Podcasting? What is that?

I had always heard the phrase podcasting, but never really knew what it was until this week. Podcasting is a way to share anything by video with sound and images with the World Wide Web, but with podcasting those who find your podcasts can take them with them anywhere by using a media device. The first thought I had when learning about podcasting was how our students already know what this is because several television shows are based around children doing web shows. One of those shows is called iCarly on Nickelodeon and it is a very popular show with elementary students. If we were to refer to these shows when using it in the classroom, the students would probably get excited. As a class we could create a web show that we shared with other schools in our district and vice versa.

All of the things we have been learning about are similar in the fact that they can be used as instructional tools to enhance communication with anyone around the world or right there in our home town. Podcasting with students comes with certain restrictions and the teacher will have to check to see if the parent signed the form to allow their student to be involved in technological activities that will be seen by the public or not.

I do have a MP3 player and now an iPhone that has an iPod on it. I have always used them for music. I like the idea of using MP3 players in the classroom. I know they can be expensive and may not be in the school’s budget, but I plan to find ways of using my own with my students. By using my own and not allowing them to take it home there are advantages and disadvantages. I would be able to monitor what is on the MP3 players thus keeping the students from using it in any inappropriate ways. This would not be helpful for students who need the extra time listening or watching the information at home or in the car.

LeFever, L. (Producer). (2009). Podcasting in plain english. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDLqu0d-z8o

Web 2.0~What are you talking about?

It is funny how things work out sometimes, really it is. In my Thursday night class last week, my professor was telling us about how her intern had created a wiki space for her class. I had no idea what a wiki was and came home to look it up. I think it is a great way to get families involved in their children's education. The intern my professor was telling us about set it up for each student to be able to write their paper on the wiki space and she, the teacher and the principal all get on it to check their work and give some feedback.

I am still learning about wikis, so I don't feel comfortable enough to create a lesson based around or with one, but I think I will be very soon. I am quite comfortable with blogs though, and can't wait to be able to use them in my classroom. The only problem at my current school is that access blogger is blocked. I will be asking if we can have access to it when the time comes. I would love to set up several blogs; one would be a general class blog that the parents would have to get permission to access, so that the world wide web is not able to see picture of my students. I would consider a class blog to be much like virtual newsletter, but more personal. I would also use them for ongoing lessons or extensions to lessons. For example, one of the concepts in 3rd grade is economics. For this project I would let the students earn money as a class and individually to then "purchase" rewards. We could use a blog to keep track of our class earnings each day. I would post questions at the end of the day for students to then go answer in the comments section.

I think Socialbookmarking is an amazing way to collaborate with other teachers. Time is a much needed thing for teachers, they never feel there are enough hours in the day to get everything done and planned. If a social bookmarking page was set up and added to for an entire grade level within the school district, think of how many amazing websites would be added to for just that grade level. And if that was open for all grade levels to see, the ones younger that need some higher level activities can pull from that rather than finding something on their own, or the older levels that need to take a step backwards for some students can do the same. Not only would socialbookmarking be good for coworkers, but I think it would be a great way to have parent involvement as well. Say I create a social bookmarking page and give the information to my parents; later on in the year if Susy needs help with a certain concept I can tell her parents to click on that tag to find great resources to work on at home.

Voice Threads seem like a really cool tool, but I know I need a lot of practice with it before I would try using it with my students. I think it would be neat to get together with even just another school within your district to start with and start a voice thread. The students would really enjoy it.

With this week's activities, I have learned a lot of new cool techniques to use in my future classroom. I have also learned that I have a lot of experimenting to do before I am ready to implement a lot of these things. But most of them are things I want to use for sure! I feel it is so important to try your best to get parents excited and involved in your classroom and in such a technological world, this might be the best way to get them!

Stafford, T., & Webb, M. (2006). What is a Wiki (and how to use one for your projects). Retrieved from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2006/07/07/what-is-a-wiki.html

LeFever, L. (Producer). (2007). Socialbookmarking in plain english. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2rqw9_social-bookmarking-in-plain-english_school

VoiceThread, Initials. (2007). Voicethread. Retrieved from http://voicethread.com/about/