I must admit, our last class was a bit intimidating. All of these new things I can do with my computer and me, well, a child of the 70s...But none the less, I had an assignment and I had to do it! It was interesting to speak about the power of pod casting...what a novel idea, first you record something, in my case, ugh, silly, and then you play around with the mood music a little higher and a little lower, put it all together and there you have it...I am a published recording star...well, at least in my own mind! It was intimidating because I had never done it before, never even knew what it was, but what I did know was I had to wait for the magic stick before I could get it posted to the wiki site...I am soooo glad everyone waited until they had the magic stick so I did not have to try, ahem, 4 times to finally get mine posted! Of course, waiting for my fourth turn did get me a prize, a beautiful purple highlighter...Ah, my highlighted text has never looked so good!
I see so many possibilities with this new teaching device. Speaking with my new broadcasting partner, um, nope, she dumped me, lol, but what a great idea, pretending you are FDR and having a fireside chat...yes Rose, you bet I so stole, ahem, appropriated that idea...or perhaps another famous historical figure sharing some of his or her thoughts for the students to peruse at their convenience...maybe a way for students to respond to a question that is posed to them by an over sleepy teacher who is up way past his bedtime but has a brilliant question for them. We all know the best questions always are thought of at the most inopportune times.
Ah, it just boggles the mind what one can come up with when there are so many new and wonderful opportunities to teach in a brave new fashion.
I as well see a lot of possibilities with this Podcasting idea. I especially think it could be of great use for students who miss class regularly. I will be working in a high-risk district and I anticipate a lot of this.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time....if I went this route....might students be more inclined not to come to school at all? If they can just get the lesson off the internet, why bother? Don't know....have to chew on this.
What applications do you see besides a chat with FDR?
Hmm…what an interesting and thought provoking statement. Kind of like if you have a class and no one shows up did you really have a class? I think you are going to see a lot of classes going this route in the future. Education at your leisure is probably going to be the wave of the future.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if students are not able to make the class but can watch at a later point, what a great tool for education. It would also be a great tool for better understanding as well. As is the case in many of our classes the discussions can be very rich and fruitful but I can only take notes so fast. So many organic ideas and thoughts are lost in a lot of cases. If the lessons were recorded and replayed at a later date, so much more learning could take place
Giving podcasts (audio recordings) to students to make up missed lessons or even to review attended lessons is not something I'd thought of. I think you are right, Ryan, to be concerned about rewarding students who choose not to come to class. I wonder if there might be some sort of policy you could put in place for certain types of absences. I'd like to hear more about this if you come up with more ideas. For me, I could see using recordings to reinforce lessons. I have to admit, and I'm glad to hear, John, that I am not the only one, I am intimidated by this technology, as well as shy about myself on recordings (audio or video). For all of the reflective practice we've got to ahead of us, maybe I will be over that by next summer!
ReplyDeleteYou need to set policy that clearly delineates the importance of participating in class, onsite. Obviously, students are absent here and there, but consistent absence needs to be addressed. Perhaps offering points for class participation is the best way to establish the importance of not being absent from class and making it mandatory to complete extra work when viewing the podcast of class.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the email we received yesterday about not leaving the class to complete our instructional component of our 504 class. It was loud and we wanted to go someplace else, our instructor then brought us back, because she needed us to be present.