Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Podcasting

Podcasts could be useful in the classroom to engage students in other forms of teaching (rather than teacher talk, students listen). If using for younger students you should use short podcasts so students don't become bored, older students may stay engaged to longer podcasts if the information is interesting and linked to subject areas.

I found several podcasts that i would use in the younger grades of school. These podcasts are called 'Stories to Read, Words to Know' by Evan-Moor Educational Publishers. These podcasts are based on storybooks. The book gets read by a lady at a pace so children can follow as she reads, then it is followed by echo reading (she reads, then students read). I believe these particular podcasts would be appropriate for Prep/Year 1. Students could also access these podcasts from home and get additional support from their parents to improve their reading.



"Today's kids are challenging us, their educators, to engage them at their level" (Prensky, 2005). The kids of the future are technology literate, so as teachers we need to engage them in the new technologies rather than enrage them with the old pen and paper method of teaching and learning.

2 comments:

  1. Storybook on podcast would be great employed in classroom for verbal students and reflective learners – they are able to stop the podcast on their accord, hence thinking about the new information they are learning from the story. I wonder if you can obtain a video with the storybook as well, because I know some podcast you can, this would be then include visual learners. My child is in Prep at the moment I’m going to have a look into this so he can utilise this with the iPod I have, thanks for the idea.

    I feel classes are to big and sometimes students are missing out oh vital time with the LM hence with this tool students would not need the LM to the lead the class/group the entire lesson making their time spread for all students. At home they can be employed the same way, because parents do not always have the time because of busy lifestyle or other obligations. Hence parent can guide their child though this process.

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  2. Kristen, i also thought that podcasts are a great tool the parents could explore and experiment with so they can give additional support and practice to their children in the area of reading.

    It's great that you are going to use this with your child as it is a fun way to learn and engage a child. There are many children who do not like to read and i believe that using podcasts will make children enjoy reading again as they are being taught by someone/something different rather than the everyday face-to-face learning with their teacher.

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