Podcasts and Screencasts in Learning English Language Arts
Faster computers with accessible broadband connectivity and expanded memory chips have made creating and viewing of multimedia compositions a more enjoyable and easier process. Many people, particularly teens, listen to podcasts, view video clips on blogs, or preview screencasts on a daily basis. They tune in for news updates, favorite music, or stories from their friends, family, and other interesting people, among many other things. Moreover, today’s youth are not only consumers of multimedia texts. They are also their producers. Good examples of student productions are a series of podcasts—book talks—on young and adult literature by college students, a Youth Radio
Atlanta series, a broadcasting news series by 4th graders, and 2nd graders’ book in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Please note how all these students’ unique voices shine through their multimedia compositions. They also have something important to share with us all about their personalized content featured in their productions.
Podcasts, screencasts, and blogvideos have just begun to evolve as new genres. Let us stop to think rhetorically about podcasts for a moment.
- What are they?
- How do we compose a podcast?
Please join in me in this exploration.
February 22, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
You might be interested in our Children’s Book Podcast “Just One More Book!” — a podcast about the children’s books we love and why we love them. In addition to discussing great kidlit, we feature interviews with authors, teachers, professors, illustrators, editors, bibliotherapists and we play listener-submitted children’s book reviews.
Hope to see you there!
Andrea
JustOneMoreBook.com
February 24, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
Podcasting?
Podcasting? What is it? When I was first introduced to the term, I found myself clueless. I chunked the word by trying to find smaller words inside of it, but that did not work. Then, I began to hear more people use the term and refer to it as some form of audio program or device. Later, I heard of iPods, iTunes, and other technological terms, which gave me more insight. As I read the chapter by Richardson, I gained even more knowledge and learned that “podcasting is basically the creation and distribution of amateur radio, plain and simple” (p. 112). This amateur radio style or podcasting makes it easier to access music, news, current events, and video clips as well as making it possible for others to create their own.
Posted in a previous blog, the author mentions that, “many people, particularly teens, listen to podcasts, view video clips on blogs, or preview screencasts on a daily basis”. Since I am more in tuned with technology, I can see this truth for myself-even in my own home. Recently, I realize how involved my own husband is with podcasting. My husband works for a Christian non-profit organization and they are using podcasting as another tool to spread the gospel.
Podcasting is used for a variety of reasons and I see how educators will soon be using podcasting to provide their students with a voice. Children of all ages like to be heard, like to encourage others, or feel as though they can change their world around them. Podcasting will allow students to impact their society and community in a different and broader way. The students will be able to contribute to a larger audience and begin to internalize cause and effect relationships in a new way.
As I listened to the news series for the 4th graders and the Martin Luther King Jr. dedication by the second graders, I saw first hand how capable students are of telling their story and relaying facts. It was very entertaining and exciting to listen to their stories of the flood that took place in their town. They had the thunderstorm sound effects and music. Since these teachers took the time to provide this foundation for excellence in presentation and work, I believe the students will become more diligent in their work over time.
With all of the change in technology and its ever growing impact on education, do you think it will be added to our academic standards?
Do you think that teachers, starting in elementary school, will be held accountable to teaching and integrating technology on a daily basis?
Is it reasonable to ask teachers with 15 or more students to teach several content areas, provide emotional support and supervision, teach podcasting/technology, prepare them for standardize test and the real world in one year? If so, how can it be done?
February 25, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
Since the first day the professor stated certain terms, podcast was one of them and I had no idea, what the term meant. However, after readings and class discussions, I realized that I did know that it was, just didnt know the exact term for it. In fact, I was actually using podcasts through Ipods!
After the reading, I decided to do a little more research myself. And, I went on wikipedia.com. The definition listed was quite similar to the description from the text. The website gave incite breaking the terms into chunks: “a pod refers to a container of some sort and the idea of broadcasting to a container or pod correctly describes the process of podcasting”.
How to compose a podcast?
There are actually many friendly user sites available to compose a podcast, such as: http://www.podbean.com/start-podcast. The basic steps are to upload the audio file and then publish it.
I think that this is a great tool to use within the classroom in order to facialiate learning through a new medium. I great example of this is the blogicans website. The students used podcasts for interviews and speeches of important leaders in their community. There are so many different ways teachers can use this tool.
Further, I think that we should explore this tool because I believe it will quickly capture students’ interest and attention. We live in a time where we are competing with video games and other technology. Like the saying says “If you cant beat them join them” and thats what we teachers need to do. We need to constantly find new ways to keep our children engaged in learning and podcasting is definitely a start!
February 25, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
In response to Virtuous:
With all of the change in technology and its ever growing impact on education, do you think it will be added to our academic standards?
Actually, I thought it was already added to our standards. Please someone correct me if I am wrong. Because I am coming from the state of Florida, and I know that in the FEAPs which stands for Florida Educators Accomplished Practices, technology is listed as an accomplished practice.
Do you think that teachers, starting in elementary school, will be held accountable to teaching and integrating technology on a daily basis? As an undergrad in Florida, completing my student teaching it was required for us to integrate it on a daily basis. Although, during student teaching we were required to achieve many unrealistic teaching objectives. I do think teachers should be held accountable to teach and integrate technology. I dont think it should be forced to be done daily because that is unrealistic. However, educators need to expose children to technology more. We need to face it, that technology is trivia in todays world. And if we dont teach or children technology then we are NOT preparing them to be an assest to society.
Is it reasonable to ask teachers with 15 or more students to teach several content areas, provide emotional support and supervision, teach podcasting/technology, prepare them for standardize test and the real world in one year? If so, how can it be done?
Yes! Now, it seems like a lot. Yet, teachers have to multi task. We are not just in the classroom to teach a content area. For example, if the students are reading a social studies text book and they dont understand it, then the teacher needs to figure out HOW can I teach them to read. How can I teach them to get information from this text. So, we are not one dimensional. Educators also need to have time management, and with that we can control what to teach, how long to teach it, and how often to teach it, whether it is, teaching reading, testing, or technology.
How can it be done? With the skills of multi tasking and time management it can be done. For example, reading, standardized testing and technology and can all be done in 1 lesson. Ofcourse, this approach depends on what grade level is this geared for but the point I am trying to make is that it can be done. We just need to be creative and talk among each other to figure out how.
February 25, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Podcasting…What is a Pod?
What is podcasting? Better yet what is a pod? Before entering this class the only time I heard the term pod used was in discussion of an iPod. And although I got for one for Christmas, I still was not sure of what the term pod meant . All I knew was that I could download music to my iPod and listen to it anywhere. However, I’ve always noticed the Podcast icon and I recently began to listen to snippets of podcasts on iTunes. It is amazing to me all the free podcasts available from the iTunes store.
can honestly say that I am glad that I chose to take this class on Technology and Literacy. Doing so has allowed me a glimpse into the new world (for me) of Web 2.0 tools. Reading chapter 8, I was introduced to yet another Web tool: Podcasting. As the book simply put, podcasting is “the creation and distribution of amateur radio.” (pg. 112). And podcasting is pretty much available to anyone with Internet access. Just like Weblogs, any individual can create a podcast on any topic they choose.
Do you think that there should be some type of censorship in regards to Weblogs and podcasting?
Composing a podcast seems to be fairly simple. Because of the techcrazy world that we live in today all the materials needed to create a podcast are easily accessible. I explored http://www.mypodcast.com, which was a lot like creating a Weblog. It gives you step-by-step directions in creating your own podcast.
As far as using podcast in schools, just like all the other Web 2.0 tools we have explored thus far, podcasting will be a great resource for students. Podcasts can be used for various reasons. For example, in my classroom, I would use podcasting during reading time. It could be an excellent incentive for students working on fluency. Students could both, record their reading to share with others and listen to others read as they improve on their reading fluency.
What other ways can podcasting be used in early elementary classrooms?
With this type of technology will their be the need for parental consent?
Will tools like Weblogs, Flickr, and Podcasting take over conventional teaching methods?
February 25, 2007 @ 10:07 pm
Peace,
I do agree with you, because I too am grateful for this class. Since, I have taken this class I have become more familiar with technology and its terms. I used to think I was computer savvy and integrated technology in my class, but now I see there is another dimension that I am missing.
What other ways can podcasting be used in early elementary classrooms?
Other than using podcasting for the reasons you mentioned earlier, I believe you can use them for an assessment. Whether it be a math skill, social studies, or science a student could record what they learned. For example, they could tell others how to add fractions of unlike denominators, summarize World War II, or provide an explanation of photosynthesis. With this summary, they will ask their classmates two thought provoking questions and to add more facts or steps that they feel were left out.
With this type of technology will their be the need for parental consent?
Since are students have a variety of parents, be it protective, anal, or naïve; somewhere as time passes a parent will provoke the need for consent. Right now it is not needed because it is not used on a large scale. However, if the standards wrote out specifically that the use of podcasts or weblogs will taught and used in the schools, there would be no need for consent. Even though, educators could basically still be covered because the term technology is used.
Will tools like Weblogs, Flickr, and Podcasting take over conventional teaching?
I don’t think Weblogs, Flickr, and Podcasting will take over conventional teaching, but it will impact it and cause for some adjustments.
Virtuous
February 26, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Miss Kay,
I agree with you that we should embrace the new technologies to engage our students. I also think that pod and screen casts will hold our student’s attention and compete with video games. You mention that there are many ways in which we can use this new technology in the classroom; what are your ideas? In what ways do you envision podcasting changing our classrooms?
February 26, 2007 @ 12:22 pm
Cordelia’s response to Virtuous on February 26, 2007…
Virtuous,
You made some very good points throughout your post. It has long been a question of mine how teachers can be expected to thoroughly teach students all of the many facets of technology as well as covering the three “R’s.” It seems there is an art to incorporating technology so that it goes hand in hand with the curriculum. Actually, this is really the only way to ensure that everything that needs to be taught IS taught. As Miss Kay pointed out, integrating content with technology is the best way to cover as many different concepts at once as possible.
Your comment on teachers being held accountable for teaching technology daily in the classroom is certainly an interesting and controversial one. I believe that accountability in this area differs from district to district, school to school, and classroom to classroom. Of course, this is not an ideal situation, but it is reality.
For example, the school where I taught until Christmas 2006 is a private one with limited funds. There is an erroneous concept floating around out there in the education world that private schools are stocked with money and the latest technology. My third grade classroom had no working student computers, and I felt blessed indeed to have a working computer for myself which was more than some of the other teachers had. It seemed that the teachers with the highest seniority and loudest voice had access to the technology that was so desperately needed in EVERY classroom. It was just a fact of life. You dealt with what you did or did not have and did the best you could with it. Also, my principal was not the most enthusiastic person when it came to technology, so you could be sure any extra funds in all likelihood would not be put towards computers or LCD projectors. She truly set the tone for technology in the elementary building, which was not a good thing in our particular situation.
However, where there is a will, there is a way. My grade chair and I put forth our own funds to purchase some much-needed equipment for our grade. It was well worth the money and effort. I do wish that I had been more savvy with podcasting. What a wonderful way to let students share their ideas. I was so excited to learn that an iPod is not necessary to record and share podcasts. This truly opens up the possibilities for schools with limited funds and resources.
So, going back to your comment about accountability in the teaching of technology, I personally believe that the attitude of the school and its administrators has much to with setting the tone for the entire school. I have experienced this first-hand. Of course, depending on the administration, this can be a very positive OR a very negative thing.
How can we as teachers best get our voice out there? How can we let our voice be heard when it comes to updating our educational systems in order to keep up with the infinite growth in the technological world?
February 26, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
Ms. Outspoken’s response to Peace:
Peace,
Imediately when I thought about podcasting in the realm of the classroom I thought of reading. I think it would be great for students to be able to hear what their fluency level or decoding level was or is at different benchmarks during the year, such as report card time. The same venue of podcast could be used to show reading progress to parents also. I also think that integrating podcast across curiculum, like in an oral social studies report or even giving a speech in science class. In math a neat project may be to have students explain a concept to the class and post it on the class’s website. I am sure there are an abudance of ideas, do you have any others for curriculum based projects?
Ms. Outspoken
February 26, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Ms. Outspoken’s response to :
Podcasts and Screencasts in Learning English Language Arts:
When I began reading this chapter I was interested in which ways I could use the actuall creation of a podcast in my classroom. For example I wanted to know what educational activities I could do for the purpose of creating a podcast. Richardson gave several good ideas and some good links to find lesson plans on podcasting across the curriculum. As I kept reading, this sentence struck me “But podcasting does not have to be edu-radio. There are many other ways that teachers could bring the genre into the classroom, Richardson, 117.” This got me thinking about other ways to use podcast in the classroom BESIDES creating one. Then an idea came to me, I am not saying it is unique to me..I just had not thought of it until reading this chapter. I could have a podcast based research paper or webquest. I could pick a subject such as the struggle in Sudan, Africa. I would compile a list of pre-approved podcasts or depending on how old the students are let them do the searching themselves and from there come up with a format for a research based work. Maybe they could transfer links in with certain portion of the podcasts, linked with pictures from FLICKR and put them into a powepoint. This would make a research project 100% multi-media based. Is this to big of an idea? Am I just being a dreamer? What problems could I potentially face? Are there any more facets that you can think of to this project?
Ms. Outspoken
February 26, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
Ms. Outspoken,
I too was only looking at podcast in an educational sense, concentrating only on having my students creating future podcast. However, you have shone a new light on using podcast in the classroom (new for me anyway). Your idea of using podcast for research is a great idea and one that would be feasible with the proper materials and teacher/student willingness. I definitely agree that teachers will have to preview potentially used podcasts for proper content, but I believe live news reports would be a great new outlet for students to use during research.
Of course anytime students are allowed access to the Internet, there can be many potential problems to look out for. Useful podcasts available on personal computers may not be available at school. Also, because content on the Internet changes daily and sometimes more often than that, teachers still may carry the risk of students mistakeningly listening to inappropriate podcasts. Because this type of research allows students a bit of freedom on the web, teachers will have to carefully monitor what sites students are logging on. This list could probably go on and on, but just with anything we have to stay on top of what our students are doing at all times.
I think that using a power point presentation would be a great conclusion to this type of multi-media project. As far as other facets: students may also view various weblogs that discuss the topic of their research project to find out more information or to contribute their own information.
Peace
February 27, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Cordelia’s revised comments on podcasting, submitted February 27, 2007…
The first time I ever even heard the word podcasting, I was hiking through the woods with my dad conversing about our favorite radio talkshow. Christmas was only few days behind us, and Dad had received an iPod. I was surprised when he told me the main reason he had asked for an iPod was to download podcasts off the Internet. “What in the world is a podcast?” I had queried.
“Well, from what I understand, you can download past episodes from the talkshow’s website and listen to them via your iPod,” he replied.
Yes, I must admit that my father is much more savvy with the technological gadgets of late than I am. My curiosity was certainly picqued about these so-called podcasts. The timing could not have been more perfect. Just a few weeks later, here I find myself discussing and exploring the concepts and benefits concerning podcasting in EDRD 7360.
Through my text readings and searchings on various search engines, I see that basically podcasting is a way to share audio files via the Internet rather than the old fashioned way of cassette or CD players. At first, I found myself wondering how this was much beter than the typical mode of CD. However, by wandering through the hyperlinks provided by my professor, I am beginning to see how podcasting opens up an even broader horizon in the world of technology and its impact on education and information-sharing.
I was particularly delighted with the news “broadcast” from the fourth graders in Maine.Their communication was interesting and enunciated extremely well. Why, they even had a background soundtrack to add to the authenticity of it! It seemed that the main “announcers” of the flooding event were reading from a written document. As the broadcast moved on to individual stories from the students, they seemed to just be retelling informally from memory.
What a wonderful way to enhance learning in the classroom. I can just imagine these fourth graders’ delight when they heard their voices from the podcast recording. It gave added importance to what they had to say about a traumatic event in their community.
The only red flag I discerned with this type of technology in the classroom would concern a teacher relying too heavily on podcasting so that writing took a backseat in the activities of the day. Of course, most students would rather talk about an event than write about it. It would be imperative on the part of the teacher to only allow podcasting to enhance learning, not dominate it. On a final note, I thought it interesting that one does not have to own an iPod to participate in podcasting! This information was on a how-to-do-it-yourself website taking you step-by-step through podcasting. It looks as if I now have some information to share with Dad about podcasting!
February 28, 2007 @ 11:06 am
Podcasts are small recordings of information put on the internet by everyday people. They are similar to a radio show in that they are available to anyone with the internet but different in that they are far easier to create and distribute. As long as you have an RSS feed, you can get the podcasts of a chosen creator sent directly to you as they are posted.
They are created very simply with a computer, microphone, and editing software.
Podcasts have a huge potential for the classroom. They can be used to inform and share schedules like at a high school, to entertain and show what students are learning like at an elementary school, and to teach others as at the Secondary Worlds website. Students can access information from others in a different way than just reading a website. They also can hear pieces of history easily. Students can easily share research information with others or add a new dimension to their presentation of information. Also, students are often more comfortable speaking than writing so you can trace their thought processes more easily than in an essay. Since the published piece will be out their for others to hear, students will probably take more pride and want their piece to be polished and practiced before being put online. I wonder what ideas others have for using these new technologies.