I enjoyed making my podcast last week! I'm not entirely thrilled with how my voice comes through, but I do see its effectiveness in teaching students the importance of inflection and annunciation. Although the final product seems simplistic now, it did require a lot of thought in composing it. First, I had trouble picking the book that I wanted to review. I wanted a text that could provide more than me simply talking about the book. I'm happy I went with
A Wreath for Emmett Till, because in choosing music, I essentially enriched the book's theme. I can't think of any song about lynching more haunting than Billie Holiday's version of
Strange Fruit. As it goes with all writing projects, I do feel that more editing could be done. I need to get more comfortable with all of the editing tools available in GarageBand/Audacity, but I'm sure students would be able to help me out in the classroom!
In the classroom, I've thought of a few more ways I could use podcasts:
- Sharing reactions to classroom texts. (Trista, I'm thinking that perhaps we could change our To Kill a Mockingbird wiki to a Ning, and our students could post their podcasts onto the Ning...it would be fun for them to hear what students from another school think of the novel as they're reading it?!)
- Recording interviews for research projects, so students can replay the audio file when choosing quotes to include in the paper. Or, simply provide the interview podcast as part of an electronic submission of the research paper.
- Reading part of a novel, or article, to practice fluency. Students would have to record themselves, reflect on what they produce, and reread/edit as necessary.
Great ideas! At first I wasn't sure of the use of podcasts, but it fun to see all the new ideas that everyone is having. I like the interview idea in connection to their research paper. I have my students interview a "trusted adult" for their persuasive paper. A podcast might be a great format for that as well.
ReplyDeleteI think a Ning might be a better format for our project. We need to consider the purpose (can you hear Anne). I wish I knew if I could actually use a Ning site in the classroom. I like the idea of reflecting on the readings. We would have to give them specific criteria to make it effective. I also wonder if they could have a partner from the opposite school that they were responsible for responding to. Just an idea.