Podcast Possibilities

~ Image from zoomar's flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoomar/2265202595/ ~

Today I cam across a forum entry on Classroom2.0 entitled "Audacity and Oral Administration of Test". The post had been made by Julie sharing an idea she'd gotten from some recent PD.

Here's the big idea:

The plan is to record the test in audacity, download the test to an MP3 player to hand to the student and allow the student to control the pace of the test (repeating a question, pausing, etc).

Now, I'm just starting to delve into the area of podcasting. I've done a lot of video work and a lot of blogging, but somehow I skipped over the podcasting side of things. Then I got asked to do the Speaking and Listening component of the Year 8 English for this term for half the classes (the others are assigned a different teacher) and one of the middle school teacher's I'm working with suggested podcasts. I naturally jumped on board - a new tech toy to master...bring it on!

Actually, I've just spent a few hours editting the first contributions of two of my classes and uploading them within the walled garden, in the process figuring out Audacity as I went.

With the podcast project fresh in my mind and Jodie's fantastic idea I've just added a new thing to my to do list over the weekend - create a podcast of the terms for our current Year 10 English unit to help students prepare for their coming exam.

This is what I love about making connections with teachers from around the world - there's always a new idea to try, a new project to celebrate, a new application to play with, new possibilities. Love it.

Doors of Opportunity

Last week I participated in my first ever OZ/NZ Educators net meeting. I was a bit timid at first - honestly, it seems strange, but I think I am more video/audio shy online than I am in person - but towards the end I said hello and started to get more comfortable. This week I actually found myself looking forward to the meeting, just being able to listen and share what other people are doing is awesome.

It was a relatively small meeting tonight only between 6 and 8 members logged in, but still it was well worth taking the time out from Australian Idol to log in. Especially given that within the first 15 minutes I'd connected with someone working on a project a colleague wants to do. Straight away there's a support person I can offer and the possibility of a global connection for them both.

Since getting involved in building a Professional Network online through Ning, Twitter, Skype, etc I've learnt a lot of things - new tools, new ideas, solutions to problems, new systems, and the list goes on. But the most powerful thing I've learnt - the smallest connection can open up whole new worlds of opportunity.

Every person I meet online, every tool I find, there seems to be at least ten more attached to it. It's totally mind blowing...and totally awesome as a teacher!

Give them credit

Sometimes we don't give our students enough credit.

I've been reading over the last assignment for Year 10 (14-15 yr olds) Drama. It was a responding task where they were asked to evaluate cyberdrama as a a "real" form of drama and present their (supported) opinion in an ezine article (which I'm going to spend a few days putting together into a webpage for us within the network.

This has been their second responding task this year and admittedly I was a little nervous - as I've spoken about before the cyberdrama unit has been a rather tumultous one with varying degrees of success (often on a lesson by lesson basis), plus they'd shown resistance to responding tasks earlier in the year (afterall all Drama is is standing on a stage reading lines, isn't it....that opinion has now been changed - thank goodness).

I've been really impressed with the standard of these articles and some of the observations they've made. This one, I just had to share:

As years go by, and we head further into the 21st century, our need for knowledge is greater and the time we spend to seek answers has become less. With the creation of the World Wide Web, and numerous search engines, we are able to find a world of information just with the click of a button. There are endless possibilities to what the Internet can be used for… - Student K, 2008