QUESTION: Podcasts and Blogs

[Thomas Roddy, Jr.]

Dear Colleauges,

 

As part of a concluding assignment to reading circles I wanted my students to create blogs and podcasts.  Has anyone done this?  Can you give me some advice?

 

Thank you

 

Thomas Roddy

Los Angeles CA

[Lisa Fink]

Here are some resources from ReadWriteThink.org that may be of help:

Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/week...

Creating Character Blogs
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/crea...

Creating a Persuasive Podcast
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/crea...

Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/givi...

Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck!

[Connie Lindsey]

Thomas,
I had my sophomore ELA students make podcasts several years ago as a classroom teacher, and since then I have worked with several middle school teachers as they had their kids make podcasts of their book reviews. We used one class blog and posted all the episodes onto the one blog rather than trying to have each student create a blog. On that same blog, you could have book titles as categories and have students discuss topics related to their books. We use Edublogs with teachers in our workshops, and their site has tutorials and ideas for using blogs in the classroom.
Have you ever blogged or created a podcast yourself? I highly recommend making a podcast yourself before attempting it with the students! Are you using PCs or Macs? The Apple website has some great tutorials for Mac. We use Audacity in our PC podcasting workshops; it is an open source audio editing program.

[Thomas Roddy, Jr.]

Thank you. My chief concern is the use of microphones. At my school, as I understand it, we only have external ones, which could lead to the class being derailed. Thank you, though for your thoughts.

[Thomas Roddy, Jr.]

Thank you so much. These are excellent materials. My only concern is the mics for the podcasts. I need to be sure they work, else the lesson will die.

[Kelly Farrow]

Are you Mac or PC? If you're Mac and have the Intel iBooks, they rock out b/c they have their own internal mics that are very good. My kids use GarageBand to do their podcasting, and it's pretty darn easy! Love it.