Listening to all the different podcast on itunes gave me some insight to some of the different ways podcasts are set up. The styles differed from a lecture style format with one person speaking such as on The Tenacious Teacher, to a group of people conversing about different subjects in education such as the podcast EdTechTalk Weekly.
The podcasts with the lecture style format were informative and easy to listen to because you didn't have to try to figure who was talking but you only heard one person's point of view. I enjoyed listening to KidCast but it was more in the format of a lesson. The lesson I listened to was impressive though. Dan Schmit presented an idea to help students think beyond the surface level and ask thoughtful questions. His idea was to use the question game where everyone has to converse using only questions. He applied this lesson towards Bloom's Taxonomy and how to help students achieve all levels of the pyramid.
Another podcast I really enjoyed (probably my favorite one) was Smartboard Lessons Podcast hosted by Ben and Joan, both award winning teachers from Canada. They have a back and forth type format conversing about the lesson being taught. In this episode, Joan presented a lesson on Clouds, Stars and Saints. she described how the Interactive Smart board lessons and slides enhance the learning process. She also talked about Wordle, a program you can use to make word clouds (I went to the website and tried it. It's a lot of fun). I was unfamiliar with the Smart boards so I went to Ben and Joan's website to learn more. There is a vast array of information available plus links to other websites to obtain lessons. I would be interested in obtaining more information about the use of interactive white boards in the classroom.
Although I liked the podcast featuring David Warlick (Connect to Learning), it was hard to hear some of what was being said due to background noise. Mr. Warlick was interviewing a librarian who had some great ideas for teen book reviews but due to the talking and music in the background, it was hard to focus on what was being said.
EdTechTalk Weekly was also a good podcast for a future educator to listen to. The podcast featured four speakers from four different geographical locations: Ohio, Prince Edward Island, New Jersey and New Hampshire. It was easy to listen to (quiet background) and was set up like a conversation. There were references to tools and helpful hints available on their websites (great for a visual learner like me). I think this will be the format we may want to use for the podcasts we will be doing in class since we will have three speakers. The only problem I could find with this podcast was sometimes I didn't know who was speaking. That could just be me though since this is my first experience listening to podcasts. This technology is all very new to me but it is definitely something I want to learn more about. One think I did like about this podcast though was getting all the different viewpoints.
The two Apple directed podcasts, MacBreak Weekly and This Week in Photography, were the podcasts I enjoyed the least. MacBreak started out with commercials and then went into stock market reports on Apple. I guess if you owned a MAC or Apple stock, you would find this podcast very interesting. This Week in Photography also featured commercials (I guess that keeps it free) but was more of a tool to be used for photographers. There is a lot of information available through this podcast on photography so it would be good for someone in that field or had photography for a hobby.
Overall, it was very enlightening listening to podcasts for the very first time, especially the education-based ones. The different formats add variety and are geared towards what the podcaster likes and different listening preferences. I feel like I have a better idea now how podcasting could be a useful tool to an educator. I would like my students to be able not only to know what podcasting is and how they can learn from listening to podcasts but also be able to teach them how to create their own. To be able to connect to classrooms, students, and teachers all over the world in this way is mind- boggling.
No comments:
Post a Comment