Podcasting for Education

Podcasting has created a new way for student to actively become involved in their education. Podcasts are audio recordings stored as an mp3 file. Students can listen to these podcasts on ipods, computers, and CDs.  Mr. Coley's fifth-grade students use podcasting as a way to summarize their units. They break up the class into different groups and write scripts, record it and then pull it all together with a simple program like GarageBand. They then share their podcasts on the web. This is an awesome way to broadcast what you are learning and give the students an opportunity to listen to remember their units later on down the road. I also feel like this is a great resource for teachers to use. If classes post their podcasts, like Mr. Coley, then many other classrooms can enjoy the podcasts and learn from them as well. This is a great way to give students information other then the teacher lecturing. I feel like many kids would enjoy this unique way to learn and enjoy the change of pace. Listening to Themselves: Podcasting Takes Lessons Beyond the Classroom 

While creating out podcast in class I got to see how easy and useful this would be for my own classroom. This is a great project for a class to create. It allows them to be creative and can be done on any topic. I definitely plan on not only having my kids create podcasts, but also creating my own podcasts for my class to use. There is also a vast amount of resources online that I can use for my classroom. There are podcasts on any topic imaginable. Here's a great website to find podcasts for your classroom. You can also find a ton of free podcast in the itunes store as pictured below.

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Visiting Lincoln Elementary

Being able to visit Lincoln Elementary was a great experience. It's always good to be able to see what you are learning about being effectively used in the classroom. Lincoln Elementary was definitely an eye opening experience. They have so many amazing things going on in the classroom and using simple technology to do so.

photo from personal collection

My favorite part of the visit was seeing the younger kids working on math. There were so many students in the classroom and all of them were interactively engaged in what they were doing. There were students playing math games on the ipod touch, students counting money on the interactive whiteboard, and students on the computer. When I was asking the different students about what they were very eager to show you. They loved being able to show off the fun math skills they were able to do using technology. The kids were so excited to be learning. This website gives the top 10 math apps for the ipod touch.

Lincoln Elementary has done a great job of getting their kids excited about learning. This was proven again and again as we walked around the school. When we went upstairs to the 5th grade classroom, the kids loved being able to talk about their projects. I was amazed by what the kids were able to create out of popsicle sticks and glue. This was such a great example of how project based learning really is passion based learning. 

Lincoln Elementary really has a positive environment for their kids. They have such supportive parents that really make people want to be apart of the school. I would love to have the opportunity to go back to Lincoln and spend more time their.