Researcher: Students who listened to a lecture via iTunes U outperformed those who attended in person -- pause button a factor

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor - eSchool News

I think I have finally found the blog and podcast that I can really connect with. It is called The Clever Sheep and was created by Rodd Lucier. Rodd has used media and other telecommunications in his classrooms for over 20 years. Yet, his podcasts and blog seem to be relative to the "common" person. He has so much useful information for teachers but it's stated in a way that anyone could listen/read and get a lot out of both the podcast and the blog. I have also been following Rodd on Twitter here: thecleversheep

Technologies are changing daily and along with that our students are changing, too. How do we as educators and schools deal with that fact?

• We can allow and support individualized learning, collaborative projects and active participation by all individuals in a class.
• We as educators MUST begin to use these technologies ourselves so that we can teach the students and feel very comfortable with these teachings.
• We need to teach our students to become critical consumers of the information they are taking in from the read/write web. With over 80 billion web pages out there, they need to be able to discern good information from bad information.
  

Old flamingo yard
Originally uploaded by Tori SpinosoThis is quite a useful idea. You can add a web link right in the note section on the photo. I added a link to a YouTube video about the Henry Vilas Zoo.

Mighty Mommy, Legal Lad, and Mr. Manners: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

I found this podcast a bit lacking on a few things. I have been a listener of many tech podcasts so maybe I am being a bit too critical. However, I found that having the advertisements take up 1/3 of a 3-5 minute podcast a little annoying. I also felt that the reading from a script turned me off a bit. I'm not saying that a podcaster shouldn't have some notes but I felt very disconnected from these podcasters. I felt that anyone could have read what was written and done just as well. I would tend to listen to a podcast from someone that I felt was an expert on a subject. If you are an expert, you shouldn't really need to read word-for-word to complete a 2-3 minute podcast. I also felt that the information presented wasn't anything that EVERYONE already knows. Very basic information in the podcasts I listened to. I would not subscribe to these podcasts. The big positive is that the audio was done well. It sounded very professional.

Stanford University: http://itunes.stanford.edu/

I enjoyed this podcast as I felt as though I was sitting in on a lecture at school. I felt that I was involved in the 1 hour+ conversation. It was technical, so it is obviously for a specific audience but easily understood for almost anyone to enjoy. From this podcast, I actually learned a great deal and would definately subscribe to this podcast. There were many topics to choose from. I can see listening to this podcast on a long car ride! Hey, Stanford classes/lectures for free?? Who can beat that.


A news broadcast about media on the PBS podcast site: http://www.podcastingnews.com/details/www.onthemedia.org/index.xml/view.htm

This particular link did not work for me so I went into the PBS podcast site and selected a news media related podcast. The one I listened to was about public radio and television and how it should move forward in the podcast age. It was very interesting to listen to and was very professionally created. It sounds just like the radio but I was able to select exactly which topic I wanted to listen to and when I wanted to listen. This podcast was created for a general audience and absolutley everyone could take something away from it. It's all about news, so who wouldn't find something of interest. I really had no trouble with this podcast at all. The only thing I would tell PBS is to try and advertise this podcast a bit more. I really had no idea they had a podcast and have never seen it on PBS, and with a 3 year old, we wathc it often.



iZoofari Chats from the San Diego Zoo:

I searched iTunes for the word "zoo". There aren't a lot of zoos doing podcasts, which surprised me. It seems that there is so much information that a zoo could share and would want their visitors to know about. Many zoos do conservation work and research that the typical visitor would never know about. They just think that these poor animals are locked away in cages, but little do they know that the animals they are looking at are producing offspring that are being released into the wild. With this podcast, the listener can understand some of the in-situ and ex-situ conservation work being done, they can meet a zookeeper and learn about the animals....all in the same podcast. I really enjoyed it. I would have liked it to be a video podcast, however. I like to have the option to either watch and listen or just listen, but I do tend to gravitate toward the vidoe podcasts.

Lesson Title: Podcasting around the zoo

Type of web Tool: Video Podcast

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Learn the process of creating an audio and video podcast, learn animal facts and behaviors

Description of Lesson: The students will create a zoo video tour of the local zoo. They will each pick one animal they wish to create a podcast for. They will then do a bit of research on that animal from the class wiki that has been created for this project. They will submit an outline on what they plan to discuss in their podcast. This is when revisions will be made. At that point, we will take a field trip to the zoo and have the students break into two groups. Each group will take turns recording and hosting a podcast. They will give the animal name, location in the zoo, general statistics for the animal species and a bit about a behavior they see the animal doing at the time. Once all of the podcasts are completed, the students will bring the videos back to the classroom and they will be taught how to edit them properly. We will then upload each video to our class blog. Other students will then have a chance to comment through the blog. Students will be graded on the content and video editing of their own podcast.

Lesson Title: Cranes: Their Biology, husbandry and Conservation Podcasted!

Type of web Tool: Audio Podcast

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Learn the proper techniques of audio podcasting. Learn about crane behavior, biology and conservation.

Description of Lesson: For our bird behavior section in the biology class, each student will take a section of the book, "Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conservation" and create an audio podcast from that. The students will be asked to read their chapters and write a 5 minute summary about what they learned on their particular topic. At this point, the students will create an outline on what they will be discussing in their podcast. We will then take each student and create an audio podcast for that chapter. Once all chapters are completed, they will share their podcast with the class and post it to our blog. We will also submit the podcast to the Internation Crane Foundation for them to use as they wish.

Are you someone who feels all of this technology "stuff" isn't helping our students as much as good ole classroom experience? You might be partially correct!

• A significant body of cognitive psychological research believes that "simultaneous processing" that takes place when one is multi-tasking (learning onthe go) diminishes performance with every added task.
• If lecture podcasts are available for the students to download, some feel that students will not attend class and loos out on the quality of classroom learning and takes away the consequences of missing a class.
• That being said, podcasts might be beneficially used for disseminating supplemental materials, which have been shown to have a positive impact on learning outcomes and performances.
  

So...you've got something interesting to say? Why not let everyone hear you out through the means of a podcast, screencast or live web TV?

• Because all of these projects are relatively inexpensive and easy to accomplish, many schools are experimenting with podcasts, screencasting and live web TV.
• Join many popular news programs, professionals, universities, schools and ordinary people in podcasting. 1st graders though CEO's are using these tools as a means of communication.
• Simply download audicity.com, Skype and PowerGramo.com, set up your microphone and you are good to go! With this combination, you could record an interview with someone across the world.
  

Henry Vilas Zoo Annotated
Originally uploaded by tkaldHere is a technique that could really be useful in your classrooms. I tagged many of the prominent exhibits at the Henry Vilas Zoo and gave a small description/name to each section.

Ways in which you might use this tool are: tag all of the trees on your schools property, take a recent picture of a town and tag it as it was back in history, tag all of the parts of a flower. There are many more ways, you just need to be creative!