Blog Assignment #4

I started off reading the Judy Scharf Podcast Collection. She begins by telling us exactly what a podcast actually is. She describes it as a “radio-style talk show”. Podcasts can include music, be listened to on the computer or MP3 player, and allow information to be shared with people via the Internet. The only materials you need is a computer, microphone, and software. The software for podcasting is free. On this website you are given a podcast grading sheet, topic suggestions, and tips to succeed. Some of Judy’s tips were making sure you spend enough time with the software to be comfortable with it, let students pick whom they want to work with and their own topics, and allow plenty of time to complete the project. Judy also provides a podcast rubric. When making my own podcasts, I could go by her rubric to be sure and include certain aspects in my project. At the bottom of the page, she gives you two examples of podcasts. They each have background music and follow a specific topic. I didn't know much about podcasts before reading this website and it helped to have a better understanding.

In the video, The Benefits of podcasting in the Classroom, Doug Saunders starts off by saying how podcasting is an effective way of interacting with students outside of the traditional classroom. Podcasting focuses on the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. A “Millenial” is referred to as a person who was born after the year of 1980. Anyone born after this year has always had technology affecting his or her life. Everything from cell phones, computers, and TVs have been a major part of life since then. Podcasting has also played a role. Podcasting allows for differentiation in the classroom. This allows you to record a lecture and the student can simply play it back and listen to it as a review. If a student is sick and has to miss class one day, that student could pull up lectures on a program such as iTunes as a podcast and they could listen to the lesson. Teachers also upload their podcasts on blogs for the classroom. Harry Dell came up with a lesson for his students to help create a podcast by allowing the students to be a character in a story while he is the narrator. Podcasting is good for parents as well because they can hear what is being said in the classroom and help their child if needed. In my future classroom, I think it would be very useful to use podcasting and uploading lectures and discussions to iTunes. This way if a student misses class or is just confused on a certain lesson, it is available for them to listen to again.

I read Podcasting with First Grade from Langwitches Blog. This was about a first grade class that was inspired to create a podcast of their own after listening a second grade’s class podcast story. This first grade class had been reading the book called Vacation under the Sun by Mary Pope Osborne. The idea that come about was to create a podcast that was interviewing the two main characters in the book. The teacher read them one chapter at a time and they discussed what they had read. As a class they decided what questions they were going to ask the main characters and what the answers where going to be. The students each got a chance to be the interviewer and to be one of the main characters actually answering the questions. This is a perfect way to help comprehend a story and to get the whole class involved. If a student was curious about anything in the book, it could be used as one of the interview questions and their imaginations could go wild. I love the idea of doing this in my classroom one day. The students love getting to hear themselves on the podcast and they think it is so cool that they are on the Internet doing it.