Module 5

Podcasting...

Podcasting is a hybrid of ipod and broadcast. Personal On Demand- watch or listen at a later date. Storynory looks like a useful site where children can listen to stories. I have added this to my new class blog. I have downloaded audio files before to use in a radio play. Zamzar is a free file conversion site which is useful for converting files to mp3. Using Audacity, teachers or students can record stories, radioplays, tables, counting and more and link to an established website, such as Myclasses, so they can be listened to by the students at home, uploaded to blogger (with parental consent) or downloaded onto an mp3 player.  Children can evaluate their own reading by recording on audacity. When podcast, the teacher has access to a library of oral reading for assessment purposes. Teachers can also use podcasts to provide revision or extension material to students .

Teachers.tv and youtube offer vodcasts which may be useful in the classroom. Today I used youtube to show the children ‘How to Make a Shaker’.  The class wrote a procedure and then used this to make shakers, integrating science and writing. Children can make their own vodcasts using Flip cameras. My students used flip cameras to make a ‘Cool TV’ segment where they videoed each other demonstrating the procedure ‘How to make an Eggbert’ .  Vodcasts can be used across the KLA’s.

I found how to podcast into blogger: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80259 through their help site. Also, iTunes U is a site which offers over 75000 educational files for download from a variety of locations around the world, including colleges, universities, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions. Version 6 of iTunes introduced official support for video podcasting which can contain downloadable video files (in MOV, MP4, M4V, or MPG format), but also streaming sources and even IPTV. Downloadable files can be synchronized to a video-capable iPod, or downloadable files and streams can be shown in Front Row.