Techno Thingies

No, I'm not talking about me.  Well, ok, I am, but not directly about me.  More about technology and learning new and interesting things.  I'll start with my mother.  Always a good place to begin.  She has her own laptop (courtesy of my sister and niece) and has learned how to Facebook and Skype, which, given her age is really pretty spectacular, and very thrilling for her.  Now she can keep in touch with all her children and grandchildren with a push of a button.  Then I had an email not long ago from an elderly cousin.  She learned how to do email, etc. some time ago, but preferred not to until her children gave her an Ipad for Christmas.  Now she's having fun because she can email, etc. anywhere instead of having to use their desktop computer.  My best friend and her husband have also joined us in the 21st century thanks to their daughter.  Their daughter moved to another city in another province and to cut down on costs for long distance calls, she uploaded Skype for her parents.  Now we can chat any time we are both on and free.  Kind of nice because it means we can keep in touch even better than before.
So what does this have to do with techno thingies.  Well, let's think for a minute.  In terms of technology we can twitter, facebook, email, skype, SMS, text and do any one of a number of tasks all on line.  Nice.  On the other hand it means that as a teacher I need to bring myself up to speed on all the new and fun techno thingies, like Moodle, Wiki and Podcasts.  Sound like something out of a Heinlein story, but isn't.  Today I learned how to record, save and upload a podcast.  What is a podcast you ask (unless you already know and then you are light years ahead of where I was yesterday - space time travelling again).  Apparently it's a way to record and broadcast information - assuming you have a voice you want everyone to hear and information you need to pass on.  Why would I need to learn how to do this?  It's like this.  I'm taking a class and one of the assignments is to upload a podcast.  Sooooo.  I had to learn how to do it.  In the end it was really quite painless, but not without it's moments of "well crap!"  Since I had to do it, I thought it would be a good idea to inflict it on my students.  As a result, instead of giving speeches, my Grade 8s will now have to do a five minute podcast on a topic of their choice.  Nice part is the tech teacher has agreed to give them credit for the technical skills they use, and I'll give them credit for the oral.  Kind of killing two techno birds with one stone - if such a thing is possible.  Until next time, I'm going to play with my new toy.