Blog B

This series of podcasts is called Driving Questions in Education by Kevin Honeycutt.

The podcast that I chose was Why Should We Use New Tools? In these series of podcasts Kevin Honeycutt drives around talking with educators and finds out the questions that they currently have. In this podcast he interviews Cindi Danner-Kuhn who, at the time of his visit, was doing podcasts with her class. When she was first introduced to podcasts, she was not really interested in them, but now they have grown on her. She can always find ways to use them in her class. She points out that not all of her students have a decent computer, which is why she can not use podcasts more. Overall, like most of us, she finds it very important to integrate new tools into her classroom; she says that it will at least get students hooked.

I think that using podcasts in the classroom is an amazing idea. As time goes on, and students grow, technology advances. As a teacher, it is very important to teach students the new kind of technology that is transforming every day. Plus, teachers are always looking for new activities to do in the classroom. I know that I will be using podcasts or a technology similar to podcasts when I teach. Technology is so versatile, and so as a teacher, it is really important to embrace that. I feel that by embracing technology, you are embracing the learning capacity of your students. You are finding yet another way to keep them on task and engaged with what you are teaching. You are letting the students connect with each other as you have them listen to what the class has recorded, and you are enhancing their communication with the rest of the world.

One of the main ways that podcasts will enhance literary instruction is being able to download books. A lot of students are auditory learners, so it is much easier for them to hear a lesson or a book being read then to only read it. Obviously, as a teacher, one would not want to discourage reading, but podcasts can always be a reading aid. As I have listed below, podcasts can be used to receive and give book reviews and book reports. The possibilities are endless with this form of technology, which is one of the best things about it!


Ways to Use Podcasts In A 4th Grade Classroom:
1) After researching about the human body, each student is assigned a body part. They post a podcast on what their body part does.
2) Podcasts can be used by the classroom as a whole to post what recent activities they are doing.
3) A podcast can be used to do book reviews after the students have completed a novel or short story.
4) Podcasts can be used to teach a foreign language (good for pronunciation practice).
5) Podcasts can be used to explore and share the findings of a science project.