Within the past few weeks, Jamendo, a great source of Creative Commons’ licensed music, has surpassed 7,000 albums, all free to download, manipulate, and publish. (Note: as of March 5, 2008, Jamendo has reached 7,449 albums)
Handouts available at: http://mis.hpisd.org/default.aspx?tabid=461
Four sixth grade teachers shared the ways they’ve integrated podcasting into their language arts activities. Students save projects on the district sever; students don’t provide their last names in their podcasts.
They shared that you don’t need much equipment to create a podcast. You only need content. The presenters reinforced their use of Audacity and LAME. They sometimes use Camtasia for recording screens and videos. However, they did purchase seven iPods and microphones for student use. They also purchased “microMemos” which plugs into the ipod. They also purchased a MemoMic whih is a lapel mic that is perfect for lectures. They also use the standard windows microphone for recording.
For content, they begin with a “reader’s response” where students will record share their reports about a book. Teachers provide several questions for which students must provide responses.
Literature circles. Students choose a significant moment in a novel, determine why it was pivotal, brainstorm important nouns and verbs that describe the momemt, explore sensory words,and then write a poem about the moment.
by Brian Bridges
Today, Jamendo upgraded their web site with a new look at at least one great feature, the ability to download albums directly. You may know that Jamendo contains more than 6,000 albums, all with Creative Commons licenses which allow teachers to use music outside the four classroom walls; perfect for podcasts and multimedia projects. Previously, you needed BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer client which most districts block. Now, music is downloaded directly to your desktop. I’ll be updating my wiki <brianbridges.pbwiki.com> to include direct links to my favorite album downloads.
tags technorati : Jamendo, music, podcast, download, clrn, brian bridges
When I began researching the state of Podcasting in early 2006, I began to notice a number of podcast categories. iTunes had already broken them out into several strands, but as the volume of podcasts increased, categories seemed to naturally appear to accommodate them. My attempt to ornate genre titles is partially for my own amusement, but I tend to think they’ll become part of my story starter as I prod educators to consider, “What kind of podcaster are you?” Better yet, “What kind of podcasters are your students?”
The seven categories were quickly created and I tend to think they could easily grow or condense as I direct more light on them. This is a good thing, since my hidden motive is to provide educators with the words and the ideas for integrating podcasting into the curriculum.
4. Audio Books
Audio books were around long before Podcasting as many a commuter can attest. With the advent of podcasting, though, the medium has brought not only a wider range of texts to the masses, it’s also empowered educators to create their own audio books.
Take LibriVox, for example. Here, volunteers have recorded more than 700 public domain novels and poems. Yes, volunteers. This means, of course, that you or, better yet, your students can record chapters or books in their entirety. There is no better way to make literacy relevant than to publish recordings of your students reading stories. All LibriVox texts are in the public domain and their podcasts have no copyright restrictions.
Storynory centers itself around children’s stories, including original titles and those in the public domain. Storynory releases a new title each week. While they generate their own recordings, the central idea, making literacy authentic by reading interesting literature, is strong.
SHAKESPodosphEARE is a great example of the growing trend to blend blogs with podcasts. Here, Dr. Greg Martin narrates scenes from Shakespeare’s plays and uses his blog to promote discussions about the readings. This combination blog/podcast (perhaps we’ll call it a plog or a blogcast or a blast) offers educators a perfect combination of mediums: audio of lectures, music, or novels with accompanied text that directs the reader’s attention.
I’ll cover more genres next time. As always, I appreciate your comments.
Brian
Technorati Tags: cue2007 cue07 cue ctap onctap podcast blog blogcast blast plog bridges
Before I began teaching Podcasting in the Curriculum classes last summer, I spent a fair amount of time researching the state of the art. Despite being in education for more than 30 years, I’m still fairly paranoid about having sufficient content experience to fool the unenlightened.
That said, I wanted to present a complete experience to our classes, so that they could walk away with all the materials, ideas, and lesson plans to get them started. I learned a long time ago that people are willing to change if you only give them the words. During this extended research time, I found the words.
Part of my work was to fully understand how educators are using podcasts. In doing his, I discovered that the dozens of types of podcasts fall nicely in to seven genres. Genres, you know, like drama, comedy, & musical theatre…..Genres.
1. Language Acquisition and Practice
World language teachers have jumped on podcasting as a means to both teach and reinforce language acquisition. Choose a language and you’ll find a variety of high-quality podcasts. There are so many, in fact, that iTunes created a separate category under Education just for them.
I’ve been studying Mandarin, so one of the Chinese podcasts in my iTunes library is ChinesePod. In little more than a year, ChinesePod has graduated into separate podcasts for Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced levels. Pick a language and you’ll find a podcast that will help you acquire it.
2. Content Rebroadcasts
This would be repeats of previously created content, like school board meetings, athletic events, daily announcements, and school information. I’ve separated this category from classroom generated content, primarily because one is entertainment or information based while the latter is content standard based. Yes, school districts are beginning to podcast board meetings as a means to reach more stakeholders.
3. Course Casting
Course Casting envelops all content delivered by the classroom teacher from lectures and test reviews to class rules and homework assignments. Everything we do as educators is content, or the software for podcasting. iTunes University is full of college course podcasts, where students can time-shift their learning. Couldn’t attend today’s lecture, had trouble focusing, or need to review the lecture? Podcast lectures are the perfect way to TiVo your teaching. While universities like UC Berkeley are publicly posting full course podcasts (78 on the iTunes Store), many universities have private podcasting connections at iTunes, allowing many more full-course podcasts to be published.
K-12 teachers have also jumped on the course casting wagon. Sylvan Union School District’s Joe Wood records specific lectures for his class to review. Terry Daniels, from the same school, uses enhanced podcasts to share PowerPoint lessons that demonstrate math formulas and concepts. Both podcasts can also be found at iTunes.
I’ll share the remainder of the genres next time. As always, I’d appreciate your comments.
Brian
Technorati Tags: Podcast curriculum genre CUE2007 cue07 cue2006 onctap cue
CUE is less than two weeks away, and the print materials for my sessions have just arrived. On Friday at CUE, I’m teaching a three-hour Podcasting in the Curriculum class on the Windows platform. I’ve a variety of print materials and a CD I’m pressing for the event, but the majority of my handouts are also available on our Moodle site. I still like paper, though, and i suspect participants feel cheated if they have to download and print the handouts themselves. If you’re not signed up for this class, I’m giving a one-hour version on Saturday morning at 8AM in Primrose A. It’s called “Podcasting in the Curriculum: A Beginners’ Magical Tour.” You’ll really like the resources we’ll be sharing.
Saturday at 11AM I’m in the Madera Room presenting “Picasa: Photo Editing for the Rest of Us.” This is a really great (free) application from Google that equals Apple’s iPhoto. Verion 2.5, which came out last fall, betters it. With it, you use Google’s servers to host your own photo pages, using PicasaWeb, a new feature in Picasa, to select and upload pictures to the site. You’ll really like this program.
I hope to see you there.
Brian
