125 – Going To School On The Internet
This is classroom technology week on the WELSTech Podcast and Martin welcomes special guests Gail Potratz and Jim Grunwald.
Podcast: Download (42.3MB)
The discussion:
Internet Delivery of Education Content – Martin is joined by Dr. Jim Grunwald, Director of Academic Computing at Martin Luther College, and Gail Potratz, Technology Director from Emanuel in New London, WI. They discuss the many pros as well as the implementation challenges of using a web-based delivery platform for classroom assignments. Jim also shares information on MLC’s new course offerings targeted to prepare teachers to use and support a variety technology in the school setting.
Ministry resources:
(32:26) Adding Google Analytics to Facebook Fan Pages
Picks of the week:
- (35:44) GIMP image editor (Jim’s tutorials)
- The Socially Networked Classroom by William Kist
- Phrase Express (Read Martin’s blog post on the topic)
Of interest:
(45:48) WELS will be streaming the Martin Luther College Chapel of the Christ dedication service on Saturday, April 10 at 7 p.m. Check out the agenda for the dedication weekend.
Community feedback:
- (47:24) The WELSTech community comes through with links to great internet safety resources
- Professor Garfield teaches online safety (from Jason Schmidt)
- Smokescreengame.com for upper age teens (Gail is looking for feedback)
- Welcome to the Web
- Jason Schmidt from Gethsemane in Omaha, NE also tweeted some cool links
- Shiv David from Hope in Toronto, Canada wrote to us for ideas on electronic newsletters. Check out the past BWTG podcast on MailChimp!
Coming up on WELSTech:
(55:33) Episode 126 – Martin and Sallie preview the resources available at InternetEvangelismDay.com and talk with the man behind the site, Tony Whittaker. (Release date 04/07/10)
The featured artist:
(56:53) We close the podcast with the music of Stephen Bautista (www.stephenbautistamusic.com or @stephenbautista on Twitter) – The Most Beautiful Thing from his CD “Abandon”
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I have been using GIMP in my Computer Applications course at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School for the last 5 years. I also use it extensively to work with graphics for our in-house publications and website. A second free program that I also teach with and recommend is Inkscape (www.inkscape.org). Where GIMP specializes in raster graphics (photograph type images), Inkscape specializes in vector graphics (logos, straight line images, etc).
I am encouraging MLC and Jim Grunwald to continue to offer teacher inservice for the professors and teachers there in making their online courses more interactive. I have taken 4 online courses now from 4 different professors at MLC in pursuit of the WELS Teacher Certification. My experience has been mostly positive, however there is always some room for improvement.
Some of the items I would like to see include placing audio lectures into Moodle as opposed to using CDs shipped to each student. I would also like to see some real time chats scheduled during the semester which brings a different element to the classes. Down the road as broadband and technology allows, video segments and annotated and audio overlays to PowerPoint presentations as part of the course work would be nice.
I have put these ideas down in course reviews for each of the online courses I have taken at MLC, so I continue to give positive feedback on the online courses. Jim Grunwald and the staff of MLC have done a very good job in moving online education forward and making accessible the Christian education to more people in the WELS and beyond. God’s blessings going forward.