Blog Assignment #4

I really enjoyed reading the posts on the Langwitches blog, in these posts they showed the process the teachers and students went through to read and record the books. I listened to the Flat Stanley podcast and the Magic Treehouse podcast. I really loved listening to the students reading the scripts they created because you could just listen and hear the excitement the children were getting out of recording the stories. The children were able to experiment with pitch, tone and volume of their voices when reading the lines of the script.

After listening to the podcasts recorded by the 1st and 2nd graders I watched the video The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom. I did not realize there were two different types of podcasts. This video taught me that podcasts are just the audio recordings and when you add visuals to the recording the term is vodcasts. I found the idea of using podcasts or vodcasts as a way for children who are absent from school to be able to still see the lecture and not miss out on school very interesting. Giving students the chance to see the lecture even if they missed school is a great way to help students catch up if they are sick, or fall behind in class.

This video also showed the students reading along with a video recording of a book, the students reacted very well to the recording. The students seemed more interested in the story when there was tone change and noises going along with the story rather than just the students reading or the teacher reading. After reading and listening to this material I hope to be able to use podcasts in my future classroom, to help enhance my students learning.