Primary Podcasts Part2

This blogging really lends itself to generating a lot of wonderful ideas. It sure beats having team meetings since I can be doing this in my pjs!

Anyway, I was thinking of the fun we had making our own podcasts. Searching for the right background noise, writing and rehearsing the script and cracking up at our mistakes made it fun rather than "work". Can you imagine the fun kindergarten students would have adding sound to their stories?

This could be another idea.... play sound clips for the students and have them generate a script to go with it. The students could select the setting of the story with the sound clips and build upon a class story. Each component could be written in writing centers and then played in segments (as a true podcast should be) or played all together. Either way it could be a lot of fun.

Primary Podcasts

After reading a few posts on podcasts I do think it could work for the primary grades. Kate suggests using a "Reader's Theater". I think it would be fun to have the students read longer stories but post podcast "segments" (similar to a chapter) daily. The audience would "stayed tuned" daily to see what happens. It also presents itself to making story predictions.

Another approach could be taking the student's writing (or a class story) and present that in the same way (read short segments daily). The students would find this to be very motivating-inspiring quality writing...do I sense an authentic problem brewing??????

Flip Cameras

I am enjoying reading all the clever ideas out there regarding the many uses of the flip camera. Next week my students are reading their first "published" books. This will be a wonderful way for me to experiment with our camera and the children will love to see and hear themselves on T.V. I hope to inspire the students to write better stories this way.

Video Versions

Thanks Kate for inspiring me to use the flip camera in the classroom! I plan to use it in a couple of different ways. First idea (which I thought of last year, but never implemented) is to tape the students during their Reader's Theater. I plan to tape them daily hoping to inspire them to practice more and speak more clearly.

Another idea which would require some editing (here's my video editing lesson plan idea). I plan to video tape the students planting their bean seeds during our upcoming plant unit. Once the seeds start to grow, the growth progress will be recorded. After enough footage, I will edit the recordings and speed it up to show seed to plant in continual growth! Could be very cool!