Let's say you are a media specialist at a school and a teacher approaches you and asked that you help introduce pod casting in the classroom. Although you may know little about pod casting, there is no reason to let on to your lack of experience. If you have ever been a first year teacher you will remember the margin of knowledge from the first time you taught until years later. The more you teach; the more you learn. You have no choice. This is why education is going more toward a student-centered classroom. If you put a student on the spot and say that he/she is to present a topic, they will do all they can to keep from embarrassing themselves in front of their peers. Using this train of thought, a media specialist might then decide to take this opportunity to offer a class on pod casting to the teachers at your school and even perhaps the surrounding schools in your district ('doesn't hurt to get brownie points while you are at it!).
You will be able to find ample resources on the web and in textbooks to assist you in creating a lesson that you present to your school or district. You could also use this as an opportunity to collaborate with teachers in their content areas. This past summer I volunteered for my field experience and was invited into a classroom where a nervous student presented a PowerPoint about the origins of their families. The student stood in front of the room and talked as a PowerPoint passed by. A podcast reduces the anxiety of a presentation and allows the presenter to fine tune the contents. There are also many group projects that can be used in science classes. Students learn more because they are having fun with technology. The media specialist could then offer to post it on the school's media page for future use by the teacher to engage students to a subject area. It may also be useful for teachers to get students caught up who are absent for medical reasons, as well as, a tool to communicate to parents about the expectations of the class. More and more, parents are too busy to get to the school to meet the teacher. A podcast may give a more personal touch to the teacher-parent relationship. Just as the first pod casting was only in audio format and now has moved to much more, pod casting in our schools is sure to grow exponentially in the future. Who knows what our children will be doing as adults on the Internet?
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3 comments:
You have really fresh and new ideas on how to take this opportunity and use it for the benefit of the entire school. It is a great idea to post the student's work on the website as a future example for other students. This podcasting venture would be a great opportunity to collaborate with teachers and to do some in-services around that topic. One thing I disagree with is the lack of experience issue. I dont think that a new or experienced media specialist should be afraid or apprehensive about not being familiar with something a teacher wants to know more about. We at UWG are lucky that our program includes all these emerging technologies and not just library science topics. Our job as the information specialist of the school is to stay on top of the latest tools in educational technology. If something passes us by, we should be comfortable enough in saying that we are not as familiar with the topic but will research the topic and get the teacher all the information and tools needed to carry out their request.
I very much like the idea of offering training of the podcasting. The teachers who are interested will be there to learn something new and different. The ones who don't want to know won't come. Our county has now required all teachers to have their own website hosted on the school site. Since I am the webmaster for our school, I had the privilege of teaching ALL the teachers how to build their own website. The ones who embrace technology loved it. They were all over it. One teacher told me she was having so much fun playing with it while she gave the students a test, she was giggling out loud. I know they will love podcasting.
I also liked your idea of the parent teacher conference. Although most of what is done in an IEP meeting is confidential, we have many meetings where the parents are unable to attend. This might provide an avenue to allow them first hand knowledge rather than just reading a report. It was also be a good record of the proceedings.
It would also be good as a tool to discuss with parents examples of their students work if it was recorded this way.
As a media specialist, I know I will need to be leader in introducing new technology to teachers who are busy with instruction and paper work. However, I feel that most teachers would be very excited about podcasting and its various possibilites for classroom use. A shy student could podcast their book report instead of having to stand in front of the class. Music and pictures would enhance their presentation and help them achieve self-confidence in a work that was well-done.
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