March 2008 — News
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Podcasting Basics: Simple Steps for Introducing Podcasting into Your K-8 Class, Part 2
The important thing to remember, said Pearl, is that the process doesn't require great technical prowess. The teacher doesn't need to know any RSS coding, nor HTML. Tools such as iWeb and Podbean include tutorials that walk the new user through that first experience of publishing a podcast.
Publicize the Podcast
Getting attention for the podcast, said Pearl, is something the students do quite well themselves. Once that first show is put up, the kids go home and tell their parents and friends.
Then they start thinking about their next show. Once the students in Pearl's labs had been introduced to the basics of podcasting, they went on to create a dance review, a weather report and a book reading.
Podcasting, concluded Pearl, is "absolutely powerful. It's incredible. Kids are going to love it because now we can reach the world."
Extra Credit One of the major obstacles that Pearl sees in introducing podcasting into the classroom is that it requires a different level of classroom management. "It's not the fact that we don't have the technology--because many schools have the Internet and they have computers," said Pearl. "But often, you'll go in and see rows of computers not being used because people get scared that the kids will just go crazy if we assign a project in class--that they're not going to work, that they'll just be going to other Web sites." Yet in a podcasting project, it's natural that the class will be broken up into teams. Some students might be recording scripts, while others are doing field recording, editing segments or writing text and drawing graphics for posting with the podcast. In other words, said Pearl, teachers have to learn how to manage "all these different hotspots in the class at once." His solution--not easy by any means: "You have to go very slowly and build that capacity within kids. That takes time and expertise." He suggests training a couple of students at a time on each aspect of the podcast work, then buddy them up with other students whom they'll train. "After a while you'll build the capacity within kids and pretty soon everyone will be able to everything. But it's going to take a few months." Pearl recommends Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 by Rafe Esquith. As he describes it, "It's a great book about a guy who struggled for many years trying to come up with a system where the kids would really manage the class that wouldn't be based on fear but based on trust." That level of trust, he said, is hard for people to do--"especially in inner-city schools." --D. Schaffhauser |
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About the author: Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business for a number of publications. Contact her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
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