Sunday, March 23, 2008

Week #9 Thing #21

I keep trying to figure out a way to use podcasts but I'm not sure why I can't seem to get too excited about them yet. I looked on Education Podcast Network first and looked at Willoweb. I'd heard about Willoweb before. The podcast I listened to was a 4th grade class talking about renewable energy. What I got from this is that this is another way for students to demonstrate what they have learned. It sounded like they were enjoying themselves and it was very professional. Still, I found I couldn't get really excited about it. I listened to another podcast from a school in Scotland and wondered if there was some way two schools could collaborate on a project. That might be interesting.

I went to Podcast Alley and found Book Bites for Kids. This were easily found by searching for "children's book reviews." Subscribing on Bloglines was a snap. However when I listened I found the first part of the podcast a commercial for life insurance and the actual podcast started out with some technical difficulties. I don't know...

I think I'm more of a visual person and actually I don't listen to the radio much. It's almost a case of overload. So I'm not sure I'll use this tool but it was interesting to look into it and I'm going to keep trying to come up with applications for my library. Right now, I'm using Garage Band and recording little podcasts with my Bookworms (1st and 2nd graders) to have them practice fluency and see how they have progressed each month. That's as far as I've gotten with podcasting. We seem to like doing the video book reviews on the blog, but I could see that little booktalks might be another way to use podcasting.

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