Morning Announcement Podcast

This is a podcast that I created for the morning announcements. The announcements are recorded everyday by fifth grade students. These announcements are played and recorded for teachers to play every morning during homeroom. I enjoyed being part of the morning announcements by providing my podcast. I used audacity to record the announcements and I plan to use it more in the classroom for other activities. To listen to my podcast please click on the title Morning Announcement Podcast above.

My Podcasts

I started to search for Podcasts that related to education. I decided to start with The Education Podcast Network because we talked about this site during class. I was not thrilled with using this site to find podcasts related to the elementary grades. It was very difficult to find a podcast that interested me and not all the links had a podcast with it, but I did come across one. It was a video podcast titled Penn Manor School District News: Middle School Gifted Program. To watch this podcast go to http://epnweb.org/index.php?request_id=345&openpod=16#anchor16 and go to the POD labeled Middle School Gifted Program. This podcast provided a detailed description of the gifted program in the Penn Manor School District. I thought this was a great idea for students leaving the elementary gifted program and entering middle school program. This would provide them with a great tutorial of what projects are available in gifted, how to handle your schedule, and what classes to take. By watching this podcast I thought of different ideas I could do use when I implement podcasts into my classroom. I subscribed to several other podcasts but this one provided me with the most ideas.

Another podcast that I subscribed to was called Kid Cast. These podcasts were posted by Dan Schmit and my favorite one was called Kidcast #56 – Questions Make the World Go Round at http://www.intelligenic.com/blog/?p=133. While listening to his podcast I was able to get great ideas on how to form questions for my students. He broke down Blooms Taxonomy and built questions around the different levels. This podcast will help teachers to understand how to use a podcast to ask high level questions. I was able to take many ideas from listening to this podcast. The one idea that stuck out was the “question game.” This game was used to keep students asking questions, by forming their answer into another question. This is made to help students brainstorm and move toward the big question of evaluation. All of these ideas were formed around using podcasts in the classroom to expand students’ ability levels and challenge them to think outside of the box.

While searching for student made podcasts I found this wonderful podcast at http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/shows/Willowcast31.html. This website related to grades K-5 and I chose to focus around fifth grade because that is the level I am currently teaching. While searching for a podcast I found one relating to social studies which is a subject that I teach. I listened to a podcast that focused around the 2008 election. This podcast gave great details on how to become president with Fast Facts, Vocabulary Theater, Terrific Trivia, and many other great details relating to the office of President of the United States and our election process. This podcast was well organized and allowed the students to be engaged in social studies without making it boring. The students seemed well prepared and sounded excited about providing the information for the listeners.

After subscribing and listening to a number of podcasts I found them to be very beneficial. I can think of many ways podcasts can be effective, but the most important of them all is it engages the students into the curriculum. By having them create a podcast they are using their knowledge and understanding to apply and analyze the information to evaluate their find product the podcast. I plan on using the ideas that I listened to from all the different podcasts and start integrating them into my classroom.

New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Classrooms

I was searching for an article that related to using new tools in the classroom and found this article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/technology/techspecial3/03ethan.html. The article was titled, New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts, and Virtual Classrooms. This article discusses a classroom that consistently uses podcasts in their classrooms. This class designed an online radio show in the form of a podcast to feature daily news, activities, and other related areas. The students who are involved in this production are third and fourth graders. The number one aspect that matters is, “Are the students motivated to do all the things to keep it running.” This was the key for this teacher because he was able to look over the project, and make sure everything was appropriate and accurate, but the students made all the effort to keep it running. The research these students put forth beside their daily work is incredible. The opportunity this teacher provided his students made not just an impact on the entire school, but the world of technology.

The way the teachers get their students to blog is to make the topic interesting to them. This will jump start the use of blogging worldwide. This opened the door for students to blog about several different subjects to get different view points on topics of concern. No matter what age students are their voice counts and using technology enhances their opportunity to make it heard. Technology is made to be interactive and the classroom needs to be designed around that. Overall, I thought this was an extremely good article about the new tools used in technology. I hope the world understands that students have the ability to contribute to what is going on, if they are given the chance. That chance starts with teachers, parents, and other students working together to make it happen as a whole. It takes hard work, dedication, focus and a lot of other tools to develop the classrooms these teachers made, but it’s only possible if you give it a try.

Flickr

I chose to use Flickr to upload my photos. I decided to upload a variety of photos that represent my family, friends, my girlfriend, vacations, art work, and my classroom. This would be a great way to share photos with parents of our classroom parties. The parents would be able to log on and view all the activities that are happening in our classroom. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/32325083@N06/ and see what you think of my pictures.

Delicious - Tchropka's Bookmarks

I chose to use Delicious bookmarking, http://delicious.com/Tchropka to bookmark sites that would benefit students, teachers, parents, and myself. It is very convenient to bookmark all the sites that I use daily because it saves time. There are websites that my students could use during computer class by just clicking on my URL link to Delicious. I found great interactive sites for my students to use to improve and practice their skills in different content areas. I also looked for sites that provided teachers and parents with free resources. I am excited that I was able to bookmark all these great resources, so check them out and hopefully you find something useful.

PowerPoint – Creating Classroom Presentations

I was searching PowerPoint presentations and found a fascinating article at http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech013.shtml. I chose to review this article because I incorporate PowerPoint presentations into my lessons weekly. This article explains why PowerPoint presentations are used and how it creates an interactive classroom environment. The benefit of using PowerPoint in the classroom is that it keeps the interest and attention of the students. Students enjoy graphics, text, and interactive material which are user friendly.

This article lists a couple of projects that students completed that were very successful. Another great benefit with PowerPoint is the ability of all grade levels to use it. It can be used to instruct a class, instruction for learning centers, assessments, display student work, slide shows, and student portfolios. The ability to use PowerPoint is easy to understand, but if you are having trouble there is a tutorial for new users on the basics.

The overall benefit of PowerPoint is the ability to use it in the classroom to allow your students to create projects. This will encourage the students to be creative and at the same time become more familiar with technology. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this article on PowerPoint and the students’ in my classroom this year get excited about the lesson when I put it in a PowerPoint presentation. I recommend allowing your students to explore using PowerPoint and if you are having trouble click on additional resources for more detailed instructions.

Really Simple Syndication Under Review

I signed up on Bloglines and found 16 feeds that I thought I would be interested in daily. I liked RRS aggregator because it allows the sources that you are interested in to come to you. The information that I subscribed to is updated daily and the latest information is being sent to you. I love sports and thought it was so incredible that I could see news as quick as a couple clicks. I also like how it updates the blog based on the topic of choice. The ability to expand the tab so that you can see all the blogs or just a folder with them inside it makes it user friendly. Another nice benefit about subscribing is that you can delete the subscription whenever you want. I like this feature because sometimes you might think a topic will have what you are looking for and you find out that it does not. Finally, it is easy to subscribe to a blog you like which makes using Bloglines a great RSS aggregator.

I hate to name the negatives of things, but the Bloglines was not as easy to use as I thought it would be. This made it challenging for me because I was subscribing to websites that I was interested it and was not ready for all the information at once. I have been checking my categories that I chose and it has been wonderful to use and greatly appreciated.