The first I will dive into is Podcasting With First Grade. The main starting point is kids were given "Vacation under the Volcano" by Mary Pope Osborne from the Magic Tree House series to read. Then,the idea was to pretend that the kids were interviewing Jack and Annie, the two main characters in the story, about their latest adventure that had taken them to Pompeii. Interesting and fun for 6 year olds for sure. By recording on garageband and making this fun project, the teacher says that the students learned or at least addressed:listening, speaking, presenting, comprehension, storytelling, performance, voice acting, oral fluency, media,and technology. Looks impressive, so many things focused on with one project. Now, let's see what the next blog brings us!
Flat Stanley Podcast is about Paper Flat Stanley and because the boy accidentally was squashed flat, he had the ability to travel to far off places easier than a regular kid. So, this comes to the idea for the kids to make believe the same has happened to them. The project let's the kids pick the location,tell how they got there,what did they did at the location and finally,how did they get back home? It is important too, when recording, to use emotions to describe the journey as opposed to just telling a story.
The last one I explored was the Listening Comprehension Podcast. The main drive on this project was fluency in a language. By taking turns reading a particular part in a story while adding words in Hebrew, then putting the podcast recording out of order, then making the kids put the story back in its proper order by listening and pasting the recording back to the proper sequence, the kids would learn, as the teacher puts it, "writing a script, listening, comprehension, collaboration, speaking skills, and fluency in the target language." Wow, that was a lot to spew out and I bet it was even more difficult to read, but that was it in a nutshell.
What do these three images conjure? Idiots? People that lacked a proper education involving podcasts I bet. If only...... Well, I believe after "learning" about the three blogs for these elementary students that nothing was accomplished that could of otherwise been accomplished from standard teaching. Let me state however, that my standards are high, so a standard teacher would be innovative and fun. Not at all to say that this teacher introducing podcasts does not fit that same description. On the contrary, I believe the teacher shows tremendous thought and attention to what expands a child's mind. You are probably saying I am contradicting myself, but I am not. My argument only falls on the tool, not the specific desire. Can podcasting be a tool, maybe. All I know is that the kids in the United States are overly reliant on technology and maybe we need to focus on what made our schools and kids great years ago before all this technology. Let parents and teachers set students up to imagine and ask questions. Google it has created a society of know it now, remember it never.
In conclusion, will I use podcasting now for this class? Yes, I have to. Will I when I am a teacher. Probably not. Bottom line, I do not jump to one thing just because, I jump only when I know the person before me survived.
I have to say at the beginning of this assignment I felt the same way as you! To be quite honest I don't know if a podcast would be beneficial to my group of students in high school history classes but I could think of ways to use it as a teacher. I made a note that on the days I know I will be absent from the class I could podcast my lecture so the students can continue to do their notes. That way we stay on track and it's not a day wasted. Just thought I could give you one suggestion of a way for using it!
ReplyDelete"Google it has created a society of know it now, remember it never. " You are correct, student have access to information at their fingertips, that is why the job of a teacher has shifted. We are no longer the source of information, but we must show students how to use this information properly.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has expanded the resources we have for our students. As a teacher, in order to be effective we must be engaging the students. Technology engages students in many ways and they can relate to it. What do you plan to do to engage your students in the classroom? Students tend to be more responsive to things that they enjoy and you can tie into education.
Hahaha, I agree in many of these sentiments. Seriously, you should read my blog post on this assignment. I was quite infuriated with how it was done.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, we weren't even introduced to a proper definition of podcasting. Podcasting is media that is downloadable from the internet. So youtube videos are (at least in most cases) not podcasts. And yet they can obtain similar goals, like allowing students who missed class to still have a way to get notes.
I will disagree with you on one point. Our school system has never been "great". That being said, there have been great teachers, great thinkers, and great students. I think that technology can be very beneficial if used right, and I think the point of this class is to introduce different kinds of technology we can use in our classrooms. Not necessarily that we should use every single one of them.
I feel that the reason behind giving us this knowledge, is that without it we may never branch off from old ways. "Old school" things can indeed be very effective, but you can't ignore the progress of the "new school" either. The reason for most of our current technology is based on what people felt needed to be fixed in the past. So, clearly we shouldn't completely discourage technology. But, I agree that it shouldn't be forced upon us in every aspect of teaching, nor on our students in every aspect of learning. I think I just circled in thought a little bit.
I don't want you to be discouraged about technology as a whole just because you don't like this courses way of "delivering" knowledge. Note the problems, but try to see the good. And if you can only see problems, at least try to come up with a solution... that doesn't revert to ignoring this class.
I love chatting with yall in class.
Sincerely,
Thomas Leytham