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I'm a student at University of South Alabama Majoring in Health Education.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Good bye poster board, Hello Podcasts!

Langwithces.org

This blog was extremely helpful. Langwitches.org not only provided great examples of student produced podcasts but it's comments from other educators also provided excellent ideas on how to sell the idea of podcasting and technology in the classroom to parents and administrators. As I perused through the comments section from other educators I found one idea that I thought was extremely useful and obvious (I don't know why this didn't occur to me...). The idea was to actually show parents and administrators how these forms of technology are being used in the classroom instead of just speaking to them about it and as the langwitches' blog states, "watching their eyes glaze over". One could also host a technology night in your classroom where parents and children came in and the kids would teach the parents about how to use the technology (ie. logging on to comment on their classroom blog or downloading a classroom podcast) with the help of the teacher. I'm assuming that some schools have already held similar functions, but I wonder what other creative methods there are to get parents and administrators on board with the use of technology in the classroom?

Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom...

This video was great to watch and anyone who is considering using podcasting as an educational tool in their classroom should watch this video. It gives some really great ideas on how to use podcasting in the classroom. The testimonials from kids were also helpful. My favorite idea was the social studies teacher who recorded a reading to supplement a lesson he was teaching on slavery. He collaborated with other teachers and created a podcast for the class to listen to. The podcast added so much emotion to the lesson which in turn had positive impact on the students. I also liked the fact that the students still had to visualize and imagine what was going on in the reading instead of just watching a video. The testimonials by the students were great, one student spoke of how her parents were happy that she was listening to classroom lectures on her ipod instead of just Beyonce and the fact that some families are now listening to classroom podcasts in the car on family road trips is great as well. Podcasting is a great way to get parents involved in the learning process. The implications of a parent being able to listen to a child's classroom lecture or have access to their child's study materials via podcasting are endless! I'm always thinking of ways to increase parent involvement in the classroom but have never realized that technology will be a way to do this until now...good stuff...good stuff... These new forms of technology have made me excited about becoming a teacher again.

Comments4Kids

This week was my first opportunity to make a comment on an elementary student's blog. Wow, what a great insight on what is happening in today's classrooms. This week I got to read Alyssa's blog in Canada that was entitled "A Fun Foggy Week". She didn't really talk about the fog but she sure did talk about her class's up and coming events. It seems as though Alyssa's teacher Ms. Deyenberg has so many creative ideas to keep her students active and engaged in the learning process.

Ms.Deyenberg's Class Blog


3 comments:

  1. I also loved the idea of telling parents or informing them about the uses of technology in school! Awesome idea, I know that I would be more open to things that are new, especially if I knew more about them.

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  2. There is so much to learn! And learning is exciting. Put what you have learned to use in your podcast!

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  3. I didn't think about the application of podcast in the classroom to strike more emotion in the students while talking about topics as sensitive as slavery.

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