I really enjoyed being in EDM 310 with everyone, and I hope that you all learned as much as I did. I would like to say good luck to everyone as you move on through your career, and I hope that you all are able achieve you lifelong goals and dreams. I wish everyone the best in their lives and hope to see you again in the schools someday. Have a great summer!
Thank you Ms. Averitt. You were a great teacher. I really enjoyed being in your class this semester, and I thank you for all of the things that you were able to teach us. I also would like to wish you the best of luck as you continue in furthering your education.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
What Did I Learn?
Going through EDM 310 has been a very good experience and has taught me a lot about the new technologies that I will be able to use as a future teacher. Some of the things that I learned this semester include how to create my own blog, how to write and record a podcast, and how to create an iGoogle account. All of these things were fun to do and will be very beneficial to me when I become a teacher.
Blogging is now becoming a much more popular teaching tool in schools and opens up many opportunities for students, teachers, and parents. Through this course I have learned many different uses for having a classroom blog. One thing that blogs can be used for is connecting with student and teachers in different schools. I have looked at many different teacher blogs, and I can see how these teachers are connecting with teachers in different schools, sometimes across the world, and allowing their students to work together on different assignments. Classroom blogs also allow teachers to display important information for parents and students to view from home. Some things that teachers have posted on their blogs include school notices and newsletters, school or classroom awards, class assignments, online tasks, and photo and video galleries. All of these things will be great for the classroom because they will provide students with different types of learning opportunities and allow parents to see exactly what their children are working on in the classroom.
Having an iGoogle account in my classroom is also going to be a good teaching tool that I can use to help the students and parents in my classroom. IGoogle accounts allow teachers to post resources that they want parents and students to view and use at home. Some of the things that I have currently on my own iGoogle homepage include educational games, Math exercises and games, links to help student with reading, weather information, a class email account, to-do lists, and birthday reminders. All of these gadgets on my iGoogle homepage can be used to help or entertain students while away from the classroom. IGoogle accounts are easy to create and can be accessed from any location. The only thing that parents and students need to have to access these sites are an email address and a password, which I will provide to the students and parents in my classroom in the class syllabus. I have really enjoyed creating my iGoogle homepage, and I cannot wait to see how well it works as a resource for the students and parents in my classroom.
Podcasting was also a great experience that we were able to have this semester. Before I entered this class I had never heard of a podcast. Being able to write and record our own podcasts was really interesting and helped me really to think of ways that I could use this type of technology in my classroom. I believe that podcasts will be very useful in the classroom, and I plan to use them as an aid for teaching instruction. There are many podcasts available on the Internet that cover different subjects and material, so as a teacher I will be able to view different podcasts and use the podcasts as an aid when teaching a lesson. I believe that this will be a good way to gain students attention, and for me it will help to incorporate the different learning styles of all of the students in my classroom.
Overall, I think that this class was a fantastic learning experience. I learned a lot of new information that I was unfamiliar with before entering the class, and I am going to be able to take all of this information and apply it in my classroom when I become a teacher. Ms. Averitt was an excellent teacher and did a great job in covering all of the material that we are going to need to know when we become teachers ourselves. Thank you Ms. Averitt.
Blogging is now becoming a much more popular teaching tool in schools and opens up many opportunities for students, teachers, and parents. Through this course I have learned many different uses for having a classroom blog. One thing that blogs can be used for is connecting with student and teachers in different schools. I have looked at many different teacher blogs, and I can see how these teachers are connecting with teachers in different schools, sometimes across the world, and allowing their students to work together on different assignments. Classroom blogs also allow teachers to display important information for parents and students to view from home. Some things that teachers have posted on their blogs include school notices and newsletters, school or classroom awards, class assignments, online tasks, and photo and video galleries. All of these things will be great for the classroom because they will provide students with different types of learning opportunities and allow parents to see exactly what their children are working on in the classroom.
Having an iGoogle account in my classroom is also going to be a good teaching tool that I can use to help the students and parents in my classroom. IGoogle accounts allow teachers to post resources that they want parents and students to view and use at home. Some of the things that I have currently on my own iGoogle homepage include educational games, Math exercises and games, links to help student with reading, weather information, a class email account, to-do lists, and birthday reminders. All of these gadgets on my iGoogle homepage can be used to help or entertain students while away from the classroom. IGoogle accounts are easy to create and can be accessed from any location. The only thing that parents and students need to have to access these sites are an email address and a password, which I will provide to the students and parents in my classroom in the class syllabus. I have really enjoyed creating my iGoogle homepage, and I cannot wait to see how well it works as a resource for the students and parents in my classroom.
Podcasting was also a great experience that we were able to have this semester. Before I entered this class I had never heard of a podcast. Being able to write and record our own podcasts was really interesting and helped me really to think of ways that I could use this type of technology in my classroom. I believe that podcasts will be very useful in the classroom, and I plan to use them as an aid for teaching instruction. There are many podcasts available on the Internet that cover different subjects and material, so as a teacher I will be able to view different podcasts and use the podcasts as an aid when teaching a lesson. I believe that this will be a good way to gain students attention, and for me it will help to incorporate the different learning styles of all of the students in my classroom.
Overall, I think that this class was a fantastic learning experience. I learned a lot of new information that I was unfamiliar with before entering the class, and I am going to be able to take all of this information and apply it in my classroom when I become a teacher. Ms. Averitt was an excellent teacher and did a great job in covering all of the material that we are going to need to know when we become teachers ourselves. Thank you Ms. Averitt.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Access Lab Visit
The ACCESS lab that I chose to visit was the Robertsdale High School ACCESS lab. Mr. Mitchell, an Assistant Principle and head of the ACCESS lab at RHS, allowed Kristen and I to tour the ACCESS lab on Friday, March 27, 2009. Because of the earlier blog I completed on ACCESS, I knew a little about what ACCESS was, but being able to tour the lab allowed me to really understand all of the components of the ACCESS program.
The first thing that Mr. Mitchell showed us on our tour of the ACCESS lab was the computer system. He said that the system that RHS had was a Tanberg system, which costs about $85,000. Some of the things that this system includes are an instructor cam, a student cam, twenty-five laptops, a projection system, and a document cam (ELMO). All of these things make it possible for instructors to teach their classes in schools in two different areas. According to Mr. Mitchell setting all of this equipment up was not an easy task. There were many people involved in the setup of the ACCESS lab, and there were many decisions and changes that had to be made in order to make the ACCESS lab work. Everything from wall color to desk type had to be taken into consideration in order to create the optimum ACCESS lab. And of course with all of the different technical equipment, they were encountered with many technical difficulties. Mr. Mitchell said that it took almost the whole summer to get the ACCESS lab up and running properly.
Having the ACCESS labs in the schools opens up many doors for both students and teachers. With this type of technology, there are many things that the ACCESS lab can be used for. The ultimate goal for the future of the ACCESS lab is to be able to provide all students with an equal opportunity to take all courses. There are many schools in Alabama that do not provide College Preparatory or Advanced Placement classes to their students due to a lack of money for teachers, so the ACCESS program has been established to allow these students to enroll in these classes at other high schools. The problem schools are running into now with offering these courses to their students is that the schools cannot afford to purchase the equipment needed to set up the ACCESS labs. According to Governor Riley, the ACCESS budget is not going to be cut for the 2009-2010 school year, so hopefully over the next year more schools will open up these ACCESS labs allowing the ACCESS lab to move forward towards reaching its goal for students.According to Mr. Mitchell, some of the other things that they have used their ACCESS lab for have been virtual field trips and teacher in-services. One virtual field trip that RHS students were able to take was a trip to the Museum of Natural Science. Students were able to take a tour of the facility and learn all of the facts of the museum just like if they had visited the museum in person.
In my opinion, this system is a great new addition to the Alabama high schools. I hope that the State of Alabama meets its goal of providing equal opportunity to all students, and hopefully many more uses come from having this system available to students.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Edutopia Podcasts
The first podcast that I listened to was titled "The Edible Schoolyard." This podcast was recorded at the Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, California. It was a video podcast of many middle school students who were using hands-on activities to learn many different important things. In this school, teachers used an "edible schoolyard" (garden) as the center of learning to help teach many subjects including social studies, math, science, and life skills. Everyday the students would start their school day working in their "edible schoolyard" harvesting their foods, and then they would move into the inside learning lab to cook their foods and learn the many different processes taking place in the garden. Having the garden allowed these students to learn life skills such as cooking and gardening while also learning the core subject material such as photosynthesis and how the water cycle works.
The second podcast that I listened to was titled "A Night in the Global Village." This video podcast was recorded at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. In this podcast students and teachers from Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning are trading their privileged status as Americans for a night to live the life of the less fortunate of the world. This program which is called the Global Gateway Program allows the students and teachers to really feel what other families who are in poverty are faced with everyday. On the Heifer Ranch, living arrangements and conditions closely resemble those of daily living in Guatemala, Thailand, Zambia, Appalachia, and refugee camps. During this program, the students and teachers have to stay the night at one of the different sites on the ranch. During the first part of the day, the students and teachers walk around the ranch and visit these sites, and at each of the sites they talk about poverty, famine, and sanitory problems in many different parts of the world. After visiting each of the different sites, the students and teachers are assigned a location that they have to stay, and they are given minimal resources. The students and teachers go through the night having to learn how to trade their resources for resources that other families may have and learning to make due with the supplies that they are provided with. After going through the night, the students were given a time for reflection to state their feelings of being in these unfortunate situations.
Watching and listening to these podcasts was absolutely amazing. Both podcasts were extremely interesting and really showed how effective the hands-on approach to learning can be. I think that it is great that these students were given the opportunity to experience the activities recorded in these podcasts. Through having these real-life experiences, these students learned important things that impacted their lives greatly. As a future teacher, I believe using the hands-on experiences like these displayed in these video podcasts will be very beneficial for the students in my classroom because it will help provide variety in the teaching methods to help meet the needs of all of the students in my classroom.
As for the video podcasts, I really believe they are also going to be one great teaching tool to incorporate into the classroom. Video podcasts are now being used for many things including teaching lessons and collaborating with schools across the world. In my classroom, I hope to use video podcasts to do both of these things and hopefully many more things. I believe that using these video podcasts will not only provide differentiation in teaching instruction, but it will also provide opportunities for the students to become more familiar with this type of technology theirselves. As time goes on, technology is becoming more and more advanced, so I believe that it will be very beneficial for all students to learn the many different types of technology that they are probably going to have to use on a daily basis when they begin their own careers.
The second podcast that I listened to was titled "A Night in the Global Village." This video podcast was recorded at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. In this podcast students and teachers from Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning are trading their privileged status as Americans for a night to live the life of the less fortunate of the world. This program which is called the Global Gateway Program allows the students and teachers to really feel what other families who are in poverty are faced with everyday. On the Heifer Ranch, living arrangements and conditions closely resemble those of daily living in Guatemala, Thailand, Zambia, Appalachia, and refugee camps. During this program, the students and teachers have to stay the night at one of the different sites on the ranch. During the first part of the day, the students and teachers walk around the ranch and visit these sites, and at each of the sites they talk about poverty, famine, and sanitory problems in many different parts of the world. After visiting each of the different sites, the students and teachers are assigned a location that they have to stay, and they are given minimal resources. The students and teachers go through the night having to learn how to trade their resources for resources that other families may have and learning to make due with the supplies that they are provided with. After going through the night, the students were given a time for reflection to state their feelings of being in these unfortunate situations.
Watching and listening to these podcasts was absolutely amazing. Both podcasts were extremely interesting and really showed how effective the hands-on approach to learning can be. I think that it is great that these students were given the opportunity to experience the activities recorded in these podcasts. Through having these real-life experiences, these students learned important things that impacted their lives greatly. As a future teacher, I believe using the hands-on experiences like these displayed in these video podcasts will be very beneficial for the students in my classroom because it will help provide variety in the teaching methods to help meet the needs of all of the students in my classroom.
As for the video podcasts, I really believe they are also going to be one great teaching tool to incorporate into the classroom. Video podcasts are now being used for many things including teaching lessons and collaborating with schools across the world. In my classroom, I hope to use video podcasts to do both of these things and hopefully many more things. I believe that using these video podcasts will not only provide differentiation in teaching instruction, but it will also provide opportunities for the students to become more familiar with this type of technology theirselves. As time goes on, technology is becoming more and more advanced, so I believe that it will be very beneficial for all students to learn the many different types of technology that they are probably going to have to use on a daily basis when they begin their own careers.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Electronic Contact
My electronic contact for this assignment was Mr. Jarrod Lamshed from Hackham East School in Adelaide, Australia. Mr. Lamshed is the teacher of an all-boy’s class of fifth and sixth grade students. Earlier in the semester we had to find an international blog of a teacher in a K-12 classroom and write a summary about how teachers are using blogs in their classroom. While searching the internet, I found Mr. Lamshed's class blog. I really thought that Mr. Lamshed's had a great class blog with a lot of great information for the parents and students. Some of the things Mr. Lamshed included on his blog were videos, photos, learning links, notices and newsletters, and online tasks. When looking at Mr. Lamshed's blog, I was really amazed at all of the work he had put into his blog. Mr. Lamshed wrote at least once a week about what the children in his class were working on. He included everything from assignments for the students in his class to work on to video recordings showing what the students were working on.
Because I thought that Mr. Lamshed did such a great job with blogging, I decided to contact him and ask him what other types of technology he used in his classroom. When I emailed Mr. Lamshed to ask if he would be willing to participate in this class assignment, he said that he would be more than happy to help me out. Mr. Lamshed was very helpful, and he said that the students in his classroom were really excited to know that someone from another part of the world is visiting their class blog.
My question for Mr. Lamshed was "What types of technology do you have available to use in your classroom?" Mr. Lamshed emailed me a great deal of information back. I was really shocked to see how much technology teachers are now using in the classroom. Some of the things that Mr. Lamshed talked about using in his classroom included a class website (which is a combination of three blogs, a photo page, and other general information for parents to view), podcasts, TWITTER, digital still cameras, and digital video cameras.
According to my conversation with Mr. Lamshed this is the first year that he has used a class blog. He said that he was really excited with the results of creating the class blog, and he would now make sure that he creates a class blog every year. Mr. Lamshed said that having the class blog provided a lot of useful information for parents and students in the classroom, and it also opened up many opportunities for him and his students. One great opportunity that the class blog provided was the ability to collaborate with classes overseas. He said that being able to communicate with other students and teachers across the world was really interesting and exciting for both him and his students. Mr. Lamshed also mentioned that using TWITTER in his classroom was also helpful in creating these connections with teachers in different countries and time zones.
The digital cameras are another big part of the technology in Mr. Lamshed’s classroom. Mr. Lamshed uses these things to record many of the daily activities and assignments of the students in order to post these videos to the class blog. I think that this is absolutely amazing because this gives parents the opportunity to see exactly what their children are working on in the classroom. Mr. Lamshed also said that he is beginning to try to “test the waters” with using mobile phone technology for recording purposes in the classroom. He says that mobile phones are banned at Hackham East, but he is trying to have these boundaries pushed a little because he wants to make use of the cameras and video capture capabilities that most students now carry around in their pockets.
In my opinion, having all of this technology available in the classroom is absolutely fantastic. Not only does it aid in the learning process, but it also provides the students with experience operating different types of equipment. I am really excited to see that technology has made its way this far into the school system, and I hope that it continues to do so.
Because I thought that Mr. Lamshed did such a great job with blogging, I decided to contact him and ask him what other types of technology he used in his classroom. When I emailed Mr. Lamshed to ask if he would be willing to participate in this class assignment, he said that he would be more than happy to help me out. Mr. Lamshed was very helpful, and he said that the students in his classroom were really excited to know that someone from another part of the world is visiting their class blog.
My question for Mr. Lamshed was "What types of technology do you have available to use in your classroom?" Mr. Lamshed emailed me a great deal of information back. I was really shocked to see how much technology teachers are now using in the classroom. Some of the things that Mr. Lamshed talked about using in his classroom included a class website (which is a combination of three blogs, a photo page, and other general information for parents to view), podcasts, TWITTER, digital still cameras, and digital video cameras.
According to my conversation with Mr. Lamshed this is the first year that he has used a class blog. He said that he was really excited with the results of creating the class blog, and he would now make sure that he creates a class blog every year. Mr. Lamshed said that having the class blog provided a lot of useful information for parents and students in the classroom, and it also opened up many opportunities for him and his students. One great opportunity that the class blog provided was the ability to collaborate with classes overseas. He said that being able to communicate with other students and teachers across the world was really interesting and exciting for both him and his students. Mr. Lamshed also mentioned that using TWITTER in his classroom was also helpful in creating these connections with teachers in different countries and time zones.
The digital cameras are another big part of the technology in Mr. Lamshed’s classroom. Mr. Lamshed uses these things to record many of the daily activities and assignments of the students in order to post these videos to the class blog. I think that this is absolutely amazing because this gives parents the opportunity to see exactly what their children are working on in the classroom. Mr. Lamshed also said that he is beginning to try to “test the waters” with using mobile phone technology for recording purposes in the classroom. He says that mobile phones are banned at Hackham East, but he is trying to have these boundaries pushed a little because he wants to make use of the cameras and video capture capabilities that most students now carry around in their pockets.
In my opinion, having all of this technology available in the classroom is absolutely fantastic. Not only does it aid in the learning process, but it also provides the students with experience operating different types of equipment. I am really excited to see that technology has made its way this far into the school system, and I hope that it continues to do so.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Pros and Cons of Blogging
For this assignment, I decided to read all of Kristen Younce's blog posts. Everyone in the class had the same blog assignments, so it was really interesting to see the opinions of other students in the class. Kristen and I expressed many of the same ideas in most of the blog posts that we wrote this semester. We both agree that technology has come a long way over the past few years, and we are looking forward to using this technology in the classroom when we become teachers. There are many different forms of technology now available in most classrooms (i.e. class blogs, class websites, podcasts, videoconferencing, etc.). I think that it will be absolutely wonderful to see how all of these new forms of technology help teachers suit the many different learning styles of the students in their classroom.
After reading through all of my blog posts again and reading through Kristen's, I really noticed many pros associated with using class blogs as a future teacher. A major pro of classroom blogs is the ability to communicate with parents and/or guardians and students outside of the classroom. One of our blog assignments this semester was to view two United States teacher blogs and two international blogs. Through looking at these teachers blogs, I saw many posts that incorporated important information that students and parents could view from home. Some information that teachers included in their blogs were class and homework assignments, pictures and videos of activities taking place in the classroom, information about honor roll students and students who had received special awards, etc. All of these things are great things for parents and students to be able to view from home. Classroom blogs give parents the opportunity to comment and give feed back on blog posts which allows teachers and parents to have constant communication with each other about all of the different activities taking place in the classroom.
Another one of the major pros of having a class blog is having the ability to contact other schools in the United States or internationally. One blog that I looked at in the United States (Mr. C's class blog from Noel, Missouri) connected with a class blog in Canada (Mr. Lamshed's class). Both Mr. C and Mr. Lamshed's classes were reading the book Holes. Mr. Lamshed had posted three reflection questions on chapters one through seven, so Mr. C made it an assignment for the children in his classroom to access Mr. Lamshed's blog and post a comment relating to one of the three reflection questions. In my opinion this is a great plus of using blogs because it helped these students connect across the world. The last major pro of blogging that I really see would just be its use of technology in the classroom. Through having a class blog, teachers are able to allow their students to experiment with one of the major new technologies being used all across the world. Because technology is becoming a much bigger part of the world everyday, it is very important for students to learn how to use and be familiar with the many different forms of technology that they are probably going to be able to use for the rest of their lives.
Through reading all of my blog posts, I also recognized some of the cons associated with using blogs in the classroom. One of my major concerns as a future teacher is that some students and parents will not have access to the blog at home. If blogs are used for completing homework assignments, some students will not be able to complete the assignments due to not having an Internet connection available at home. Also, parents will not have the same opportunity as other parents to view pictures of the class activities and projects or information about student achievement awards. As a teacher, I guess the solution to this problem would be making some form of alternate arrangements for these students and parents who do not have the available connection to the Internet.
Overall if I had to weigh the pros and the cons, I would definitely say that blogs would be very useful in all classrooms. They provide great information and are a great form of communication with many different people outside of the classroom.
After reading through all of my blog posts again and reading through Kristen's, I really noticed many pros associated with using class blogs as a future teacher. A major pro of classroom blogs is the ability to communicate with parents and/or guardians and students outside of the classroom. One of our blog assignments this semester was to view two United States teacher blogs and two international blogs. Through looking at these teachers blogs, I saw many posts that incorporated important information that students and parents could view from home. Some information that teachers included in their blogs were class and homework assignments, pictures and videos of activities taking place in the classroom, information about honor roll students and students who had received special awards, etc. All of these things are great things for parents and students to be able to view from home. Classroom blogs give parents the opportunity to comment and give feed back on blog posts which allows teachers and parents to have constant communication with each other about all of the different activities taking place in the classroom.
Another one of the major pros of having a class blog is having the ability to contact other schools in the United States or internationally. One blog that I looked at in the United States (Mr. C's class blog from Noel, Missouri) connected with a class blog in Canada (Mr. Lamshed's class). Both Mr. C and Mr. Lamshed's classes were reading the book Holes. Mr. Lamshed had posted three reflection questions on chapters one through seven, so Mr. C made it an assignment for the children in his classroom to access Mr. Lamshed's blog and post a comment relating to one of the three reflection questions. In my opinion this is a great plus of using blogs because it helped these students connect across the world. The last major pro of blogging that I really see would just be its use of technology in the classroom. Through having a class blog, teachers are able to allow their students to experiment with one of the major new technologies being used all across the world. Because technology is becoming a much bigger part of the world everyday, it is very important for students to learn how to use and be familiar with the many different forms of technology that they are probably going to be able to use for the rest of their lives.
Through reading all of my blog posts, I also recognized some of the cons associated with using blogs in the classroom. One of my major concerns as a future teacher is that some students and parents will not have access to the blog at home. If blogs are used for completing homework assignments, some students will not be able to complete the assignments due to not having an Internet connection available at home. Also, parents will not have the same opportunity as other parents to view pictures of the class activities and projects or information about student achievement awards. As a teacher, I guess the solution to this problem would be making some form of alternate arrangements for these students and parents who do not have the available connection to the Internet.
Overall if I had to weigh the pros and the cons, I would definitely say that blogs would be very useful in all classrooms. They provide great information and are a great form of communication with many different people outside of the classroom.
Friday, April 10, 2009
EDM 310 Podcasts
The first podcast that I listened to was a podcast called "Technology Used in the Classroom" by Nicholas Martin, Gretta Dailey, and Sarah Dockery. Overall I thought that this group did a wonderful job on their podcast. They had great information about all different types of technology, and they did a great job making their podcast sound like a conversation. Each group member seemed to have a sufficient knowledge of the subject matter that they were discussing, and they held a question-answer session to hopefully answer questions listeners had about certain technology products.
Second, I listened to a podcast titled "Source Materials for High School Teachers on the World Wide Web" by Anne Gardner and Kimberly Hinojosa. Again, I thought that Anne and Kim did a great job in gathering information for their podcast. They collected great information, and I am sure this information will be very useful to high school teachers who listen to this podcast. They covered several different websites in their podcast that all had various tools for teachers and students to use.
Third I listened to a podcast titled "What I Learned from 'Randy Pausch's Last Lecture'" by Lynda Rigsby and Jennifer Lennox. I really enjoyed listening to Lynda and Jennifer's podcast. They had a great topic, and they really did a great job covering the information in "Randy Pausch's Last Lecture." Randy Pausch really is a great role model for both teachers and students because he really shows people why they should reach out to achieve their dreams. Last, I listened to a podcast called "ACCESS Distance Learning: A Work in Progress" by Henryetta Alexander, April Jones, and Ashley Reed. These ladies did a great job explaining all of the uses of the ACCESS program. They covered the many different aspects of the program including the many different components of the ACCESS program and information about dates when the ACCESS labs would be available in different schools.
Although I thought that everyone did a great job with covering information in their podcasts, there were some things that I noticed that could have been improved. A major thing that I really noticed in almost everyone's podcast was using "um." It did not sound like the people were saying "um" because they were not familiar with the information that they were talking about. I think that the "um's" in the podcasts would have really been reduced if the students would have had more practice with recording podcasts. Recording podcasts for the first time is kind of "nerve-racking." Another thing that I noticed in most of the podcasts was that it sounded more like the students were reading rather than holding a conversation. A way to improve this is through a lot of practice, and also having a question-answer session rather than just alternating topics between group members. The last thing that I noticed was short pauses during the podcasts. Most of the groups really sounded like they were very knowledgeable about their topic, so I think that this the pauses were probably due to getting off track in the script.
Second, I listened to a podcast titled "Source Materials for High School Teachers on the World Wide Web" by Anne Gardner and Kimberly Hinojosa. Again, I thought that Anne and Kim did a great job in gathering information for their podcast. They collected great information, and I am sure this information will be very useful to high school teachers who listen to this podcast. They covered several different websites in their podcast that all had various tools for teachers and students to use.
Third I listened to a podcast titled "What I Learned from 'Randy Pausch's Last Lecture'" by Lynda Rigsby and Jennifer Lennox. I really enjoyed listening to Lynda and Jennifer's podcast. They had a great topic, and they really did a great job covering the information in "Randy Pausch's Last Lecture." Randy Pausch really is a great role model for both teachers and students because he really shows people why they should reach out to achieve their dreams. Last, I listened to a podcast called "ACCESS Distance Learning: A Work in Progress" by Henryetta Alexander, April Jones, and Ashley Reed. These ladies did a great job explaining all of the uses of the ACCESS program. They covered the many different aspects of the program including the many different components of the ACCESS program and information about dates when the ACCESS labs would be available in different schools.
Although I thought that everyone did a great job with covering information in their podcasts, there were some things that I noticed that could have been improved. A major thing that I really noticed in almost everyone's podcast was using "um." It did not sound like the people were saying "um" because they were not familiar with the information that they were talking about. I think that the "um's" in the podcasts would have really been reduced if the students would have had more practice with recording podcasts. Recording podcasts for the first time is kind of "nerve-racking." Another thing that I noticed in most of the podcasts was that it sounded more like the students were reading rather than holding a conversation. A way to improve this is through a lot of practice, and also having a question-answer session rather than just alternating topics between group members. The last thing that I noticed was short pauses during the podcasts. Most of the groups really sounded like they were very knowledgeable about their topic, so I think that this the pauses were probably due to getting off track in the script.
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