Blog Post #5

I watched the Eagle Nest Radio and Class Blog in absolute amazement. This is a class of third graders that post podcast of themselves informing us of what they have learned in school. They take the information that the teacher has taught them and they act it out in their video. I couldn’t believe how well the students retained the information and how good they were in front of the camera. The students in this class have been given a wonderful opportunity to use technology in the classroom to its fullest advantage. I not only learned what to do in a podcast, but I also learned how to have fun doing it.

“The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom” by Joe Dale was very informative and helpful information on podcasting. It gives the benefits to using it in the classroom do that teachers can be more aware of it. The key points that Joe pointed out in his presentation is that podcasting is an effective way of interacting with students outside of the classroom, it is a form of learning that students today are familiar with so it makes it relevant to them, it allows for differentiation and project based learning, students can access the higher order thinking skills in Bloom's taxonomy, it promotes creativity and innovation, it can offer distance learning opportunities for absent students, it makes the process of creating and uploading audio files easy, and parents can see and hear what their children are doing at school. It makes education more available to the students and it helps everyone communicate no matter where there location may be.

“The Pratical Principles”: Scott Elias and Melinda Miller have been recording the Practical Principals podcast since the Fall of 2007. I really enjoyed their take on technology and education. They talk about technology in a user friendly way so that the average teacher can learn to use it without fearing it. The practical principle 25 is their newest addition to their podcast. The podcast cover things like the iPhone and iPad and how they can be used to do many great things. I liked their podcast because they made the material they were talking about interesting and it gave me ideas to use the technology more than I do now.