polishing.

To find more info on this project, and find inspiration for your own classroom, check out the project blog. 

 

Dylan Says “Hey ECMP355!”

Sorry to everyone who didn’t get to see this shout-out from Bob Dylan, but the codes for this video have suddenly stopped working in my blog, even though I didn’t make any changes.  I tried replacing them, but with no luck.  If anyone knows a little about embedded codes, could they help to explain this?  Can codes expire?  Normally, I would delete this post to keep my blog looking tidy, but I’m hoping it some responses to this post can help me learn a little more before I place codes from other sites in future posts.

 

A “Priceless” Moment (aka Tech task #6)

After much converting to various file types, I figured out how to throw this on YouTube and post it on my blog.  Honestly, I was playing the “file format guessing game” when I did this.

 

A Possible Classroom Resource?

I’m a big fan of the Photojojo blog, and in their most recent post, they had this awesome article on postcards.  I would highly recommend reading it.

While the postcard project they outline is directed at adults, why couldn’t you do this with students?  You could hook up with classrooms of the same grade around the world, and have students send out homemade postcards.  I smell a combination of art and social studies!!!

I suppose that you could do something similar through blogging with your class too, but you have to admit, there’s nothing like getting mail when you’re a kid.

To get the RSS feed for Photojojo, click here.  A lot of their projects could be used or altered for elementary or high school students.