Podcast

I have to say that I had by doubts about pod casting. I do confess that after figuring out how they work and the technology pod casting brings to the table my doubts are no more. After listening to the pod casts in the assignment I began to do a little surfing on my own. Wow, was I shocked to find all the information that is offered through pod casting. My 12 year old son even listened to a story, "Robinson Crusoe" to be exact. I was in amazement that he actually sat their with the ear phones in and actually listened.

SMARTBoard Lessons proved to be an informative pod cast. I chose to listen to lesson 146. The lesson was about clouds and cloud formation. The pod casters were Ben Hazzard, in Port Hampton, Ontario and Joan M. Badger of Lake Winnipeg. The pod casters have received many awards to include: Exemplary Educators, Microsoft Innovative Teachers and Edublog 2007 "Best Use of Audio". The cast provided additional links and information about Wordle, which makes word clouds and the Whiteboard Challenge in addition to the cast content.

In KidCast Dan Schmit provided and information way to help children be more descriptive. The lesson was titled "A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words", lesson 46. In this lesson he shared a process to help children be more in dept in their writing. A photo is used as the topic of the writing and he tells the children to generate 20 questions about the photo. These questions are used to help the children write a more descriptive narrative.

The reactions of students in San Diego about technology were discussed in the ConnectLearning pod cast. Educators meet in order to discuss how technology motivates children. It is express that technology allows children to be more personal and responsible for their own learning. Children work harder when they know their peers will be reading their work as it is posted to blogs. This in turn allows for children to have fun as they learn.

Sheryl Oates and Sheryl Neesbraum Beach, via phone discussed how to help the excitement after convention in the EdTech Talk pod cast. They expressed their concern about how teachers are motivated during and after conference, but lose the motivation after a while. Strategies of community learning were discussed. If the community is motivated then the teachers will be.



I found the first four pod cast interesting and informative but chose to use other pod cast to complete the assignment. WordSmart WordCast introduces five words of a particular theme each week. This week's theme was history. I found this pod cast helpful in that it improves vocabulary. I myself fall short of having a accelerated vocabulary and this would be helpful in improving that weakness.

Another podcast the was informative to me was Aesop's Fables, through LearnoutLoud.com. This pod cast offers children varies tales of virtuous living as written by Aesop. These tales of virtuous living could be explained to children as they relate to real life situations.