Week 4: Further Examination of Podcasting and Commenting for Kids

More on Podcasts

This week, I continued to read and watch videos about podcasting. One video that was really interesting to me was called "The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom." The video highlighted many of the reasons why podcasts can be a very useful tool in the schools. I thought the video made a great point about how podcasts can be used to record lessons so that students can access the class materials from anywhere via the internet. The video used an example of a sick student who was able to keep up with her school work by using her teacher's podcasts.

I was also very interested in the fact that tech activities such as podcasting often call for students to engage in cognitive activities that are near the top of "Bloom's Taxonomy." I feel like the biggest problem in education right now is that students are not forced to exercise their brains through the use of their higher reasoning ablilities. Students get too many assignments that are near the bottom of bloom's taxonomy. By using these higher end cognitive processes students are essentially arming themselves for successful life in the professional world. This is because they become able to use critical thinking to find answers to problems they may have never encountered before. Basically, they can think their way through any situation, which could perhaps be the most important skill for any person to learn.

I am starting to look forward to actually getting to create a podcast of my own. I read several resources this week which have given me some groundwork from which to work on my podcast project. I think that podcasts are interesting because you can use tools like music and sound effects to liven up the podcast. Podcasting can break up some of the tedium that is often associated with many school activities. They seem to make learning more fun for people who may have not liked traditional scholastic activities. Podcasting also shares that wonderful quality with so many other tech based academic activities: the ability to share knowledge and information with people throughout the world. Being able to collaborate the world over makes education into a limitless field where knowledge is readily and easily available.

Comment 4 Kids

This week I also got to make my first comment in the "Comment 4 Kids" project. I commented on a post from a 5th grade student from the Avoca school system named Danielle Vargo. The particular post I commented on was a book review the student had done on a biography about Clara Barton. I was quite impressed by the students ability to synthesize all of the matierial in the book into a concise but informative post. I have been reading that blogs can be a great way for students to improve their writing skills, and this definitely seems to be true for Danielle Vargo. She also seems to be engaged actively in the process of writing this blog, most likely because it is a 21st century technology that she understands.