Why Podcasts?

Langwitches: First Graders Create Their Own Read Along Audiobook

I absolutely love this idea! I think that all students can be easily distracted in class, especially when it comes to the subject of reading. Therefore, just reading to them aloud while they listen can be somewhat of a bore and doesn't call for teacher-student interaction or really any interaction from the student to ensure their comprehension. Langwitches showed me an alternative way for reading comprehension and gave me some ideas to use in my classroom.

In addition to teaching Math I would like to teach English. This blog showed me that for better attention grabbing and improving reading comprehension, the students must have an interaction with what they are reading. For elementary students and even middle, I think recording themselves reading a script of the story would provide the students with a want to participate. Langwitches said

Students are so engaged, wanting to re-record, if their voice, didn’t sound “just” right.

Students started to experiment with their voices: inflection, fluency, pitches, emotions, volume, speed…

I think the use of podcasting would be a great tool for the classroom. It engages students and could potientially influence them to become more interested in the world of podcasting. Langwitches even said

Students (6-7 year olds)Â are very interested in the mechanics of Garageband (ex. tracks, dead air, sound clips, moving clips, etc).

Langwitches also taught me that even without the use of podcasts, a teacher simply reading to their students is not enough to ensure reading comprehension. In my opinion, I think she is right. I remember, especially in elementary and some middle school, when the teacher sat in front of us and read aloud, my classmates and I took that time to turn on our selective hearing and only partially listen. I remember we would pass notes, whisper and play around, etc. It was simply because nothing was capturing our attention and requiring us to do anything. The only time we would actually fully pay attention was if the class was doing something called Popcorn Reading, where any student could possibly be called upon randomly to read a selection of the story. Langwitches mentioned that even just printing out the script and having the students follow along on their own papers would involve them physically instead of just sitting there, capturing the students attention and requiring them to take part.

The Benefits of Podcasting in a Classroom

This video gave detailed benefits of podcasting in the classroom. 4 of these benefits really stuck out to me. One of the main benefits I liked was podcasting being an effective way of interacting with students outside of the classroom. With teachers and their classrooms using the technologoical advancements of the 21st century, I think students need to be able to access not only their teachers but their classroom work, notes and resources. As college students we have that, with Blackboard and Sakai and other e-learning sites, but elementary, middle and high school students do not. Podcasts, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and educational communicative sites like Moodle give these students a resource that they need in this century. The video also stated that podcasts can be an aide to absent students and long term out of school students. Instead of students just missing work because they were not in class for instruction, they can listen to a podcast for instruction and assignments.

I also liked the benefit of podcasting involving the parents. Parents can listen to instruction themselves and be an aide to their child and also understand what is going on in the classroom. A lot of time parents can not come for meetings or be of that much help to their child at home because of time and work. The availability of the podcasts allows the parents to listen to it on the go with a mobile app and be updated without taking time out of their busy schedules. It allows them to be an involved parent while taking care of their other obligations and responsibilities of the day.

A lot of our curriculum is changing to the Common Core Learning Standards, which is heavily involved with project based learning. Podcasts provide benefit to this because it gives a greater area for the project based learning. The podcast can be used as a project itself. Podcasting can be used for almost every subject. Students can write and act out a script for English and can write out and describe steps for Mathematics instruction. Overall, podcasts provide differentiation in the classroom. They require the students to take an action, rather than just listening to someone talk. In my opinion, this creates a better understanding and comprehension of the subject.

Langwitches: Listening-Comprehension Podcast

I love that in this blog Langwitches lets the readers know how Podcasting has affected her students. She says her students understand what they are saying and what it means. When learning new words it is important to not only know how to say the word but also know the meaning of the word. I think a lot of students are just taught the word itself and how to say it, but not the meaning, so when it may be brought up later in the year or in grades after, they don't know what it is. Langwitches says that this provides better comprehension of words and meanings and their context. She also says that the students sometimes want to re-do their part because of how they sound. Podcasting had become something they were interested in. They learned how to record and edit their podcasts and she even let them edit on the SmartBoard for the class to see.

It gives the learners the opportunity to see their voices, read the sounds, manipulate the sequence of sentences, sounds can be deleted, edited, emphasized and re-arranged similar than a word processing program can do this with the written word.

I loved her use of podcasts. It required the students to think critically and logically, collaborate with other students, and use their speaking and listening skills. Langwitches blog taught me that podcasts can be an overall tool for students inside and outside of the classroom and builds skills they already possess.