Thing 19

I really liked a podcast from the Lower Merion School District covering how teachers can deal with the fear of technology and the snafus that go along with technological assignments. Several teachers related their personal stories of techno-disasters, how they handled it and what they learned from their experience. I think my favorite story was one where the principal was visiting a classroom, following along like the students on a laptop. The instructor sent the students to a website at a ".gov" address, and the principal typed ".com" out of habit, which brought up an inappropriate website. The principal started having a fit! Then when the truth was figured out, everyone - including the students and principal - had a discussion about what they had learned from the experience. http://www.lmsd.org/staff/techmentor/podcast/FearFactor.m4a

A podcast like this one is what I would share with colleagues who are afraid to use technology. The candid comments and great stories of trials and triumphs using technology have given me new inspiration to keep my focus on the fact that it is all worth it in the end because even a failure is a lesson learned! I will expect future trials, but try to look at them in a more positive light.

Another podcast I liked was a 2nd grade student-led Willoweb podcast covering solids, liquids and gases. The master of ceremonies was definitely reading a script, and he couldn't pronounce his R's, but that made it all the more charming. One student defined the 3 terms, another told a riddle related to states of matter, and still another gave a description of an experiment you can do with ice, salt, and string. Another interviewed a guest expert. The expert had the same last name as the teacher :-), but was also an engineer for the local natural gas utility. There were about 6 or 7 well thought out questions in the interview which was nicely done. I was very impressed with the integration of music into the background - very professional sounding. An added bonus was a demonstration video link done by 5th grader "Katherine". I noticed that Katherine's face was never shown. Only her hands as she performed the experiment and her voice explaining the actions were included. The 2nd graders all used first names only. I think this was well-thought out as an internet safety precaution. I also liked the fact that there was a printed agenda on the webpage along with the crawling sound bar, which was much more interesting to look at then the bar alone!
http://mps.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/shows/Willowcast35.html

It's obvious from what I have observed that even very young children can be involved in podcasts. The complexity (and teacher's expectations) increases with the students' grade level and experience, and I can see where they can learn to hone writing and speaking skills. I do think it would be exciting for my students to hear themselves, at least at first. But my concern is that this would eventually be considered lame without the visual aspect. My 7/8 graders seem to always want the visual - even if it's a slide show or still photo. I'm wondering if one can "marry" a Power Point for visuals and a podcast for sound? Defnitely something to research and find out about!