Podcasting in the classroom

Podcasting is essentially amateur radio on the Internet. What's interesting about Podcasting is that the fact that its easy enough for anyone to use, even children, and can be broadcast anywhere in the world. It opens up several different avenues for students to learn about posting to the Web, sharing their ideas and broadcasting it to a broad spectrum of people across the world. Podcasting can be used to reinforce lessons taught in class, or it can be used to teach lessons. Want to learn a new language? There's a podcast for it. Want to give a tour of your school, put directions on a podcast and attach it to a series of photos to make an audio slide show to present your school. What are some other ideas on how to use Podcasting in your classroom.

How to use video in the classroom

Digital video can be a valuable tool in the classroom. It can help engage students with visual elements that they can manipulate and it allows them an opportunity to work with digital editing at an early age. For example, students who are learning about China can use digital video as a "digital pen-pal" to talk with someone in China. I would have students video tape themselves and talk about what their favorite thing in America is. Then someone in China could view the videos online at a hosted site and post one of their own talking about China. Of course, it helps if you know someone in China! How else could you use video as a learning tool in the classroom?

Wiki-Wiki what

What's a wiki? My husband thought it was a young wookie, but he's weird. A wiki is a user generated site where anyone can edit and post anything, anytime. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, right? But it's not. Because when people post on the most popular site, Wikipedia.org, there are thousands of other people who are just as passionate about the subject as the people who might vandalize or put false information on the page. Wikipedia makes the user the editor, so there are more guardians of the gateway of information, making points of failure harder to slip through the cracks. How could you use a wiki in your classroom, and is it appropriate for younger students such as second graders?

How to apply blogging to students

Let me begin by saying that I think students should only be allowed to blog on a controlled site, otherwise they may come in contact with information and other materials that are not age-appropriate. I could post a lesson online in a blog and ask students to respond to the blog via a comment. Blogs promote more free and quick thinking, forcing students to comment on a post that they may not have been expecting. It causes them to think on their feet, and it may also encourage research to look into ways to answer my questions. Blogging could also be a fun way to encourage children to write, allowing them the freedom of a journal entry but in a more "hip" manner.

Blogs, the big thing now

Blogs are all the rave on the internet at the moment, and for good reason. Blogs give users an opportunity to express their feelings on specific matters, usually extremely passionately, and people can find them by simply searching for a subject. Want to know more about the Pittsburgh Steelers? There's only about 150 million blogs about the team on the internet, many in several different languages. Blogs fill a niche, allowing the user to talk specifically about one topic, or can be much more broad — encompassing different stratospheres of thought. Blogs are making the print newspaper obsolete, why search through pages of things you don't care about when you can instead simply subscribe to a blog, and discuss it with others who read. Comments are the other unique aspect of blogging. It gives readers an opportunity to respond immediately to posts, creating further dialogs and making the reader feel as though they are part of the writing process. Blogging is also being condensed as simple "twittering" allowing readers of blogs to keep up with quick posts by the writers as their moods change, something pressing takes place or if they just don't have the time to make a longer post. Blogs have changed the landscape of the net, giving opinions in quick, succinct fashion and allowing "surfers" an opportunity to find their subjects at breakneck speed. Blogging can be fun, and it doesn't have restrictions. Want to swear? Go for it. Want to cry? Let it rip. Want to write as long as you want? Type your little heart out. Most bloggers put their heart into all their posts, passionately reporting on subjects that matter to many. More are finding out about certain blogs as they are linked to many different Web sites, making blogs easy to find and just as easy to use.