Personally, I feel as if I have been
living under a rock when it comes to the technological world of podcasting. I
had no idea that this type of communication had been available for as long as
it had.
When I first started this podcasting
endeavor, I was confused at how students would conduct these and what would be
the purpose?! I was ‘WOW’ed by the possibilities of this at any level. I
have had my students create digital stories before but never thought about
having them create podcasts. Truth be told, I felt embarrassed that these
kindergarden students at Willowdale were making podcasts 5 years ago, when I
knew nothing about them. To say that I was inspired, just doesn’t do it
justice. Students could create a podcast
on their learning in a matter of minutes---possibly, just in a class period.
I was amazed by the Willowdale
Elementary's Podcast. There were even Kindergarten students and up conducting
them. I loved that these were created by students for students. This would be
an awesome way to involve parents and demonstrate the students' learning. As a
parent, I would love to log on and listen to the ideas that my child is
learning about, other than what I hear at the dinner table! While I listened, I
got excited about all the things that my kids do for projects that we could
transform into podcasts!
From the
educational standpoint, I am geared towards the idea of using podcasting for a
PBL that is encouraged with the CCSS. Students are encouraged to demonstrate
their learning through creating projects. What better way than through a
podcast? After reviewing Fontichiaro's text, I was able to receive a crash course in
creating my own and a how to with students.
However, I am wondering if there are any apps out there that would work
similarly as Audacity.
“Booktalks: Quick and Simple” demonstrated a great way for students and
librarians to conduct book talks! It would be great to have 1 a day/week that could
be shared for different grade levels.
This would be a way to have interaction with all the students even if
they weren’t able to visit the library that week. I find it even more appealing to have the
students conduct their book talks in this sort of fashion. It would increase a
student’s efforts geared towards their writing of the assignment if it was
going to be recorded and replayed for other students.
I would also like to see if there any apps like Audacity available for students to do podcasting. Like you, I was so amazed by podcasting that when I said something about it to my middle school students they were like "Meh- we all listens to podcasts" I felt like the old fuddy duddy teacher at that point. Yet, on my quest to become more technologically savvy, I am so making students do at least one during the school year.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of using pod-casts in the classroom, I think it makes websites more interesting and parents have another portal to use for information on their children. I was trying to think of some other uses for a podcast that are different than the ones already listed like book clubs, digital stories etc. I like the idea of using a podcast in collaboration with the school news. I was thinking that students could use a podcast to go more in depth with news, kind of like a audio newsletter. Students could do this weekly and post things related to sports, school calendar, field trips, PTA meetings etc. I also thought a podcast could be used for school club meetings, meetings could be recorded in the case that a student or parent was not able to attend. Both of these podcasts could be uploaded to the school website and made available to students, staff and parents. The last idea I had is for high school students to use a podcast during their research process, I think it could be beneficial to record this process so their peers could get different ideas of how to track down sources, why students chose certain sources over others and the process of writing their papers. I know I could have benefited to hear other peoples process while doing research.
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