The Power of Podcasting!

Exploring the world of podcasts has opened my eyes to the endless teaching opportunities in the classroom! I realized as I perused the podcast sites, there are countless ways to incorporate this learning technique in the classroom!! One way I discovered podcasting can be useful for teaching is to utilize it for narrative stories. As a read aloud activity, it might be fun to have students follow along to a podcast of the story. At Podcast Pickle, there is an option to receive classic children's stories read as a podcast. A teacher could create visuals, or even have students act out the story, as it is being narrated through the podcast. This also allows the teacher to assist the students, rather than read the story herself. It also might peak students' interest, just to hear a new person's voice in the classroom. With podcasting, the options are endless in the classroom. I think that both students and teachers can benefit from incorporating podcasting into classroom instruction. Narrative storytelling is just one way it can be implemented!

Videos in the Classroom

Videos...videos....videos.......!!!

Who doesn't love a good movie every now and then? Well, I sure do! However, I never considered how meaningful the impact of a video can have in the classroom. Thinking about the inclusion of video clips in the classroom, encouraged me to consider the ways videos can enhance learning for students. Videos are more than a breath of fresh air for students (rather than listening to their teacher's voice all period). They can take learning and enhance it! Videos can be a great tutorial. They can be used as step-by-step instruction guides for learning how to write a poem. Anyone remember the famous School House Rock vdeio about how a bill becomes a law? Some things you learn stay with you forever. So how do you create lessons that will always stay with students?

I think videos are an excellent way to have meaningful, purposeful and fun learning in the classroom. Videos can also be used as a way for teachers to supplement their teaching with examples from clips from the news, movies, history, etc. Any way teachers can bring in outside sources, it will definitely impact the students and make the lesson more memorable. Whenever one learns something, you need to think about how it applies to their lives right? Videos that can grasp the lesson and expand on it are excellent tools to have on hand in the classroom.

One video I found that I really enjoyed watching was "How Not to Use Powerpoint" on Teacher Tube. It is a funny, and very truthful tutorial on the etiquette of powerpoint. I think it is an excellent video for both students AND teachers to make note of. This video would be more appropriate for secondary students if it were used in the classroom. The points the speaker makes are very true. He talks about the amount of words per slide, the appropriate use of bullet points, color-theme choices, sound effects, graphs and tables, etc. Everything he mentions, is completely valid about PowerPoint. I think this would be a great video to show at the beginning of a unit or lesson that involves a PowerPoint project. The students would get a kick out of it and hopefully take away meaningful pointers too!

This video also goes for teachers! I know we all want to be fun and fresh and up to date with our technology usage in the classroom. However, that does not mean we have to abuse the use of PowerPoint. Many adults make the same mistakes the students make when using PowerPoint. Therefore, I think this is a great video for everyone using PowerPoint!