FHUHS IT

Podcasting is a powerful way to share information, tell stories, entertain and assess learning in a creative, engaging and authentic way. OK, it’s a great thing, but what is podcasting you ask?  Podcasting is using the Internet to host episodes of audio and/or media files that can be heard/seen on the Internet, on your own computer or downloaded.  Often, they are captured in “podcatchers” like iTunes which looks for new episodes of a particular podcast to which you have subscribed.  Someone explained podcasts to me once by making the analogy between podcasting and an old fashioned radio show.  However, now we can make audio podcasts, enhanced podcasts (audio accompanied by pictures) and video podcasts (which are sometimes called vodcasts).  This is another way of making a digital story to share with people from all over the world or just your little piece of it.  They can be hosted on local networks or your computer so that they are not accessed globally or hosted in the cloud on sites such as podomatic, odeo, or iTunes (there are many others) so that they can be shared with all who would like to listen to them.

In education, podcasting can be used as an authentic way of learning and assessment.  For example, imagine a middle school language arts classroom where the students are beginning to learn about the 9 comprehensive reading strategies.  After initial introduction to the strategies, students are asked to work in pairs to create a podcast on a particular strategy.  The strategy is to be explained in the podcast and an example given to demonstrate how the strategy is used while reading.  An appropriate introduction and conclusion are incorporated into the podcast as well as nice background music. The teacher uses a rubric to assess the students’ understanding of the reading strategy assigned, as well as the students’ use of the technology.  Then the podcasts are shared with the entire community so that all students and parents can learn from the podcasts.  By sharing with the community at large, parents and grandparents are now able to better help their children with reading comprehension!  The students were able to participate in an fun, engaging and authentic learning experience that benefits their community and feel a sense of pride in their work.  This kind of scenario could be done in all content areas.

Give podcasting a try with your students.  You will be glad you did and so will they!  Below are some helpful links to get you started!

www.podomatic.com to upload, and store your podcasts.  You can even create an RSS feed that you can give to iTunes and they will become a podcatcher for your feeds.  This has a definite cool factor for students.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ This is a free downloadable software that will let you record your podcast and change it into an mp3.  You will also need the lame encoder file to make mp3′s in Audacity.  Audacity will work on either a Mac or a PC.  The site has downloads for both formats.

Here are some Audacity tutorials:  http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Tutorial

http://www.musopen.com/ is where you can get some music from the public domain for your podcast.

Good luck!!

Fair Haven Students Enter Contest!

Doodle 4 Google is a competition that encourages US students to use their creativity to produce their own Google logo for use on the Google site.  The contest is open to both elementary and high school students in grades K-12 in all 50 US states.  The judging criteria is the following:  artistic merit, creativity, theme communication,  appropriateness of the supporting statement and whether the submissions adhered to the rules.  This years supporting statement that the students had to inspire them to create their Google logo is: “If I could do anything I would…”  They had a maximum of 50 words to describe in writing their Google artwork and how it fits the prompting statement.  Ms. Potvin and Ms. Ransom both have students who entered the contest.  There are all kinds of prizes including netbooks, $15,000 scholarships, a trip to the Google New York Office, $25,000 grants or the school to establish/improve a computer lab and more!  We have some really talented artists and just look at what they have entered into the contest (below).  Wish them luck!

This artwork is from Tyler Ciejko, a junior, and is entitled “Salute to the Military.”   Tyler is in Ms. Potvin’s class.

This doodle for Google entry is from Amanda Green who is also in Ms. Potvin’s class.  Her artwork is entitled, “Living Cartoons.” Amanda is a senior.

This is entitled “Cakes 4 Life” by Cassie Ciejko.  Cassie is also from Ms. Potvin’s class and is a freshman.

This doodle is entitled “Inspirations” and was drawnby Natalie Martin.  Natalie is a freshman and in Ms. Ransom’s class.

I was recently introduced to a new Web 2.0 tool called eyePlorer. It is sort of a search engine with a new twist. In eyePlorer, you simple key in a topic you are interested in researching, hit go and watch categorized information called eye spots appear. To see if it is the information that you need, you can click on one of the “eye spots” to get an explanation of that particular piece of information. If this isn’t cool enough, you can drag information to a built-in notepad on your screen any information that you would like to keep and it saves your notes from session to session!  You can create several different tabs in your notes so that you can keep different topics separated.   Seeing is believing, so here is a video that explains how it works.

This tool is definitely worth trying with your students or for yourself. I especially love how when you click on an eye spot, it tells you what the article or piece of information is about so you don’t necessarily have to go to the site and read to find out if it is what you need. Try it out the next time you ask your students to do some research.  My prediction is that students may be more engaged because of the way eyePlorer works.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of it!

Here is the link to eyePlorer.

For information on more educational technology, visit my blog, the Technological Conundrum.