Blog Assignment 4

Roamin' with the Ancient Romans

In the Eagle’s Nest Radio Podcast #3, "Roamin' with the Ancient Romans" the students in Mrs. Edmison’s class presents a well organized and well delivered audio Podcast about the Ancient Romans. They offer information on four subjects concerning Ancient Rome, which are: Roman architecture, Gladiators, the History of Julius Caesar and the biography of Cleopatra VII. It is obvious that this group of students took their time putting together this Podcast from gathering information about Ancient Rome, then constructing a great script and finally each reporter rehearsing their information to be presented.

Listening to their Podcast taught me the importance of focusing on organizational skills when writing, editing and delivering a Podcast. After listening to their program, I was able to recount every subject that was reported and remember the Podcast very well. I think that it is very important for others to remember main points of a lesson after it is taught but this group of students took the challenge of presenting a memorable lesson, an audio lesson at that, and passed. I will definitely think of this Podcast when I make my own.






The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom

Mr. Joe Dale’s video on “The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom” offers many reasons why Podcasting is beneficial for modern day students. Students born after 1980 have never lived in a world without personal computers and are referred to as Millennials. Mr. Dale shares the information that these are the students in classrooms today and that they will spend 10,000 hours on the phone, 20,000 hours watching television and many more with the technology that is developed as they grow up.

Since these students spend so much time using these technologies, why not integrate education into the technology? I love the fact that Podcasting is a project based learning approach because it encourages creativity and utilizes higher order thinking skills. Students are able to listen and/or watch to learn about different subjects in and outside of the classroom, which is very important for students who are out of school for extended periods of time. I think that Podcasts and Vodcasts are a unique and wonderful way of keeping students engaged and excited to learn and share what they know.






1st Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Audiobook

I was immediately amazed at how a couple of first grade teachers incorporated Podcasting into their classroom. In the article, “1st Graders Create Their Own Read -Along Audiobook”, a teacher writes about an activity she did with a group of students while substituting in a first grade class. This teacher read a story to the students then recorded the students, in small groups, rereading the story. Once the original teacher returned, the two teachers collaborated in the activity, and even went one step further in writing a script and a booklet for the students to follow along as they listened to themselves through the podcast. This activity proved to keep the students excited and eager to participate.
I am impressed by the initiative taken and the effort of the two teachers who worked together to make this activity work. I never really thought about how or if Podcasting even could be introduced to students in the lower levels of elementary school but this article is inspiring because it shows how technologies can be modified to include students at very young ages.
From this article, I have discovered Garageband which is software that provides music/sound clips, tracks and dead air for users to include in Podcasts/Vodcasts.