Blog Post 4

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom

I really enjoyed watching this video. I think that it really showed how beneficial podcasting can be in a classroom. It is a good thing to use for students to have more project based learning. It can develop social skills and give students the responsibility and the chance to work as a group, which they may have to do eventually in their careers later on in life. I thought that it was a good idea for teachers to use podcasting to record their lectures. I think that it probably creates less stress on the teacher because they don't have to worry about giving makeup work or notes to students who miss. It then makes it the students responsibility to get their work offline. It does create more work for the teacher, but it creates less stress because they aren't giving different students makeup work each day. I also liked what the Principal said when she mentioned that it gives the parents a link into the classroom. I am a firm believer in parents being involved in their child's education, but with many parents having careers, this is a hard thing to do. With podcasting, parents automatically know what is going on in the classroom and what their child is responsible for.
I didn't really get any tips for my podcast out of this video, but it really showed me how it can be used in a positive way to further the education of our students.

1st Graders Create Their Own Read Along Audio Book

I loved this post! This was one of my favorites by far. This was about a teacher who decided that she was going to do a podcast with her students. The fact that she made them a booklet to follow along with was an amazing idea. I also liked how she decided to put a sound at the end so that they knew when they were starting a new page. I think that this integrates technology into schools at a very young age and it encourages creativity, and creativity is something we definitely need more of in our schools today. It was interesting to see that the students decided to follow along with the podcast by placing their fingers on the words on the page. I think that this shows that they are definitely interested in technology at a young age. This is something that makes learning fun. I can use this in my own podcast because I now know that I need to use interesting ideas, such as making a booklet,(not for my class project but for future podcasts) to keep the audience intrigued.

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting
This was a very interesting blog post. I love how she introduced podcasting to the students by allowing them to take part in the podcast. I am sure this made it much more interesting for the students. It is definitely a good thing to integrate technology into schools at such a young age, but also a good thing to allow the students to partake in the making of the podcast. I can't understand Hebrew, but when the students recorded the story in their own voices, their teachers made sure to mix up each part of the story so that it was in a different order. Then they hooked the computer up to the smart board, and the students were able to put each of their own parts in the correct order by listening to each part over and over. Once they were finished, the story of Purim was created in their own unique voice. I think that I can use this in my own podcast and future podcasts because one, I now know that I can use a smart board to allow the children to match the parts of a story to the correct place, and two, I can make it more fun by allowing the students to get involved in the making of the podcast.