Blog Assignment #4

1. In Podcasting with First Grade the teacher explains how she helped students create a podcast on Vacation under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne. She said, "The idea was to pretend that we were interviewing Jack and Annie, the two main characters, about their latest adventure that had taken them to Pompeii." So they came up with questions and answers to be said while being recorded. She rotated the students so each one had a turn.
I would love to give my future students the opportunity to make a podcast. This might make them appreciate reading more if they get to do a fun activity along with it. They will also learn more by interacting with it instead of just reading. One thing the teacher said in her post was, "I could tell a drastic improvement among students in their confidence level and voice expression as we progressed in the book." I know this is the thing that teachers look most forward to with their students. I hope I will be able to help improve my students' confidence levels just like this teacher did.

2. I watched the video The benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom and learned a little about podcasting that I didn't know before. I learned that it is not only a good way to help students catch up on work outside of class, but also a good tool to use in the classroom when reading a story or book. A podcast can be recorded ahead of time so students can listen along to the story and have someone read it with the emotion it needs to make it more exciting. This could be a good project idea for students to do in groups (like we are doing). Parents are also benefited by podcasting. They can listen to what their child has been learning in school.

3. The files on the webpage Podcast Collection posted by Judy Scharf are very helpful handouts for a teacher to assign a podcast project in a classroom. For elementary level these might need to be altered or the information already typed in for the student (depending on which grade it is for). Mrs. Scharf gives several tips and very detailed instructions to how to make this project a success.
I have saved this webpage to my Favorites on my computer. I hope to use this in my future classroom to help my students do a podcast.