Podcast

This week we learned how to do a podcast. We made a script for a public service announcement and recorded it and learned how to upload it to our google site.

This is useful because it can be used for students to practice their speaking skills and learn how their voice can affect the mood. As a teacher you can have them do weekly announcements and rotate through the students so they each have the opportunity to learn. As a teacher it can be a fun way to give announcements to the students or parents. It can spice up the announcements instead of just having them typed up each week. This can be a very useful tool and can be used in a variety of ways. It would be fun to practice this feature more and learn more before I have a class or my own. Technology is becoming very important in the classroom. Children are getting more proficient in technology because they grow up around it.

Learning all this opens up many options and definitely adds to my schema. Being with my partner on Monday and making up our own commerical was really fun and it was easy to add to our websites. I hope to be able to incorporate this kind of technology in my classroom as a learning tool and show my students the many options available to them. It will be interesting to see what I learn about Vidcasts in class Monday. As being a useful tool between me and my colleagues it would be a useful tool if we as a group had an announcement and wanted to make it creative for the students. I am sure that as I continue to learn more about it more ideas about how to use it better and more effectively will come to me.

Google Technology

This week just seemed like a whirlwind of information and assignments. All the stuff that we explored, even if it was brief, seemed like very useful tools for the future classroom and they are things that when I have time I would like to go back and explore more in depth. This last class we went over different aspects of google docs and google sites and how to use them effectively.

By becoming familar with these assignments and using them we can keep parents updated more easily on the web where they can look up at their convenience instead of the teacher sending home a newletter and hoping that the child remembers to show it to their parents.

I can use the google calendar to keep me updated on the upcoming events and details about them more easily and accessible wherever there is internet access instead of carrying a planner around all day. Google docs is also a handy tool for sharing documents with others or creating a presentation and getting input on it with a lot less hassle. Technology is always growing and changing. There are new applications and websites being added everyday. It is a good resource for teachers to remain organized and staying in contact with parents and fellow colleagues.

With this new technology I can help guide students with links and resources to continue their learning outside of the classroom. The parents can look up and see the homework and check to see if their child has completed that. This has changed my schema by seeing how google docs, presentations, calendar and sites are people friendly and is a big help for teachers. I used to just think I could type something into the search engine and get a site, but with all these applications they have it opens lots of possibilities. Well with the older grades you could assign them a research project and have them do it on google docs or a survey created through google sites. This information can change a department because teachers can collaborate more easily and add their own opinions to the topic while being at home and not in the classroom after school gets out.