However, the Chrome Extensions mentioned in the article can benefit all students and help support with features like text to speech, readability, reading comprehension, focus and navigation.
15 Teacher Podcasts for Your Summer Playlist
With summer just around the corner, there are probably a number of times where you will be sitting around not doing much (or, let’s face it, awake in the middle of the night with jetlag).
A great thing to fill this time is a podcast. Here is a list of 15 Teacher podcasts that have something for everyone. Everything from Vicki Davis’ 10 minute podcast to the Dr. Will Show which features a variety of leaders in education.
Book Club conversations are an important part of a UWCSEA literacy education. Thinking deeply about a shared text, sharing understandings and connections, and - crucially - listening to the perspectives of others, all contributes to our reading experiences.
As teachers, we know these conversations are valuable, but we can only be in one place at one time. Listening to one group's discussions has the opportunity cost of missing out on the other conversations.
Podcasting book club conversations has a number of benefits - not least of which being teachers have the opportunity to gain an insight into more conversations.
Knowing a conversation will be recorded adds a layer of accountability for students, meaning they tend to take it more seriously. They consider their word choice more carefully, ensure they provide evidence for their assertions and listen with greater consideration.
G5 teacher Andrea McDonald began the podcasting process for her students by listening to great examples. Book Club for Kids has a whole host of age-appropriate options. They also listened to a charming episode of the Modern Love podcast called 'What it's like to fall, quite literally, in love'.
Andrea provided an A3 planning sheet for students to write sentence starters to use as prompts for their discussion. The class wanted natural sounding conversations that were largely unscripted, to give it that sense of authenticity they love when listening to podcasts.
Here are some documents Andrea created in support of the planning and preparing, including some examples of student work.
Once planning had been completed, the groups found quiet spots to record. We decided on using iMovie for easy editing later, however, GarageBand would be another great choice.
To enhance the quality of audio, we used headphones with a microphone placed in the middle of the group. Students recorded their discussion in chunks on a shared iPad and airdropped their footage to their individual laptops afterward.
One thing we learned (the hard way!) was not to record in 1080p, but to change the settings to 720p instead. We had some difficulty getting the footage to individual computers due to the sheer size of the files. The students were very patient with this frustrating aspect of the process.
Next, it was time to edit. Adding clips to iMovie was pretty straight forward, so we just showed them how to detach the audio from the video clip, and replace the image so the emphasis could be on the conversation itself.
Making decisions to cut aspects of their conversation was really hard for many! But always good practice to learn about cutting to strengthen the overall process. Most podcasts ended up between 10 - 15 minutes in length.
Below you will find a few examples of our finished podcasts. It was our first attempt, but a great learning experience for us all.
After you take your students through the lessons you can share more images from the New York Times section, What’s Going on in this Picture?
The Adaptable Mind
What are the skills that prepare us for a world that is constantly changing?
Isn’t this the question that all teachers want to know? This excellent 10 minute video takes the viewer through the 5 skills that we need to foster in our students.
16 Educational Podcasts
Check out these great educational podcasts from teachers, professors, innovators and skeptics where they share their thoughts about the world of education.
The podcast topics include teaching strategies, the beauty and difficulty of learning, interviews and ideas that will challenge your thinking.
With the EE carousels around the corner, what can we do to help prepare students?
This week I sat down with Georgina and her IBDP Psychology students. Georgina arranged for small groups of her students to meet with me in seven minute rotations. The result of those short chats is the episode of Podcast UWCLearn featured below. Could this be used as a pre-carousel conversation starter?
If you would like to curate something similar for your subject to share as 'pre-EE bait,' let me know and we can set something up before the carousels kick off.
This past weekend, the Dover Campus hosted an annual iPad conference (see @ipadk5#ipadk5 via Twitter for more).
In the second episode of 'Podcast UWCLearn' Keri-Lee and Dave reflect on their learning experiences and offer their thoughts on where to next.
This post hosts that episode with two agendas:
1. Learn more about the iPad conference and think about ways to follow up with Keri-Lee or Dave.
2. Think about using Podcast UWCLearn as a way to follow up on your PD experiences this year. If you are interested in asking a coach to guide you through that conversation, we are happy to do so. If you have a learning experience you want 'podcastified,' please let a DLC know and we will schedule the chat. Could this be a better way to share our learning with the broader community? Featured in this episode are:
Whether you are a parent looking for something different for the kids to listen to on your morning drive, or a teacher wondering how to maximise the use of the iPads in your classroom, podcasts could well be the answer!
Jennifer Gonzalez has curated some excellent educational Podcasts for kids in her blog post. From book clubs to science, ‘why’ questions to classical music, there is something in here for everyone.
Split Screen in Mac OS - Quick & Easy!
This new MacOS feature will benefit anyone looking to do research and take notes, or just those who like to have more than one window on the go at once. This tutorial video will show you how to use Split Screen on a Mac - takes only seconds to get up and running!
