Mod 12 - Podcasting

Ok, my final mod for my class asks for “Find a podcast that you could use in your teaching and post a comment to your blog on how you could use it.” I feel we should start off with some helpful descriptions for anyone who might need it and happens to stumble upon this blog.

What are Podcasts?

 A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word usurped webcast in common vernacular, due to rising popularity of the iPod and the innovation of web feeds.     ~~       

An RSS feed icon, commonly used to indicate the Web feed for a podcast ~~

Helpful links to find podcasts with: (in no particular order)

http://podcast.com/ = Podcast.com is the premier podcast destination that provides access to a growing list of over 60,000 curated and constantly updated podcast feeds representing more than 1 million episodes of audio and video content. Podcast.com's unique value proposition to content consumers also presents an unsurpassed way for content providers to reach an audience that consumes podcasts via the Web, multimedia devices and Internet radio. ~~

http://www.podfeed.net/ = is a podcast directory that helps you find podcasts, read and write podcast reviews, listen to podcasts and share your podcast with others. ~~

http://iteslj.org/      = The Internet TESL Journal: For Teachers of English as a Second Language ~~

http://a4esl.org/podcasts/ = English as a Second Language (ESL) Podcasts from the main site of http://a4esl.org/ which gives helpful links and ideas/activities for ESL students.

http://www.podcastalley.com/ = is the podcast lovers portal. Featuring the best Podcast Directory and the Top 10 podcasts, as voted on by the listeners. ~~

http://www.eltpodcast.com/ = ELT stands for English Language Teaching. ELT Podcast is the home of several podcasts for learners and teachers of English as a second or foreign language. ~~

Extra pages:

http://www.manythings.org/ = is not a podcast site but does have some helpful streaming content which will hopefully someday be podcasting. Interesting things for ESL students. ~~

http://www.podcastalley.com/ = If you don’t like mainstream items for your podcast needs take a look at their comprehensive site ~~

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/ = is a site to get good tips for podcasting issues and questions.  Take a look at their podcast page ~~

Podcast that you could use in your teaching:

I would use the podcasts found on LibriVox~~ website to create a current read along program.  For the read along program the students will be assigned to read three chapters each weekend and to make a list of any words not fully understood.  In the upcoming week the students review the words that they do not understand and then they will then in class read along while the book is read from the podcast.  This will continue until the semester ends or the book does.  With building a reading program in this fashion the students will be able to hear another person read the work which will expose them to more native speakers.

The current reading on their site ~~ is Bram stoker's Dracula.  The book is released in single chapter increments with three chapters being released each week. ~~  With this structure the students will be able to read ahead of hearing the readings and then will be able to read along in class to help solidify both the written and the spoken. 

The podcasts for the first lesson are:

Chapter 1 ~~

Chapter 2 ~~

Chapter 3 ~~  

One advantage of this podcast is that the books will keep on changing keeping your material fresh and the readings will be archived so you or your students can return to any particular reading you like later.    

Why not have a reactionary blog too? Let’s share.

Xenophiles & global voices online:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_zuckerman.html

How do we override the control that limits our control?  Well, we need to first look and then pull on information that is interesting from new sources from anywhere in the world and share it.

 It was once stated that you are ‘Six degrees of separation’ away from knowing anyone in the world.  However, this just shows us that we as individuals just don’t take the time to ask the people we know who they know.  In this same token, we don’t ask ourselves and our friends what is going on in around the world. 

So how do we create a shrinking world and what does this all mean?

It means if we want to be one that is informed and hold ‘global citizenship’ we need to take control and find our way to become informed through asking, exploring, and then sharing.

The ePals update

Breaking done ePals

ePals website:  (highlighted important areas for those of you who don’t have time to extrapolate the importance)

The World's Largest K-12 Learning Network

ePals, Inc. offers K-12 schools, teachers, students and parents a safe and secure global online communications and collaboration platform for building educational communities, providing quality digital content and facilitating 21^st century learning. The world's largest K-12 learning network, ePals Global Community™ consists of more than 600,000 educators and reaches more than 25 million students and parents in 200 countries and territories.

The global scale of ePals' network offers teachers, students and parents unprecedented ability to facilitate teaching and student learning by sharing projects and best practices, connecting with other classrooms and learners around the corner and around the globe, and accessing content and lesson plans designed for an increasingly digital and networked world. With an estimated 500 million students online at school and/or at home, the ePals learning network is transforming education by offering teachers and students a true combination of standards-based content with tools for authentic learning. Students are learning in a real-world setting that builds digital literacy skills, improves critical thinking and introduces students to multiple points-of-view.

The important parts from this are:

1.      Safe and secure environment staged for student learning

2.      Collaborative effort for learning: projects and techniques

3.      Ability to merge classrooms from around the world (culture requirements for standards)

4.      Pre-developed lesson plans   

The most useful parts

Partnered with companies like:

           
           

               

Features:

·         ePals LearningSpace™:

virtual workspace optimized for creating, sharing, managing, and collaborating on educational content

·         ePals Global Community™: (free)

can access the community to find collaborative projects, join discussions in the community forums, and search thousands of classroom profiles to engage with others in authentic exchanges

·         ePals SchoolMail®: (free)

email for students in grades K-12

·         In2Books:  

e-mentoring program for students in grades 3 through 5, matches students with adult pen pals, who read the same books, and exchange teacher-monitored, online letters about questions and issues raised by the text

·         ePals Distributed Learning Platform:

offers organizations the opportunity to leverage the network of ePals' federated communities through sponsorships or platform licensing

You don’t have to take my word for it:

ePals creator, Nina Zolt, explains the importance of looking at learner-centered activity

Epals Tutorial 2 by Ellen Burns

Hill City Brings the World to Their Classroom with ePals

Hill City Elementary School in Kansas was able to use ePals global community to bring the world to their students who are from a small rural community.

Epals Commentary

Motivate students through an effective tool

            Message for epals

Once there was penpals (wiki / website) and now there is epals

A word of caution:

I too was exposed to perils of penpals in high school.  The majority of the time exposed and used was very limited and the writing was predominately in my native language.  However, I should say that not all of the writing to my penpals where limited because my wife was a my penfriend from Turkey.  

How will I use this tool in my classroom:

I would use the ‘Classroom Connect’ feature in my classroom to connect my students (in Turkey) with native speakers in other countries.  I would personally try to connect my students’ with native speakers in England and America.  I personally would use England as the dominate source for native exposure seeing there is a higher exposure to English people then there is Americans. 

In using this resource for such and activity I will allow for my students to become culturally exposed to other forms of English along with being able to practice using English in a natural setting.

With proper monitoring eventually the time the ‘Classroom Connect’ can become a classroom voice chat.  Voice chatting will give my students a great exposure to English and will give them plenty of talk time in the target language.

MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK

Worth a look at:

(Post #2) Flickr in the classroom

Flickr in classroom events:

Flickr brings the class together to allow for an interactive resource that allows students to illustrate what they cannot describe clearly.  It also becomes an interactive device for an instructor to create scaffolding devices to use.

One possible lesson: 

Students to show pictures of places they have been throughout the summer.   Then using a tool such as pimpampum students can create a story book of the events that took place over their summer.  Possible modifications for this lesson is a lesson on where students want to go or if the lesson is content based have the students create a flip book of what they have learned.

Here is an example of the outcome using a prepared slide show “Scotland by TeachingEnglish”~.  If this was a content lesson on Scotland I would go through and describe each picture to the class.

allowing for me to scaffold what is being taught.  This slide is one example of an imae I would use in my own object to allow me describe to area of Scotland.

(Post #1) - various types of creative commons licensing on Flickr

Subject:		Welcome to Flickr!
		Welcome to Flickr, willyward19!
From:	Flickr HQ

    A “non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright”~

Flickr:

 

Or according to flickr:

Attribution means:                          You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means:        You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works means:  You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike means:                    You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

Attribution-ShareAlike License:  You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit and only under a license identical to the license that governs your workAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit, but for noncommercial purposes onlyAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work - and not derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit and if for noncommercial purposes only.Attribution-NoDerivs License: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work - and not derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.Attribution License: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.