Journal Post #9

Already at 9!!! Well this is of course an interesting chapter. I first would love to talk about my focus question. 

While I wanted to learn the answers to all of the focus questions (and ultimately did) I chose that I wanted to discuss Focus Question #5. I chose this question because I honestly thought, "hmmm, I would like to know how to do that.."

How can teachers integrate podcasts and vodcasts into their teaching?

What are podcasts and vodcasts? Let's answer that question first. Podcasts are online audio recordings that can be accessed by computers or portable media players (ipods/ipads/iphones). Vodcasts are video and audio recordings. 

How do we find/access podcasts and vodcasts? 

Educational Podcasts are all over the web. Many places on the web offer podcasts or you can go to iTunes and search for a podcast on any subject. 

 

• Browse all categories on iTunes store
• Power search by iTunes by keyword, author, or title. 
• Search Apple's iTunesU using the terms education and podcasts
• iTunesU
• Go to specific educational, news or science organization site and find out what podcasts they are offering for download.
• The Education Podcast Network www.epnweb.org maintains an extensive inventory of podcast programming for teachers.
• Go to Podcast Alley www.podcastalley.com and consult it's comprehensive podcast directory 
• Other sites are Podcast Pickle and Podcast Ready 

When teachers and students produce their own podcasts, vodcasts, they make new opportunities to learn academic material outside of the classroom by hearing or viewing lectures, dicussions, demonstrations, and summaries. This opens a variety of opportunities to teachers and students. A teacher can record the lectures. Students that were either absent or needed to get something they may have missed in the lecture can listen to those lectures and benefit from them. By adding podcasts to the teachers website is yet another tool teachers have to help give all their students a great education.

How do we create a podcast/vodcast?

As you can tell I got very interested in this subject, so while I am sure I could go on and on about this subject, but I think I will go on to the Tech Tool. I chose Tech Tool 1. 

VISUAL LEARNING WITH DIGITAL PROJECTORS AND INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS

Back when I was in school, yes a very long long time ago it feels like, we didn't have interactive whiteboards or digital projectors that they have now. We had these projectors that you would put a paper on and it would project it on the wall. You would wheel it around to different rooms. So no there wasn't one in every room. 

In all of my classes at Edison, we have the digital projectors. The white screen that comes down, a mounted projector to the ceiling, attached to the computer. It's great to have. And if this tool is available you can use this for anything you can use the computer for. Think of it as a huge screen attached to the computer. Now interactive whiteboards are really cool. They can do that and more! Most Lee County Schools have the interactive whiteboards. Using these you can actually touch the boards. This is a great tool to have because the students can go up to the board and interact with the class. This is an amazing tool to have. I don't think even now after using them often I will know all that can be done with them. All the teachers that have used them love them.

Overall this chapter discusses digital technology and multimedia and how we can use it. Powerpoint is a great tool for teachers especially in higher grades. I again love the whiteboards. Podcasts is something I think will take time for me to learn but find it exciting to learn about. While that is only a few things that we can use, this chapter covers a variety of them.


Well there it is for this week... I hope you enjoyed it, and of course take this information and explore even more.....

Chau



Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN:10 0-13-159611-X, ISBN:13 978-0-13-159611-5