Podcasting

Instead of creating an “About Me” podcast (boring!), I chose to podcast a short message to one of my sisters.

I’ve never been a fan of recording things, so there was that uneasiness. It might have been better if I had been home alone. Both Podomatic and Gcast were easy to use. Gcast may have been a bit simpler, but Podomatic made it easy for me to insert a photo. Since I suffered through recording my own voice, I did not find it necessary to also include a picture of myself…my dog’s much cuter!



My file uploaded immediately with Gcast, but with Podomatic I did something wrong and flipped through various screens to be able to find out how to fix my errors. All in all, that didn’t really take too long, though. Podomatic did make it easy to send the podcast url via email. I’ll decide which site I like better after I upload more.

Podcasting would be a great tool to use frequently in the classroom. I’d love to make podcasts of all of the spelling lists, then just play them weekly for at least Friday’s retest. Also, if students are absent, it would be easy for them to take the test simply by going to that week’s episode. Lessons could be recorded and used later for review/remediation as needed. Again, the information would then be available for any students who are absent.

There’s a lot that the students could do with podcasting. They could record stories, which would give them more fluency practice. They LOVE listening to the main story selection on CD each week, so podcasts would also be a way to easily include other short stories for them to listen to. It would be fun to have “guest” podcasters, such as parents, the principal, and special area teachers. Podcasting also would be a fun way for them to practice retelling stories. Then when they went back and listened, they could evaluate how well they did and what could be improved on. They could podcast information about topics they are learning about in science and social studies, which would be a good review of concepts.

I’d really like to set up a podcast of the weekly newsletters (Thank you, Joy!), with the kids reading the information. That might be a good incentive for some of them to complete work during the week so that they can have a turn at podcasting the newsletter. The parents would love it.

That said, I’m almost finished with this class!

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!

Podcasts

I asked my sister for some suggestions of what to listen to, knowing that she listens to several. Then I also checked out iTunes under hobbies and was amazed that there were so many knitting podcasts. I listened to…

The Knitmore Girls This is a mother and daughter production. The topic is evident by the title. They discuss what they are working on and knitting in general. It made me feel better about having so many unfinished projects! Yes, I’ll listen to more of these podcasts.

Let’s Knit 2gether This one was a video podcast. The one that watched demonstrated several techniques, reviewed a book, then talked about various upcoming events. I’ll also check out more episodes of this, because the one I watched really was a great tutorial.

Socks in the City I checked this one out because the title cracks me up! She begins talking about various KAL’s (Knit-ALongs), then just babbled about socks. At the end of the episode she shared a vintage pattern.




Here is my first attempt at toe-up, magic loop socks. Maybe if I did listen to more of the above podcasts, it would keep me motivated to finish these in a reasonable amount of time.




Podcast subscriptions in the classroom: I think this would be worth some time spent searching for something relevant to share with students, now that I have a much better idea of where to go looking. But, that will have to wait until I finish this class. And write up my lesson plans for next week. I cannot believe how quickly this winter break is flying by.