Podcasting in Class

While I found all of tech tools in use presentations helpful and insightful to some degree, the one I was most skeptical about in the beginning was the use of podcasts in the classroom. However, after watching the group present and reflecting upon how I could use this technology in my class in some way, I definitely can see how it would be beneficial.

            I suppose my idea came the other day in ED 402 when we were discussing how to help struggling readers (although someone probably already mentioned this already). Wouldn’t it be easy to record yourself reading and offer it up as a resource to those students? I’m sure you could find some audio versions of books on tape that you could post and have available to the students, but for those (especially shorter stories) a podcast might be an option for helping struggling readers.

            There are a few things that I would want to practice with and evaluate before utilizing this tool in my classroom. There are the obvious concerns, such as the availability for students. There are also concerns for me as an individual, such as time and literacy. When it comes to understanding how to actually create an exciting and informative podcast I feel I’m probably lacking. I have to ask myself, how much time would be devoted to this project and in return how much would my students utilize this resource?

            Overall, I feel like this could be a very useful tool when used the right way. I see it used best for struggling readers as an accompaniment or supplement to reading. While I can also see it as a fun tool for projects I don’t envision myself using it frequently for activities other than supplements to reading. What did other disciplines find? Are there benefits to this device that would outweigh the time and effort it takes to create it?  

Flipped English?

Throughout his entire presentation I was enthralled by the dedication and professionalism that Jon Palmer exuded through his videos. I completely got it. I know that I, as a student would prefer this method of learning as opposed to a lecture on physics. As a teacher though, I am a bit stumped when it comes to figuring out how to integrate this method into the classroom. The majority of class time is already spent having discussions or allowing students to work independently on their own work while we, the teachers, answer individual questions and check in with each student one-on-one. 

What I gathered from our class discussion after the presentation was that the entire point of a flipped classroom was to get students to take ownership of their own learning. I would argue that the class I am currently in already does this. Students are given three weeks to conduct interviews, write a rough draft, edit, and format their page for publishing. During class time they work on whatever stage in this process they are at. Some student’s conduct interviews in the hall, some work on editing their peers’ work, some take photographs for their article, etc. My mentor teacher and I are there to answer questions and check in to see where everyone is in the process and what help they need, if any, for moving forward. However, ultimately it is up to the student to finish this entire process within the three-week deadline so that their article can appear in the next edition of The Communicator. The thing about this process is that students want to see their article in the magazine. To see the page they themselves designed all glossy and colorful and out there for the world to see. 

So far in the school year we are about to publish the first edition of the magazine. Out of the 36 students that are enrolled in the class only one has not finished their page and article. The consequence for this will simply be that they will not have a page in the first edition of the new magazine, in addition to their grade suffering. Is this bad? Is there something else we could have done to help this student succeed? Or did we provide enough support and time for this project to be finalized that the responsibility is all on the student? Could there be a different format for teaching this material and these skills that would work better for all students? Or should we accept that 35 students were given this responsibility and succeeded and that one student might not be ready to take responsibility and ownership for their own learning? 

These are the questions that have been floating around in my head since the presentation that Jon Palmer gave. I'm interested to see whether or not my peers took away the same points. I think that the real idea was an alternative way to get students to take ownership of their learning, and I believe that this doesn't necessarily mean that a classroom has to be flipped to achieve this (it just appears to work really well in a physics classroom). My question to you, the reader, is this: what about the students who don't take the responsibility and ownership when every opportunity is given, the students who don't take advantage of the support and guidance that we offer? How can we help them achieve; or is what we're offering sufficient and it is now time for the student to take responsibility upon themselves or suffer the consequences? 

First Post Back

In celebration of the first blog post this semester I've decided to do a little recap of what I've been doing in the classroom with my mentor teacher. As I said early on technology is not one of my strong suits, but it is quickly becoming one. The class that I am interning at this semester is all about technology. A majority of the classes begin with the use of the projector. We either watch a video clip, listen to an audio snippet, or show the students new resources that have been posted on the class Edmodo (I'll get to explaining that in a bit). In addition, roughly fifty percent of each class period is spent in the computer lab. Needless to say I am becoming very comfortable with new types of technology. So with that being said I think I'll break the rest of this post up into two components: what I've learned thus far, and what I would like to learn.
As I said I've learned quite a bit about Edmodo this semester and that goes hand in hand with Google Drive. I can keep all documents, quizzes, survey's, spreadsheet's, and more all organized on my Google Drive. I share them with my mentor teacher and can also upload them as posts on Edmodo. All of the things that I upload are also saved on Edmodo under my "library." This library function stores everything that I have added as a file onto my Edmodo site. I can then organize different files into folders and share those folders with specific classes. This way students have access to all materials from class, how-to worksheets, and more at all times. There is also a calendar on Edmodo that allows me to but  various events into it. Students can also view the calendar. We've used this function to sign students up to bring in snacks for Forum throughout the semester. Students can just look on the calendar to see when they're signed up to bring in snack.
There are a couple things that I haven't quite gotten to learn yet in my host classroom. To explain, that classes that I take part in are advanced journalism classes. The students create, edit, and publish their own articles using peer editing in addition to designing their own magazine pages and formatting the pages for the online newspaper. So I guess what I really want to learn is how to use the different programs (Wordpress and Indesign) that the students use. These two programs just seem completely different from everything technology based that I've learned about thus far. I'm excited to get to use them!

Below is a screenshot of Edmodo from a student sign-on. It show's how students can upload their own documents into their "backpack" to stay organized. It also links up to their individual Google docs and to the folders that their teacher creates and shares.