Following the tutorial today, and the Smartboard session that followed, I am quite convinced that of two things. Firstly, those little gold stars you can post on Smartboard are awesome. And secondly, helping students develop multiliteracies has significent rewards. Provided schools can afford the equipment, and organise ongoing PD for teachers to utilise such technology, students are exposed to new methods of learning.
In this blog I would like to discuss Podcasts.
Podcasts can be shared amongst schools, and also help students who might be away from classes due to distance, illness, holidays or suspension. However I would not want students to rely upon Podcasts if they 'zone out' in class, and then plan to listen to them later. When lecturers post their lecture's audio, I never listen to them again. Can't be bothered. Waste of time. If I didn't listen to him/her the first time, I certainly don't plan on listening to their boring, monotone voice in the comfort of my home, interrupting the Festival of Fun which is my day to day domestic life.
Likewise, when I'm really sick and skip a lecture, I always tell myself whilst driving to the beach for a surf, 'no worries, I'll listen to it on the internet later'. Never do. Never ever ever. Sometimes I might scan it, searching for the key term. But its hard to listen to a lecture when the latest Lady Ga Ga single is playing via my iTunes. When such lyrics as "I got seniority with the sorority, so that explains why I love college, getting brain in the library cause I love knowledge when you used your medulla oblongata", it's bloody hard to concerntrate on the Aboriginal Education or, um, I mean, any lecture I wasn't listening to.
Encouraging students to develop their own Podcasts would be an interesting excercise - rather than say a poster or a project.
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Maybe I'm a bit of a nerd, but when I used to miss lectures at uni in my undergraduate years, I always listened to the podcast and whilst I may have zoned out a little sometimes, it was a handy way to catch up what I'd missed. So some of us do find them extremely useful! Plus, if you went to a lecture but didn't understand something, sometimes listening to it a second time really helped. Recording lessons of importance is certainly one great way to use podcasts, but I also agree the actual creation of podcasts would be probably much more exciting and engaging :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Jenny,
ReplyDeleteIn short, you are a nerd. You need glasses, you like stationery and you listen to lectures you've missed. You're one step away from joining the chess club and playing dungeon and dragons.
But thats why we love you.
(Nerd)
If Jenny is a nerd, so to am I. I love Podcasts! I think they are the best thing about Uni. In my first year of commerce I would often skip lectures and not bother listening to the podcasts which sadly left me with a few failed units. So year 2 came around and I started to listen to the podcasts come exam time, and hey presto I graduated. I think podcasts are great tools if you are motivated to use them. They are also particularly useful in langauge classes when it is important to not only read the words but listen to pronunciations and accent.
ReplyDelete