Assignment 4

Podcast Resources

I really enjoyed several of the selected podcasts this week because they were about why we should use podcasting and ways to use them in the elementary classroom. Although, I listened and looked at all of them my favorites were The Benefits of Podcasting in The Classroom and Curriki - Podcast Collection. I now have a better understanding as to how to implement them with elementary aged children. This podcast information also helped complete some of the research I needed to do when creating our group podcast for our EDM 310 class in two weeks. Although, the ones last week were very entertaining and offered good information for teachers about various websites and technology, these gave me many more ideas and a purpose.

Here are some of the many reasons I learned why we should use podcasts in the classrooms: they are an effective way of interacting with students outside of the classroom, they offer a form of learning students of today are familiar with and therefore makes it relevant to the student, it allows for differentiation and project based learning, students can access the higher order thinking skills in Bloom's taxonomy, it promotes creativity and innovation, it can offer distance learning opportunities for absent students, students can record role plays in character making their learning more memorable, parents can see and hear what their children are doing at school. I really like the thought of using these for absent students. I taught a little girl with cystic fibrosis who often missed classes and this would have been a wonderful tool for her to keep up with what we did while she was in the hospital. I also discovered several topics in which the students could conduct their own podcasts. One of my favorite would be the students pretending to be on an African Safari. It would take a much higher level application of knowledge to research, describe and role play an African Safari than it would to just take a test on an African habitat. I also like the fact that students need to use communicative skills and descriptive language when making a podcast. I sometimes think that one of the disadvantage of technology is that the students loose important face to face interaction and development of interpersonal skills. After today's assignment, I now have a better understanding why podcasts are important and many reasons to implement them into any curriculum.

Week 4 Comments4Kids

This week I commented on Christie Weschler's blog who is a 5th grade from a school in Illinois. Her blog is on the Avoca School District website. I loved reading her blog because it reminded me of when I was little. She reviewed a Nancy Drew Novel that she had read. Of course, I too loved Nancy Drew. After reading her blog, I may have to read a novel as an adult and see if they are still as great as I thought they were back then. I really enjoyed reading her review and told her what a great job she was doing.