Monday, May 24, 2010

Podcast in Primary School

The progress on podcasting in my classroom has been very slow. Students have needed a lot of time to practise what they are reading so that it is clear and has good expression and pace. There are a number of students who are now ready to start their first attempt. I am hoping to get started on this in the next couple of days.

Even though I have another specialist teacher with me, it is still very difficult to manage the process whilst continuing to running shared reading and guided reading sessions. I don't really know how I could do this without another teacher. This leads me to wonder how some teachers appear to do amazing IT in their rooms. Is something else being left out? Am I particularly bad at organising the session? Is it inexperience on my behalf? The jury is still out on this.

Anyways, I am really looking forward to getting the first podcasts up and running. Using Audacity has been hugely motivating for the students and they are really having fun with the process. I believe it is a step in the right direction for the students in my class who are digital natives and working like this is a step into their world.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Podcasting in a Primary School Classroom

The focus of my second assigment is the introducation of Podcasting in a primary school setting to motivate students and improve students learning and outcomes in both reading and oral language.

As part of this process, I have decided to trial it in my own classroom. I am lucky enough to have our resident e-learning expert working alongside me for the term. So she has been able to make suggestions, offer advise and assist with the implementation.

Initially, we discuss this with the students and gave them an opportunity to 'play' with Audacity. The students absolutely love this and it had a huge motivating effect on them. We are trying to make a resource for the school, where students can access stories at home and were teachers can use them in the classroom situation.

The students are now working on practising their stories. They have a pathfinder which will help them with this. They are also thinking of special effects they will be able to layer over the text to add interest to the audience etc.

So far so good, but it is early days. Only being doing it since the beginning of the term and we have had lots of interuptions to our programme with EOTC, cross country, appraisals etc. Hoping to get into it next week and make some good progress.