Each year, my seventh grade students read independent novels that support other pieces of literature we cover in class. In the past, I have held “speed booking” sessions where students present the books that they have read to each other. Students bring their independent reading books to class and spend a couple minutes talking about and critiquing the story to their peers.
I thought that podcasting could really enhance this book sharing experience in my classroom. This year, instead of doing the speed booking activity, I would like students to share their stories through podcasting. After creating a podcast book talk myself, I have realized how the experience pushed me to plan and think critically in order to share what I knew about the piece of literature. I found that I needed to write a general script of I wanted to share about the book. Once I recorded some information, I was able to listen to myself talk. Many times, I rerecorded myself because there were long silences between statements or I just sounded uneducated! This is when I realized that podcasting can be much more than just recording yourself. It requires writing, speaking, listening, and editing (covering most of the state standards for language arts!).
When I do this activity with my students, I will provide them with this sample book talk podcast as a model. I also think that it is important to give students guidelines for what they discuss in their book talk (title, author, summary, ending, favorite part, excerpt, rating, sequel information, recommendation, etc.). Before creating my podcast, I listened to a few book talks given by middle school students. This helped me develop a general outline for what I planned on discussing. My students will be able to listen to the podcast I created to help them with their own planning. I really look forward to implementing this podcast activity in the near future!
Link to my podcasting host site: http://carrieatarcadia.podbean.com/
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Podcast Hosting
Podbean.com: http://www.podbean.com/
I decided to sign up for podcasting at Podbean.com because the homepage advertised the ability to publish your own podcasts as well as collect favorite podcasts into one site. The sign up process was quick and easy. After signing up I needed to go to my email in order to retrieve the password. Once I was signed in with my username and password, I was able to change the password to something more familiar by going to “settings.” The first thing that I noticed about the site was the vast amount of podcasts advertised on the page. There are featured podcasts, promoted podcasts, popular podcasts, most played podcasts of this week, this month, or of all time. I found a few podcasts that I liked and subscribed to them so that they are all in one place for listening (My Subscriptions). I like the way that the podcasts are organized and wished that I had searched podcasts through this site when evaluating educational podcasts. Each podcasts has a short description, icon, tags, and genre type. I found a podcast that reviewed young adult literature and subscribed to it hoping that it will be a useful model to my own students when they review books. I am hoping to have my students use a podcast to critique books, give author interviews, or create book talks.
Another great feature of Podbean.com is the ability to publish your own podcast. However, I do not think that you are able to actually create the podcast on their website. Instead, users can create a podcast using Podomatic or Audacity and upload the file onto Podbean.com in order to share the podcasts. The podcasts are displayed in a way that is very similar to a blog. Each episode has a title, description, and tags. The episodes are added to the user’s page and can be viewed and reviewed by other Podbean users.
I decided to sign up for podcasting at Podbean.com because the homepage advertised the ability to publish your own podcasts as well as collect favorite podcasts into one site. The sign up process was quick and easy. After signing up I needed to go to my email in order to retrieve the password. Once I was signed in with my username and password, I was able to change the password to something more familiar by going to “settings.” The first thing that I noticed about the site was the vast amount of podcasts advertised on the page. There are featured podcasts, promoted podcasts, popular podcasts, most played podcasts of this week, this month, or of all time. I found a few podcasts that I liked and subscribed to them so that they are all in one place for listening (My Subscriptions). I like the way that the podcasts are organized and wished that I had searched podcasts through this site when evaluating educational podcasts. Each podcasts has a short description, icon, tags, and genre type. I found a podcast that reviewed young adult literature and subscribed to it hoping that it will be a useful model to my own students when they review books. I am hoping to have my students use a podcast to critique books, give author interviews, or create book talks.
Another great feature of Podbean.com is the ability to publish your own podcast. However, I do not think that you are able to actually create the podcast on their website. Instead, users can create a podcast using Podomatic or Audacity and upload the file onto Podbean.com in order to share the podcasts. The podcasts are displayed in a way that is very similar to a blog. Each episode has a title, description, and tags. The episodes are added to the user’s page and can be viewed and reviewed by other Podbean users.
Podcast Review
"The Teachers' Podcast" - http://teacherspodcast.org/
One podcast that I found to cover a broad range of educational issues with an extensive amount of resources is “The Teachers’ Podcast.” Dr. Kathy King and Mark Gura discuss different issues surrounding education such as the recent speech that President Obama gave to students around the United States. The website where they post the different podcast episodes is a little busy, but it is because they have so many written comments, links to social network services (Twitter), upcoming events, articles and other resources to support what they discuss on their podcasts. For example, episode 44 (Prime Time for Virtual Learning) includes the podcast of the episode, a summary of the topic, upcoming events (Creative Pursuits Conference, and Virtual School Symposium), links to discussed articles (New Online School Caters to Gay Students and 7 Myths of Distance Learning), and links to videos of the episodes as well as the social networking site, Twitter.
Listening to “The Teachers’ Podcast” was similar to listening to a radio talk show except that the topics were always tied into education in some way. They spend the first five or ten minutes of their segments discussing things that are happening in their own lives and commenting on listener feedback. They receive emails and Twitter comments on a regular basis and incorporate these comments and suggestions into their show. The remainder of the podcast is devoted to discussing hot topics surrounding education. For example, in the episode about President Obama’s speech to students, Mark Gura discusses how No Child Left Behind does not help to inspire students and teachers. He says that it is great for President Obama to talk about how teachers have a responsibility for inspiring students; however, NCLB is “holding students’ feet to the fire to take tests.” I enjoy listening to “The Teachers’ Podcast” because it feels as if I am listening to a radio station created just for me, a teacher!
One podcast that I found to cover a broad range of educational issues with an extensive amount of resources is “The Teachers’ Podcast.” Dr. Kathy King and Mark Gura discuss different issues surrounding education such as the recent speech that President Obama gave to students around the United States. The website where they post the different podcast episodes is a little busy, but it is because they have so many written comments, links to social network services (Twitter), upcoming events, articles and other resources to support what they discuss on their podcasts. For example, episode 44 (Prime Time for Virtual Learning) includes the podcast of the episode, a summary of the topic, upcoming events (Creative Pursuits Conference, and Virtual School Symposium), links to discussed articles (New Online School Caters to Gay Students and 7 Myths of Distance Learning), and links to videos of the episodes as well as the social networking site, Twitter.
Listening to “The Teachers’ Podcast” was similar to listening to a radio talk show except that the topics were always tied into education in some way. They spend the first five or ten minutes of their segments discussing things that are happening in their own lives and commenting on listener feedback. They receive emails and Twitter comments on a regular basis and incorporate these comments and suggestions into their show. The remainder of the podcast is devoted to discussing hot topics surrounding education. For example, in the episode about President Obama’s speech to students, Mark Gura discusses how No Child Left Behind does not help to inspire students and teachers. He says that it is great for President Obama to talk about how teachers have a responsibility for inspiring students; however, NCLB is “holding students’ feet to the fire to take tests.” I enjoy listening to “The Teachers’ Podcast” because it feels as if I am listening to a radio station created just for me, a teacher!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Poetry Blogging
Blogging about Poetic Devices
Subject – Language Arts, English, Poetry
Grade – 6-12
Topic – Poetic Devices
This is an ongoing learning activity where students identify the definition and purpose of using a specific poetic device in writing. Students post information about the poetic device and use this device in their own writing. After adding this information and a sample poem to their blog, students read peer blogs and respond using appropriate feedback. This activity is originally created for a poetry class that I teach. The class meets every other day for half of the school year. However, this weekly blogging activity can be utilized in most English and language arts classes. Teachers can modify the activity to include elements of plot, literary elements, vocabulary, etc.
Objectives:
Students will be able to appropriately use the internet to identify information related to a selected topic
Subject – Language Arts, English, Poetry
Grade – 6-12
Topic – Poetic Devices
This is an ongoing learning activity where students identify the definition and purpose of using a specific poetic device in writing. Students post information about the poetic device and use this device in their own writing. After adding this information and a sample poem to their blog, students read peer blogs and respond using appropriate feedback. This activity is originally created for a poetry class that I teach. The class meets every other day for half of the school year. However, this weekly blogging activity can be utilized in most English and language arts classes. Teachers can modify the activity to include elements of plot, literary elements, vocabulary, etc.
Objectives:
Students will be able to appropriately use the internet to identify information related to a selected topic
Students will be able to appropriately post information and writing samples to a personal blog
Students will be able to respond to classmates’ blogs in an educational way; giving information about how the selected device helped or hurt their writing
Students will learn the definition and purpose of selected poetic devices
Students will research how different poetic devices are utilized in poetry that can be found on the internet
Students will write their own poems using that week’s poetic device to enhance their writing
Prior to the Blogging Activity:
Students need to create an email account in order to sign up for a blog. If students already have an email account, they can skip this step.
Once and account is created, students register with Blogger.com (or any other free blogging site) and post their first blog. This initial blog is to help students understand how blogging works. Students can choose any topic to write about. It is important that students do utilize the same blogging site so that they are able to “follow” each other’s blogs.
The teacher will create a list of the students’ blog pages so that students can view each other’s blogs and add themselves as “friends” or “followers” to the site.
Students then respond to a minimum of three posts written by students in the class. This will help students understand how to communicate about information found on each other’s blogs.
Learning Activity:
At the beginning of each week the teacher will introduce a poetic device to the class (Ex. Personification)
The goal for the week is for students to research information about the poetic device, understand the purpose of using the poetic device, find a poem that uses the device, identify how the poetic device enhanced the poem, and finally write their own poem using the device.
The weekly poetic device and procedure for blogging can be found on my school website. Students visit the website in order to identify the poetic device of the week and the guidelines.
School Website: http://www.mtps.com/80520101115502547/cwp/browse.asp?A=3&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=56486
Students then respond to each others’ blog posting information about how the poetic device helped or hurt their poem. Students also include comments about the poem that may or may not be related to the poetic device that was researched.
Students will be graded on how well they covered each of the guidelines for posting information about the poetic device as well as their use of higher order thinking when reflecting about others’ poems.
Roadblocks:
The only roadblock I ran into was adding this information to my school website. Once I typed in the feedback guidelines page and posted it, it seemed as if all the information was lost and no updates took place. I decided to wait a few minutes for the updates to appear; however, the new page still did not appear. I decided to type a new feedback guidelines page, but found that the old one did exist and just wasn’t able to be viewed at the time. If you are unable to see the feedback guidelines page on my school website, I am still working on fixing this problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I imagine that when I begin this activity with students, they will have difficulty getting used to the blog site. I plan on giving students the ability to work on this assignment in class for the first week so that we can iron out any problems together. Once all problems are fixed and students are comfortable with blogging, they will work on this activity outside of school.
Blogging about your own Utopia
Link to the lesson plan website: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=942
I found this lesson to be extremely relevant for middle and high school students in language arts or English classes. The lesson blends together problem-based learning, technology integration, collaborative group work, reading comprehension, and application of learned material.
Prior to the lesson, students need to read literature that takes place in a utopian society. Many of my students read The Giver by Luis Lowry which is why this lesson really sparked my interest. The goal of the lesson is for students to create their own utopian society in groups. Students first brainstorm about characteristics of an ideal society and how it compares to the society we live in today. After a brief mini-lesson on blogging, students begin to blog about their society giving information about the rules of the society, daily activities, government, etc. Students also visit their peer’s blogs and comment on other developed utopias. The educational value of this lesson is extensive. Students are able to apply what they know from their reading to develop their own utopian society. Students work in groups to facilitate cooperative learning. Students post information about their societies through blogs and are also required to evaluate each other’s final products by responding to blogs.
I am definitely going use this lesson later on in the year when my students read The Giver. One change that I will make relates to how the students will write about their society. I think that students would benefit from taking on the role of a character in their society and writing the blog as if they were that character experiencing the daily routines of their world. This type of writing pushes students to think about the society as if they were actually living in it. For instance, instead of just listing the rules of the society, students would write about how the rules affect them on a day to day basis.
Prior to reading about this lesson, I thought that it would be difficult for students in my classes to blog about literature since so many of my students do not have an email account because their parents do not allow them to. However, since this lesson incorporates group collaboration, only one student in the group would need to sign up for the blog enabling the entire group to utilize this technological tool.
I found this lesson to be extremely relevant for middle and high school students in language arts or English classes. The lesson blends together problem-based learning, technology integration, collaborative group work, reading comprehension, and application of learned material.
Prior to the lesson, students need to read literature that takes place in a utopian society. Many of my students read The Giver by Luis Lowry which is why this lesson really sparked my interest. The goal of the lesson is for students to create their own utopian society in groups. Students first brainstorm about characteristics of an ideal society and how it compares to the society we live in today. After a brief mini-lesson on blogging, students begin to blog about their society giving information about the rules of the society, daily activities, government, etc. Students also visit their peer’s blogs and comment on other developed utopias. The educational value of this lesson is extensive. Students are able to apply what they know from their reading to develop their own utopian society. Students work in groups to facilitate cooperative learning. Students post information about their societies through blogs and are also required to evaluate each other’s final products by responding to blogs.
I am definitely going use this lesson later on in the year when my students read The Giver. One change that I will make relates to how the students will write about their society. I think that students would benefit from taking on the role of a character in their society and writing the blog as if they were that character experiencing the daily routines of their world. This type of writing pushes students to think about the society as if they were actually living in it. For instance, instead of just listing the rules of the society, students would write about how the rules affect them on a day to day basis.
Prior to reading about this lesson, I thought that it would be difficult for students in my classes to blog about literature since so many of my students do not have an email account because their parents do not allow them to. However, since this lesson incorporates group collaboration, only one student in the group would need to sign up for the blog enabling the entire group to utilize this technological tool.
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