podcasting in school

The idea of the podcasts being sort of a series of events that are related instead of one single posting is an intriguing idea in school.

As I mentioned before, I am doing a digital notebook with my classes this semester. The podcasts can be used in several different ways. Having talked to an ITRT from Spotsy, I was given the idea of having students narrate their examples in their notebooks so that people can follow along with their train of thought. They would have the option of doing a video or podcast. Another idea I thought of was having them do a brief summary of each chapter and then how it ties in with the things we have already discussed.

My issue is how to do the recordings in class. I can't send groups off all over the school to find a quiet place to record. I guess I could take them to the library and just spread them out over the place and hope the background noise is minimal. For those of you that have done recording in class, how have you handle the noise issue?

blogging update

I posted another topic for them to blog about and reminded them to give more than a few word answer. I am still getting short answers or kids typ1n l1k3 this in their posts. We used to do a weekly journal and I have started to use the blog as the replacement for that. How do you handle students that won't write more?

video

As if wikis and blogs werent' enough to deal with, now comes video and digital editing. I guess if I was really smart about it (no comments from the peanut gallery), I would wait until I mastered the first 2 before tackling the next item. A part of me also thinks, just do it all at once and see what works and what didn't.

Friday, my classes were working on their "digital notebooks". I added in the idea of a hypermedia presentation and showed them how to hyperlink in their powerpoints. I mentioned the idea of incorporating video into their work and showed them an example or 2 of videos on the topic that we are currently on. I told them if we can manage it, we would probably attempt to make our own videos as well.

One suggestion given to me was have the students do a problem and film it after each step. They could then narrate how the problem was done. Another idea that was talked about in our grad class, was to give them a bunch of scenes and they would have to figure out what order (or edit them to go together smoothly) and then add audio to go along with the video. Any other suggestions?

This is a project that will go on all semester. My plan is to work on it in class at least once every 2 weeks. Ideally we work on it once a week, even if only for 30 minutes. That way they won't get so far behind. I've mentioned that they can be looking for stuff to link on their own time, but I don't expect many to do that.

wiki vs blog

At first look, wikis and blogs seem to be very similar, however how I plan to use them are different. I have full control over the blogs I set up in school. I can read posts and delete any that I feel are not on topic. I can control where the conversation is going by setting up questions for the students to answer. Wikis, on the other hand, are an ever changing item. I can start the topic but with every student being able to post and edit, it could end up going in lots of directions.

I plan on using blogs to get feedback and explainations on how things work. THe wiki I see more use for discussing homework problems or creating an online notebook so that students can post what they feel is the important information in each chapter/section of the book.

And we're off......

Introduced blogs to the class after their test today. They had 2 things to "talk" about when they got to the page. First was how do they feel about math. Second, how do they like the new high school. (for those not aware, we opened a new high school this semester).

http://users.kgcs.k12.va.us/mtomeo/ to see what is going on so far. The background is an option through the blog site that we are using (I didn't do it myself). Let me know what you think of the setup and any ideas on what can be improved.

Day 1 of the new semester (in the new school) went by ok. I introduced the idea of blogging and only a few students admitted to having blogged already so it looks like a challenge ahead. Things are still getting set up technology wise so I have not been able to visit our school blog and get everything set up. I really want them to blog early to get their feelings on math and why most of them think it is so hard to do. Next update will be when we actually start working on the blogs.

looking forward to blogging

I am quite interested in learning more about blogging. I know some people that have gone through the program and have been blogging. I already have intentions of using it this semester to get students to help each other out with questions about class. This semester will be one for experimenting with it to see what will and won't work well with my different classes. I'm really hoping this is something the students will use properly and get them interested in learning math.

Any tips for people who have blogged in the classroom, especially a math class? Some of the things I hope to see the blogs used for are homework help, test/quiz review and hopefully discussion of where math is used in everyday life so they can see the connection.