Is No News Good News?

By: Kim George

Personally, I think not. Currently we do not have a news program at my school and I have been trying to think of the best way to implement this into our school. I really love the idea of students creating a news program for students, but finding the perfect fit is challenging. Although I am at a middle school I really like the idea of the weekly magazine format of KNN Tiger News Broadcast.

Wow! The Tiger News broadcast done by elementary school students is amazing. http://www.henry.k12.ga.us/pges/knn/ I really like the idea that they do not broadcast announcements daily, but rather a weekly news magazine format. I think this perspective allows the students to create a quality newscast and give enough time to discuss and reflect on what works and what doesn’t. The KNN news is done through auditions through the gifted program. This is somewhat controversial to me because on one hand I think it should be open to all students, but on the other hand I realize that the gifted program is designed to give students an opportunity to be creative outside the regular classroom and many teachers don’t have the time due to curriculum constraints. It also allows for editing which I find extremely important in continuing to reflect on the product. The site also contains job descriptions for each of the various positions. 

I also got some ideas from Tiger News which is done at the high school level. http://hs.scasd.us/ms/kelchner/tigernews/index.html In one of the videos a student was visiting New York City around the holidays and filmed snipits of her vacation. http://hs.scasd.us/ms/kelchner/tigernews/archiveChristmasInTheBigApple.html It was an educational experience for all! Imagine the possibilities of having students film vacations and field trips. There were a lot of ideas that I am considering for implementation into my own news programs. 

1. Elementary School: (k-6 elementary school) Fifth grade students earn their spot on the morning announcements by completing and interest form and getting references from several teachers. They are trained the last few weeks of school by graduating sixth grade students. Students say the school motto, lunch menu, weather, and announcements for the day. The news has guest student visitors to encourage fundraising days, sports victories and birthdays.

Pros: Consistency. Students can run virtually run the news themselves after the first few weeks. Cons: A select few students get to be a part of the news.

2. Middle School: The news is done by 8th grade students through a technology connections class. Students are given various jobs based on interest including camera person, newscaster, and interviewer. Once a week students go live out into the halls for “Hall Talk” and ask random questions to teachers and students. The students enjoy watching this and it gives others in the school an opportunity to be a part of the news. Questions range from what do you think your favorite food on the lunch menu is to where students are going on vacation.

Pros: Most of the eighth grade students get to participate in creating the school news.

Cons: The class make-up changes each 9 weeks and the teacher has to retrain the students.

Social Networking in the Classroom by Michelle Hardy

Can you imagine a world without MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter? I know that today’s students definitely cannot. Gone are the days of wondering what one of your “friends” is doing. We now have instant access to people’s locations, food choices, and random thoughts. While the jury is still out about the merits of using social networking sites in schools, one thing is crystal clear, our students spend hours a day actively engaged on these sites. So as an educator who is always trying to make real-world connections, what better way to do this than by bringing in a little social networking. I would like to share a few ways to incorporate these limitless tools into an educational setting.

Facebook

According to a national survey conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites. So knowing that the students are already using sites this regularly means that the schools just need to get creative on how to use this tool to assist in the ever growing challenge of improving student achievement. If a teacher creates a fan page on Facebook and her students join, she is now able to post assignments, helpful links, videos, and pictures related to her content area. Students are able to share their opinions, answer each other’s questions and practice effective communication skills all at the same time. Also, parents are able to join the fan page and stay connected with the school about upcoming events and assignments. Notice how I said that teacher’s should create fan pages and not personal ones. I believe that the fan page sets the tone for a more professional atmosphere. This way educators don’t have to worry about “friending” parents and students and creating a gray area at school. Even if a teacher has a personal Facebook page, the lines on Facebook should be drawn extremely carefully to ensure that a professional environment is maintained.

Twitter

It seems like Twitter is gaining a lot more traction these days and young people are really enjoying this tool. They can keep up with celebrities as well as close friends and family. This tool is great to use to post reminders about upcoming projects as well as linking actual homework sheets. It can also be used to acknowledge outstanding students. Twitter doesn’t have a fan page like Facebook. However, I strongly urge you to create a teacher email account and then create a teacher Twitter account. My students love to read “tweets” from their teachers and it’s a great way for parents to engage in meaningful dialogue about what students are learning about in school.

Edmodo

Edmodo was created specifically for educators as a way to keep social networking safe in schools. I love the features it offers in terms of a gradebook and the ability to create different groups within the same teacher account. My students and I use Edmodo daily and they love it. One of the best features is the library function. Students can upload their work to their library and that way they don’t have to worry about keeping up with a flash drive. The other cool feature is that parents can join groups and see their child’s progress. Edmodo also has a calendar that my students use to record their independent reading each night. At the end of the month, they can print it off and turn it in or save it as a pdf and email it to me via Edmodo. There are a few drawbacks to this site because the students can only interact on the main wall. This means that they can’t privately communicate with each other. I like the idea of students being able to email each other privately so I hope that eventually this feature is added.

In conclusion, social networking sites can be a great way to connect with students. These sites can also be a wonderful way to connect with other educators in an effort to share and exchange ideas and resources.

References

Lenhar, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Pew internet project data memo.Pew Internet &
American Life Project, Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2007/PIP_SNS_Data_Memo_Jan_2007.pdf.pdf

SCHULTEN, K. (2011, September 30). The learning network [Web log message].
Retrieved from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/teachers-teaching-
teachers-on-twitter-q-and-a-on-edchats/?ref=socialnetworking

Social Networking and Today’s Student

What is Social Networking?

The Good-

Social networking includes many online services that focus on building social relations among people who share similar interests, goals and ideas from a variety of settings and communities. Because of the vast opportunities to exchange these ideas and information it can be an enormous learning tool if used in a classroom setting properly.

The Bad-

Social Networking sites can be used for bullying and spreading hurtful lies about anybody without verified facts and information. Often times, these lies spread throughout a small community virally, meaning it is passed on to many, in a short amount of time. For this reason, many schools block these social networking sites even though they may be great resources to the school.

Filtering is done with most social networking sites in schools because of several laws passed to protect the children from internet harm. We have all learned of some excellent arguments for these filters in this class so I will leave you to your own decisions and ideas on that.

Social networking sites do have several things in common between most popular sites. Profiles containing various information about the user is maintained and updated by the user. Also, many sites allow profiles to include uploaded pictures of the users to their profiles. This can be another concern because it does violate the CIPA/COPA laws if students are using this in a classroom setting.

Popular Student Activities

As you can see from the chart, popular social networking activities are keeping today’s students active online. Activities include participating in collaborative projects, blogging, posting messages, photos to creating polls and quizzes and surveys while using popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and other community forming software and websites. Use of this software and websites has become very popular during the past few years because it is a way to start meeting and interacting with people quickly. You can meet and begin associating with those that have similar interests instantly in most sites.

Another huge impact on using these social networking sites are based on the fact of convenience. Modern technology including handheld mobile devices, tablets and phones make it even easier to participate in online social media.

Why Start Social Networking?

Social Networking can also be a nice form of entertainment for some! The tool is great for meeting people with similar interests, and has become known to be a very effective business technique for modern entrepreneurs and other professionals including educators. The latest social networking sites even allow teachers to share with others that have the same interests and class ideas and/or lessons.

For example, EDMODO is a Facebook like web site for educators where small groups, networks, schools or communities can share and promote the exchange of plans and information within that selected group.

Most people, including teachers and students, actually seem to build strong bonds when they are connected via those networks. This strong bond essentially leads to a strong sense of belonging to the networking community.

References:

Social Networks. Retrieved from http://www.socialnetworks.org/


MediaShift . Your Guide to Social Networking Online | PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/08/your-guide-to-social-networking-online241.html


Social Networks 3.0 - VentureBlog . Retrieved from http://ventureblog.com/articles/2005/12/social_networks.php

Untangling the Web of Media Center Web Pages by Liz Manguno

This is a particularly apt topic for me to discuss because my colleague and I are in the process of seriously updating our media center web page. The good news is you can no longer see what it used to look like; the not so bad news is that we still have a long way to go before we have a product that really shines. We spent a considerable amount of time looking at other media center web pages and hashing out ideas before we began actual construction. We chose to construct a Google site for this project for a variety of reasons: price, functionality, flexibility, familiarity and ease of use, just to name a few. Right now we are building the basics: home page, resource pages for teachers and students, sign-up calendar, a few tutorials and our first pathfinder. The home page is still fairly bare bones. It has a few of the basics (brief slide show, staff names/contact info, and hours of operation), but we need to develop it further and include our mission statement, policies, etc. And it’s not very eye-catching, so we’re toying with the idea of a different, distinct opening page. We plan to keep our teacher resource page fairly simple because we believe teachers prefer fast and functional to fancy. But our student resource page is a Glogster; we want it to be inviting and engaging. The sign-up calendar is one of the features I like best. Now, instead of a single pencil/paper sign-up binder in the media, teachers can view the calendar on-line and email requests for dates and times. The collaborative planning form can also be filled in on line and attached to that email. The learning curve here is educating our staff. We’ve sent out emails to all informing them of this new feature, but changing behavior patterns takes time, and only one teacher has used the new system. Everyone else is still stopping by the media center. But even this is not a negative; we see it as a good opportunity for us to personally introduce the new procedure to them – and showcase our newly evolving web presence at the same time. We’ve uploaded a few tutorials and, as I said earlier, our first pathfinder. Right now that pathfinder fills the entire page, but as we develop and add more, we’ll devise a system of categories and links. We also have a books page. This is a work in progress. Right now it only includes a form for making recommendations and a very limited virtual shelf. Our plan is to expand this to include book trailers, QR codes, perhaps a Shelfari, and maybe even an on-line book club blog of sorts. Some of the challenges we’re facing are how to minimize clicks and maximize screen space. We don’t want students or teachers to have to do a lot of scrolling and/or clicking to find what they want, but we do want to be as all-inclusive and comprehensive as possible. Bottom line – I’m not offering up our web page as a model by any means, but I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made and excited about the plans we have for the future.

Side Note: I’d like to go back to the issue of learning curves that I mentioned earlier. When I was an undergrad, all freshmen were required to take a course in using the library. The complexity of navigating the stacks was appreciated, as was the value and importance of providing students with direct instruction in doing so. As educators working with students on information access, we understand the continued need for such instruction. But I think that somewhere along the way, some of the powers to be have come to believe that technology has made research and information gathering easier, when it has, in fact, made it much more complex. This was brought home to me as I prepared to present the pathfinder to the students – seniors, no less. There was so much I felt I needed to address – print/on-line, database interfaces, search options (basic, advanced, narrowing fields), supplemental resources (citation, annotation, saving, storing, printing) –  the list goes on. Sure, the students have been down this road before – once or twice a semester, at most. And all the while the resources, interfaces, and features have been in constant flux. In a perfect world – one with a much larger budget and a somewhat altered mind set – we would still be offering freshmen (high school and college) a full semester course in information access. I know I could easily fill eighteen weeks with meaningful instruction.

But enough about me and my little world. If you’re thinking of designing a media center web page (and aren’t we all), I highly recommend School Library Websites (at http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/). It includes links to over one hundred top-notch media center web sites categorized by grade level: elementary, middle and high school (Creekview’s Unquiet Library is listed, of course). The site also includes links to a wealth of support information (tools for building websites; guidelines for constructing them; information on fair use, copyright, standards, promoting media services) as well as lots of content information and examples (pathfinders, digital storytelling, etc.). It’s virtually a one-stop shop for media center web pages. The site could benefit from a bit of annotation to accompany the links, but the categories are clearly defined, so finding what you want is relatively easy.

References

Ablet, E., Bellizzi, D., Byers, J., Cove, S., Frey, A., Guskin, D., . . . Snitzer, C. (Eds.). (2011). School library websites: Examples of effective practice. San Francisco, CA: Tangient LLC. Retrieved from http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/Home

Jasek, A. (2007). How to design library websites to maximize usability. San Diego, CA: Elsevier Library Connect. Retrieved from http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcp/0502/lcp0502.pdf

Jurkowski, O. (2010). Technology and the school library. (pp. 69-81), Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.

Wiki Wiki Quickly: by Kim George

Wiki Wiki Quickly

Did you know that “wiki wiki” means quickly in Hawaiian?  And staying with the wiki theme, Wikipedia defines a wiki as “a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language.”  It was developed by Ward Cunningham and defined as the “simplest online database that could possibly work.”  (http://www.wikipedia.org/)  Personally I would define a wiki as a type of open source software that allows multiple people to add, edit, and share information.

How to Use Wikis in the Media Center
Strategies for using wikis in the media center are endless.  They are free and fairly simple to use by even the most novice web 2.0 user.  Wiki’s can be used for research, collaboration and organization.  

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl:  Reading teachers are each assigned a book over the summer from the Georgia Book Award Nominees.  Each reading teacher submits questions at the beginning of the year about the book they read.  Students are able to access the wiki from the school website to prepare for mini competitions and the teachers have a database of questions. 


Decatur High School:  Uses wikis to organize research by creating pathfinders.  Teachers can easily share sites that have educational value.  One of the wiki pages was designed to only show magazine, journal or encyclopedia articles from databases.  I thought this was a great way for teachers to share quality articles.  I think it would be a good idea to create something similar for professional development. 
http://dhs.wikispaces.com/


 Amy Bowllan:  A teacher created this site as a lesson plan for The  Mzumgu  Boy.  The site utilizes a variety of web 2.0 tools and is ultimately a mashup.  It contains You Tube videos on animal life and education life in Africa.  There are questions for each chapter including vocabulary with a link to locate the definition.  Also, links to places in Africa and finally a recipe for making Ugali, similar to polenta.  It is a great guide for groups of students to create something similar for literature circles. http://themzunguboy.wetpaint.com/

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Wiki’s, in my opinion, were not developed for creative banter and comments for users to respond too, but rather for organizational purposes.  And as with many technology tools there are strengths and weaknesses of the wiki.  I personally have enjoyed using them in my media courses as well as in the classroom.  Recently, I made a “Honey Do” wiki for my husband.  Although he didn’t find it as amusing as I did, it has certainly accomplished the goal! 

Though they are not perfect, I find they do have a place in education.  The biggest weakness I find is that they are too structured.  I may be unaware of some of the creative aspects of wiki’s, but to me they act more like a “table” in which information can be shared.  One of the best uses I have found is for the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl.  I mentioned earlier that teachers can easily input their questions into a nice, neat table to share with students and organize questions for mock competitions.  Below are a list of strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

·         Web based and updated automatically
·         Collaborative – creates networks
·         Flexibility of access
·         Can remain anonymous (kids)
·         Encourage peer teaching
·         Free and fairly simple

Weaknesses: 

·         Too much structure
·         Non-contributing pupils may hide lack of involvement
·         Unequal access in diverse student community
http://mrwrights.blogspot.com/2011/04/analysis-of-wikis-as-education-tools.html


Interesting:

http://www.wikalong.org/  A wiki-margin for the internet that corresponds to the current page you a are viewing. 

Wikis make me a little sickie by Michelle H.

When I saw this topic, I was excited to tackle the subject of wikis. The reason why isn’t quite so obvious. As you can tell from the title of this post, I am not a wiki fan and don’t quite see what all the hype is about. I’m a blogger-kinda gal, well rather teacher so I tend to lean more toward the use of blogs in my classroom. However, I wanted to explore the world of wikis a little more before I cast my final vote on their usefulness and place in the education sphere.

According to Dictionary.com, a wiki is a Web site that allows anyone to add, delete, or revise content by using a web browser. At first glance, this definition would seem like using such a tool in a classroom setting would be an absolute nightmare. However, there are several teachers around the globe who love wikis and find them quite useful in enhancing their instruction. The idea behind wikis is that they allow students to work collaboratively on a single piece of content. Each student is able to contribute and the teacher is able to see the group collaboration happen in real-time. Since wikis are essentially digital content management systems they house tons of information without having students carrying around flash drives and then fearing that all their hard work will be lost if they lose their flash drive. Even though wikis can be open to the public, there are also some settings that allow the editing capabilities to be limited. For instance, a wiki can be created for specific groups and only those groups will be able to view and edit that wiki.

So, how do wikis stack up in a school setting, more specifically the Media Center. While I have seen several media center wikis, I don’t know if I would use them as a media specialist. They appear to not be very interactive. Instead, it seems like wikis in a lot of school settings are just dumping grounds for content. I like the idea of interactivity and also like the idea of students collaborating online. My choice tool for this task would be a Google Doc or a blog. I know that each of these tools has its limitations but I feel like they are easier to manage and “police” for lack of a better term. The major drawback to wikis is the ease at which information can be edited or deleted. Attempting to use them in a media center or technology lab seems like an educational nightmare. I mean I can’t keep the students from changing the desktop backgrounds on the computers, so how in the world, can I expect to manage a webpage that everyone has access to. I totally understand the idea behind a collaborative tool that students can use to organize content and manage resources. Yet, I’m not sold on the idea of using wikis in the elementary and middle school levels. However, I can totally see their value in high school and higher education where the students are a bit more mature and able to handle more responsibilities and are hopefully able to resist the urge to delete or edit someone else’s hard work.

In conclusion, while I do have a better understanding of wikis and as a result of this class, I’ve had a chance to use one, I think I’ll just stick with my current method of using blogs and Google Docs.

References

Wiki in a k-12 classroom. (2008, October 21). Retrieved from

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom

7 things you should know about…wikis. (2005, July). Retrieved from

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf

Apalachee high school media center's wiki... (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://ahsmedia.barrow.wikispaces.net/

Week One- "Pod" "Casts" in the Classroom!

Podcast Blog:  Week One Blog


 "Pod" "Casts" in the Classroom!

                                     By:  Barry 

One creator shapes the technology around us:

The recent death of Apple’s creator and former CEO, Steve Jobs, brings about many blog discussions, podcast presentations and video uploads on YouTube about one of the technology world’s greatest loss. It seems rather fitting that many people found out about the death of Steve Jobs while surfing the net, working on a computer or catching up with friends on the social network site-Facebook.


The world of technology and computing has been advanced with the many products invented and influenced by him under his guidance at Apple. These innovations allowed Jobs to be one of the most respected  technology creators allowing the technology to be used so that our lives would be better because of them .He had an aptitude for making  technologies useful and fun while transforming commercial products that could be used in ordinary households by ordinary people.

Some of the innovations that shaped the technology industry today include:  

• The first Apple Computer that revolutionized the classrooms in the early 1980’
•   Itunes and the ipod that made music and the Mp3 portable
•   Iphone revolutionized the cell phone market with the first touch screen technology
•   Apple TV products for home media consumption
•  Apple iPad as the first tablet introducing portable computing and media needs
•    Help developed the technology for the Podcast

These inventions developed by Apple and Steve Jobs have helped to pave the way for other computer, smartphones, broadcasting and wireless technology developments for future classrooms. These developments have dramatically changed how we communicate, teach, develop lesson plans, and interact socially and professionally as a culture.

One of the many inventions important to the media, broadcasting, business, teaching and learning environments has become known as the Podcast.  The term,” Podcast” derives from Mr. Jobs’,” Original iPod” and the term, “Broadcast”.  These words -POD and -CAST were combined together to create this useful tool  for sharing information with the world around us!

What is a Podcast?

A podcast can be used in any environment but for this particular blog introduction I am describing it in terms of an educational setting. An educational Podcast is an audio and/or video (VODCAST) file that you can create or download from the Internet and listen on any media device including computers, tablets and smartphones. Again, originally it was used on the ipod device created my Steve Jobs because it was one of the first technology devices to allow portability.

What can Podcasts do in the classroom?

Since you can choose your type of podcast downloads many teachers can utilize them in the class to teach certain lessons as an additional source of classroom technology.  Podcasts can also be created by your classroom to teach others what you are doing in your lessons and projects with the students (See Link on developing your own podcasts below). This is fairly easy as long as you have the proper technology to record and make an interesting conversation/broadcast about your subject choice.

There are many RSS feeds and Podcasting sites that you can use to search the latest subject and interest. The great thing about subscribing to your podcast is that it will always automatically update any new podcasts available to you. However, you can still choose to download any individual podcast that you think you may be able to use in your classroom without subscribing.

Many educational Podcasts can be found for free by doing a topic search in Google and downloading them onto a saved storage device. As podcasts can range in length and information so can the file size so make sure your have enough storage to fully download the complete file!

I have used podcasts with my theatre kids that we created and they absolutely loved the idea of writing and creating their own rather than downloading from some other source. Either way you use podcast in the classroom you are expanding new ideas and using the latest technology to create a fun classroom activity for your group.

Follow this link to learn how to create your own Podcasts that can be used in the classroom:

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/what-is-a-podcast.htm

Classroom Podcast Sample:

Student Podcast Example from Dr. Cooper

http://mps.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/shows/willowcast01.html

Other Podcast Resources:

Podcasting: A Definition
This Wikipedia article gives a good history of the phenomenon and provides helpful links to tools and examples.

Podcasts: A New Twist on Net Radio 

Podcasting for Education
Possible uses for podcasting in education.

Educational Podcasting Resources
This list ranges from "What is Podcasting?" to "How Do You Create Podcasts?"

Podcasting 101
Videos, links to tutorials, and suggestions on open source technology you can use.

Four Minutes on Podcasting 
An excellent movie called Four Minutes About Podcasting. It is about what a podcast is and how to get started listening to them.

How To: Podcasting 
A nice overview on podcasting by Engadget. This series of articles provides information on how to find and listen to podcasts as well as how to create them.

Podcasting Tools
A great resource for all things related to podcasting. This site features "how to" articles, tools for creating and managing audio, and links to all the major podcast directories.

Test

Test from blogger app on galaxy tab. Can this be used as a teaching tool? If you can see this, then yes, quite possibly!

Podcasts - Original Post

There are probably two factors influencing my thoughts on this topic. First, I love NPR and books on tape. I enjoy long road trips as much for the opportunity to indulge in listening to hours of NPR (as available) and long, preferably unabridged, novels as for the destination. Second, the listening skills – or lack thereof – of students is a hot topic of conversation at my school. Teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to help students “hear” what they are saying. So while I certainly appreciate the merits of what the readings refer to as enhanced podcasts (images added) and vodcasts (video added), I’m most interested in how we might be able to use the traditional audio-only podcast to engage and teach students.

We know that many young people today have difficulty processing information that is only presented orally. To assist these students, and to appeal to all learning styles, teachers often incorporate multiple modes of delivery in their lessons. They support the information they are presenting orally with written and visual input in the form of handouts, notes on whiteboards or smart boards, power point presentations, video clips, etc. And while I largely agree with this approach, I think there is a definite place for audio alone, because all too often, students are still not “hearing,” even with all of this input. So maybe the solution is to occasionally minimize the input and help students learn to focus on the spoken word alone. This was brought home to me while working on this assignment. When I first started looking at the podcasts at Radio Willoweb, I keep looking at the screen and waiting for the images to appear.  I knew they were podcasts, but I still expected images – and not just a kaleidoscope of colors – when the screen opened up and the audio began. It wasn’t until I accepted the fact that these were audio only (and I checked a few before doing so), and I stopped looking at the screen and just started listening to the voices that I really “heard” the students speaking. I heard their youthful accents, their spoken hesitancies, their building confidence – and their stories.

I think too often we become so accustomed to visual reinforcement that we rely on images to inform, to complete the picture as it were. As a result, we may miss the nuances of verbal communication.

Having students listen to podcasts might be one way to help them develop their listening skills, but having them create their own podcasts is an even better approach because it extends the learning process to encompass a wide range of skills, not just those of listening.  According to Esther Kreider Eash (2006), “While creating podcasts, students learn to research, write, develop vocabulary, speak effectively, manage time, solve problems, and grab attention.” Wow. As a former English teacher, I can go for that. And I would add that working with written/spoken language without the aid of images or body language forces writers to be much more precise in their use of language. They also learn the importance of tone, inflection and pacing in oral communication and how to incorporate these factors in writing. I also think audio-only podcasting can have an impact on stimulating the imagination of the listener in a way vodcasts cannot. We’ve all had the experience of seeing a movie version of a book we have already read and saying to ourselves, “That’s not how I pictured that character.” Podcasts leave the picturing to the listener, and while, hopefully, the writer(s) and speaker(s) will have included enough detail to capture the “image” they are attempting to convey, descriptions based on words alone are subject to more individual interpretation than words accompanied by images. Audio-only podcasts – something to think about.

Now to close, a few random notes from my readings:

Fun Fact #1: “The New Oxford American Dictionary chose ‘podcast’ as its 2005 Word of the Year over ‘persistent vegetative state,’ ‘bird flu,’ ‘Sudoku,’ ‘rootkit,’ and ‘lifehack’ ” (as cited in Esch, 2006).

Fun Fact #2: A Google search of “podcast” done in September 2004 netted only 24 results (Eash, 2006).  My Google search in October 2011 resulted in “about 314,000,000” results in 0.12 seconds.

Rubric Resource: If you plan on having students create podcasts and are looking for a rubric, the two listed on Dr. Bennett’s Resource Handout (the one included in Dr. C’s assignment) are both good. The first one is suitable for lower grades, the second for upper grades.

Reference 

Eash, E. K. (2006). Podcasting 101 for K-12 librarians. Information Today, 26(4). Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr06/Eash.shtml