Thing 20

I love the idea of using podcasts in class. I think it will connect with the kids because for many of them, information from a podcast is "different" from a boring old lecture. I'll be the cool kid on the block just for using them occasionally.

I went to EPN and searched for Language Arts podcasts. I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to find a podcast about writing. I didn't find one, but I did find one prefect vocabulary in my AP Literature class.

Then I visited Podcast Alley only to learn that the site was doing some maintenance work and thus could not open any podcasts. Sigh.

Okay, on to iTunes. Good news - Just Vocabulary is available through iTunes, so it is my first subscription. Then I checked out Grammar Girl. I was immediately disappointed that there was an ad in the very beginning. Once I got over that, the content was really quite informative. So I subscribed to this one, too.

I found one writing podcast and it was really addressing some advanced issues. I might check out more of its shows, but right now, it's a pass.

I didn't really prefer one search venue over the other. I have to go back and try Podcast Alley. All I know is that I'm looking forward to trying some of these in my classroom.

Thing 19

Last year, I asked our district tech department about podcasts. I had listened to a couple and thought that it would be cool and relevant if my students could create their own podcasts. I am sorry to say that I received several blank stares. I quietly excused myself, backed out of the room, and returned to my room - where I laid my head on my desk and silently wept for not having thrown caution to the wind and become a rock n'roll photographer, salary and sleep deprivation be damned.

For some reason, I was unable to watch either of the RESA podcasts on my laptop (told myself to watch them at the ex's later in the week), so I went directly to the third link.

The first podcast I watched was the Sesame Street on about language acquisition. I suppose because as the mom on a mildly autistic mom, repetitive language is a daily struggle. He has grown up with two teachers, so his receptive language is pretty impressive, but he struggles with his expressive language, though he has come a long way in the past year.

Additionally, a large number of my students were not born in this country and thus come from an English as Second Language background. Many of them do not speak English at home and, thanks to satellite television, only hear it at school. I've struggled for a few years with an effective way to handle vocabulary. I guess I just have to surround my high school students with vocabulary in the same manner I did my adopted-from-China-didn't-know-he-was autistic son. Don't talk down to them, be diligent about my word wall, and keep reading the research.

The second one I watched was for pure pleasure because I needed a Glenn Tilbrook fix. I can't really talk about it publicly, but I have secret plans to make him mine ;)

The final one I found was a series of four about the History of Photography. This is the great passion of my life and I'm always looking to know more about it. Of course, I was drawn in to it due to the iconic Dorothea Lange "Migrant Mother" photograph.

I still want my students to make a podcast and it would be great to find some podcasts about the craft of writing and maybe I can share those with my students. I'll save that search for thing 20.