I Created a Podcast! (11)

This weekend me and Linsey worked together to create a podcast. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I had some trouble editing, but I did learn to use Audacity and then export it to an MP3 file. We had some trouble with volume and talking to quickly, but overall it was a good learning experience! The book review was a cool project and I would definitely use it in my classroom.

Keeping the Arts (10)

There has been so much talk lately of schools eliminating the study of the arts from public schools around the country. Fortunatley, I don't know very many schools that have gone through with it. I went to a high school with a wide variety of tools for technology. We had morning announcements and videos that were played through the tvs every morning. I was never "in to " video as a student; however, it was a popular class. From the discussions in class and from the reading by Miller and McVee I can see the importance of these classes and how disappointing it would be to no longer offer them. Teachers should try and incorporate video into their classrooms because it is something that the students can figure out for themselves. In this chapter, I have learned that it is ok not know everything, especially when it comes to learning through video. In this case, it would be ok to let go of control in the classroom and let the students learn and even perhaps teach eachother.

I Finally Know what Podcasting is :) (9)

It may seem hard to believe, but before this class I didn't know exactley what a podcast was. I had heard it mentioned here or there but never knew how to make or use one. I read the article assigned for this week, where it gave an awesome description of podcasting and how to incorportate podcasts into the ELA classroom. I also learned that you can use podcasts for group causes. You can go onto Itunes and simply click podcasts and you are introduced to thousands of topics that people have chose to discuss. I think it would be pretty to cool to make your class have a podcast rather than a blogger if this was possible. Because most children grow up listening to music, I personally think it would be pretty interesting to hear my students hold a conversation over a podcast. I found this article really valuable; I am excited to create my own Podcast in this class so I can see what all the fuss is about.

Blogs Blogs Blogs (8)

After reviewing Wilber's readings, I stumbled upon Gary Coyle's grade 8 Humanities blog which really stuck out to me. He used the blog as both a place to write information to the class about what was due and projects that he assigned and also as a blogging site. It was pretty cool to see how everything was organized and it really gave me the encouagement to include a blog like this into my classroom. All of his students were listed on a seperate tab, separated by class and you could click on any of their links. In addition, it was pretty cool to see that he used this in his 8th grade classroom in Americas Embassy School in New Delhi, India. As a class, we always discuss high school ELA because that it where "most" of us will be teaching; however, it is possible that are certification could lead us to a seventh or eighth grade classroom. The ability for us as teachers to incorporate a blog into a class is really awesome and it is interesting to see how much blogs have taken off in the last ten years. I looked at Rebecca Blood which was a blog from when blogs first came about and it was interesting to see how different they are now. There wasn't as much discussing; it really centered around posting links and sending viewers to other places on the internet which I found pretty ironic. In today's blogs, we see a lot more discussion. Discussion, in my opinion, is the main point for using blogs because they get everybody talking about a common topic. Using hyperlinks is only something that will make your writing better and allow students to make connections between lots of different information on the internet.

Eighth Grade Blog