Have you ever heard of Podcasting? I actually first discovered podcasting several years ago, because I got an iPod, but I never really got into it as a listener and it certainly never occurred to me that I could create podcasts. To be clear: I haven't started podcasting...but I still think its pretty cool! The International Podcast Day website says that podcasting began in 2004 with two men named Adam Curry and Dave Winer, and the actual term podcasting was first used by Ben Hammersley in an article exploring the then new phenomenon. It became popular enough that U.S. president George W. Bush had his weekly address distributed via podcast (IPD: Podcasting Historical timeline). I think podcasting took a bit of a hit with the rise of YouTube and vlogging in particular, especially with teenage audiences. It has remained relevant however, especially with young professionals. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines it simply as thus: Its difficult to define podcast beyond this simple definition because there is such variety among them. There are comedic podcasts, lifestyle podcasts, historical podcasts, musical podcasts, even podcasts about podcasting! The kind that I find myself interested in nowadays though, are education podcasts.
She made it sound exciting and easy, but I recognize that this is a serious commitment to her and she works hard at it. It was an amazing opportunity to get to hear about podcasting and the exciting connections to my professional life as a future educator, from someone who is in a position so similar to me! Feel free to click the buttons to head on over to her Twitter and/or site. The other podcast/blog/broadcast station that I was introduced to in my class is VoiceEd Radio. Holy moly what a goldmine. They describe themselves as "an adventure that not only allows for the sharing of education-related content from across the country and around the world, but it also allows any Canadian with something to contribute to create their own content, host a radio show or broadcast live from their school or community" (voiceEd.ca). How cool is that?! There are recorded podcasts, voice blogs, and live broadcasts available on their site, all focussing on the field of education in Canada. Sarah Lalonde is also a key participant in this endeavor. Anyone involved or interested in education should investigate. As mentioned above, I was not so adventurous as to start my own podcast. Friends of mine however, did participate in one of Sarah's podcast episodes, as did my professor in another. Guest speaking in someone else's podcast then, is a good way to get involved. I started much smaller. I, among others in my class, recorded my voice (eek!) in a short bumper for VoiceEd Radio! You can find the bumpers here. For me, simply recording my voice and hearing it back was a big enough step for now! I think this is an awesome way to introduce the skills of podcasting in a relatively non-scary way. I learned how to pace myself so that I was not talking at super-speed, and it was my first experience with sound recording software. As I was thinking about this blog post, I thought this would be a great way to bring it into the classroom/school. Imagine how cool it would be to have 'radio bumpers' recorded by students played before the announcements every morning? I think students would feel pretty important being part of something like that! Research projects in the classroom could be based around podcasting as a presentation technique as well. I can imagine a class-wide 'podcast' in which the teacher calls on students guests to speak on certain subjects (research topics) for a minute or so. The 'podcast(s)' could then be shared with parents or even other classrooms. In a similar manner, students could create their own 'podcasts' about a certain research topic, to be shared with the teacher. In my (admittedly limited) experience this is done sometimes with video presentations, but I know that I would be a least a bit more comfortable omitting the recorded visual and only venturing into the audio. Jumping back to school-wide endeavors for a minute, it would also be pretty cool if there was a school podcast available to students and parents. Students could record themselves chatting about current events, within the school, community, or world (depending on their age/experience). It would be a great way for students to have a voice, and to make that voice heard by a large audience. I picture this as an extracurricular or a club of some sort! I think it would be awesome if teachers could get into podcasting for their schools or classrooms as well, though I certainly know that they have enough on their plates already! As someone who isn't *yet* into the role, its also difficult to imagine ways that this could work. Maybe just a quick podcast outlining what the class is doing that month? Maybe a quick, one minute podcast each week in which the teacher and a student tell a joke? It would totally depend on the teacher! Overall now that I have been reintroduced to the concept, I think that podcasting is an opportunity and/or experience that many people, teachers and students in particular, are missing out on! It would be a great teaching and learning opportunity, and I've outlined some reasons/ideas here - though I didn't even really touch on the technological aspects of it - but there are so many more! Beyond that too, there is a lot to be gained from podcasts as a listener. You may not be the type to go right out and become a podcaster, but I urge you to at least go find some to try listening to! Enjoy!
Works cited: "Podcasting Historical Timeline and Milestones." (2018). International Podcast Day. Accessed 15 February 2018. https://internationalpodcastday.com/podcasting-history/. "Our VoiceEd Story." (2017). VoiceEd Radio. Accessed 20 February 2018. https://voiced.ca/about-voiced-ca/. "Podcast." (2 February 2018). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Accessed 15 February 2018. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/podcast.
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Thanks to my media and digital literacy class, I am taking part in the #onewordOnt challenge for 2018! The creator of this challenge, Julie Balen, says "having one word gives you the chance to be shaped by it" which I think is really powerful. I initially read about this movement via Helen DeWaard's tweets, which brought me to so many posts from others about their chosen words, past and present. There are many people who have done this for a few years now, and their blog posts and tweets are amazingly insightful. Hopefully my post can give you at least a glimpse into my insights as well!
"Why did you decide to participate in this movement?" you may ask. Well, I am a planner. I like to organize and reorganize, I use small bins inside of medium bins inside of large bins to do so, I write out a meal plan, I use an agenda to make a weekly schedule, I record my meal plan in my weekly schedule, and I cannot go grocery shopping without a list. With this mentality, I figure having one word on which to focus for the entire year will be invaluable for centering my life. As a teacher too, I can see how his would be useful in a classroom as well. Teachers and students can collaboratively choose a word for their class, and then focus on that word for the duration of their time together! I haven't seen this before, but I think I might try it. I don't know why I've never come across this idea before!
In addition to being a planner, I am also an avid reader. This means that I know a lot of words (if I do say so myself) so I had a tough time choosing one word that I wanted to center myself around for the entirety of 2018. I wanted a word that truly was indicative of who I am as both a teacher and student. I looked up so many words. After a while, I realized that the very thing I was doing; remembering, defining, and dissecting a multitude of random words was representative of who I am as a student and a teacher. I am someone who likes to delve into the familiar, to learn more details. Each word that I thought of on my own also brought me to numerous other words, some brand new to me, and I found myself devouring these as well. What I love to do is explore.
Let me back up a bit here, because that connection might seem like a bit of a stretch. I love to explore because when something piques my interest, like words and reading, I love to immerse myself in it and learn everything I can about it. I also always try to be open to new things and ideas; they're exciting! Below is the definition of explore that I found I most related to, courtesy of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online.
This kind of exploring is one of the reasons that I enjoy school so much (and have chosen to do a Master's degree after I graduate with my current degrees!); it is a place where guided exploration is (generally) encouraged. In my education currently then, my aim for 2018 is to continue to explore new ideas about teaching. This Media and Digital Literacy class in particular is a fantastic place to do so! I also hope to facilitate exploration for my students in my final placement. Teachers and scholars often talk about 'exploring' methods, ideas, etc. in their classroom, but I don't think there is enough discourse about letting students explore and exploring with them! I hope to remedy this! Come September of this year however, exploring becomes a bit different for me...
While I said that I enjoy exploring - and that's true! - it also intimidates me to some degree. I am a naturally shy, quiet, and introverted person. The exploring that I like to do is either personal and individual, or is clearly guided by someone more knowledgeable. The exploring that I have chosen to do in September of this year is quite terrifying. I'm going to Thunder Bay all by myself to participate in Lakehead's Masters of English program! I've lived in the same city, in the same house, surrounded by the same family and friends for my entire life so far. This is a big move for me. I want to literally explore Thunder Bay, because I know it is a beautiful city with so much to offer. I will hopefully be able to explore the idea of new friends, peers, and professors because for the past five years I've been at my comfortably small school, with peers and professors that I know quite well. I will explore, intentionally and by default, who I am on my own, as opposed to me in relation to others. It's going to be exciting! When I initially thought about the word explore, this guy came to mind right away:
At first I just giggled at Russell (and of course decided to watch the movie). As I wrote this post though, I realized that as silly and adorable as Russell is, I really would like to be a bit like him this year! So, if I were to sum up my goals for exploration this year, I would say: I want to be enthusiastic and persistent about exploring the familiar in more depth and exploring the new without trepidation.
Works Cited:
Balen, J. (28 December 2018). #onewordOnt Introduction. Retrieved January 15, 2018, https://jacbalen.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/onewordont-introduction. "Explore". (25 December 2017). Retrieved January 15 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explore. Until recently, when someone mentioned stickers I thought of the pages of foil stickers that parents buy at the dollar store for their kiddos to ravage, or the booklets of "Good Job!" stickers that teachers use to mark students' quizzes , or the oh-so-exciting 3D and/or smelly and/or fuzzy stickers that I buy for no reason at all and then keep under my bed for a year! Really though, stickers are cute and maybe fun, but they're not exactly innovative or high tech or even super cool anymore, right? At my internship with the Innisfil Library and IdeaLAB I discovered that yes, stickers are definitely still cool! Especially when you can make your own! So, without further ado, I would like to introduce: This vinyl cutter is the fancy machine that I used at my internship site to 'print' my very own stickers. This is step two out of three however, so let me backtrack a bit here. First, I designed my sticker using Inkscape. Inkscape is a free (!) vector graphics editor which, in my experience, simply means a program on which you can draw and/or design images etc. that use vectors instead of pixels. For sticker-making purposes this is necessary, because (as you can see in the representative image below) pixelated images have rough edges that poor Roland would have a very hard time cutting out accurately, whereas vector images have smooth edges that are much easier to cut along! When you initially begin working with this program I think it is a bit frightening, but with practice it becomes pretty easy! *As a side-note, this program can be used in so many other ways, so you should check it out even if you're not sticker-making! The second step was to send my design to Roland. Thanks to the vast intelligence of Roland and the computer that I Inkscaped on, all I had to do was select print, then get (vinyl) size from machine, then go. After that Roland just started doing his duty and cutting my sticker while I looked on in awe. Now, as cool as all the digital and technical parts of this process were, my favourite was the final step which was all on me to do by hand (gasp, I know). Once the sticker was cut, I had to pick it. In other words, I pulled off the bits that I did not want in my sticker, and purposely left behind the parts that I did want. I kept both parts, for the express purpose of showing others how it works! So the image on the right is my final sticker, and the image on the left is what I peeled off, and what would normally be discarded (though technically, you can do it the other way around if you want, and pull out the smaller bits to purposefully keep the frame, its up to you because its your sticker!). I think that this would be an AMAZING activity to do in an elementary classroom! For Global Maker's Day my partner-in-internship-crime Rachel and I brought in stickers for the whole class to pick, and it went over really well! This is probably the easiest way to bring vinyl stickers into the classroom. I think it would be even cooler however, to have kids do the whole process, because it gives students the opportunity to be creative; especially older kids who, according to test scores, are getting less and less creative (Miranda, 2012). Not everyone has a Roland Vinyl Cutter - nor a Cricut, though these could also work! - but thanks to places like the Innisfil Library, its still an actual possibility! A teacher can book space and time in the HackLAB at the library to do the entire process there, using their computers and programs. Another option however, which is the route that I am most likely to take in the future, is to prepare and design in the classroom, then print at the library, and bring the cut stickers back to the classroom for students to pick. As I mentioned above, Inkscape is a free program, and is not too difficult to learn (at least as much as is necessary for sticker making), so it could be added to and used on classroom devices easily. Students then have the opportunity to design their stickers, taking as much time as they need. The building of anticipation too would be an added bonus in this situation, as the students await the arrival of their very own stickers! Once they do, they can pick them together in their classroom! This whole process is a lovely mix of technology and art that will engage and benefit any child (or adult, for that matter) as they stretch their creativity! (Van't Hul, 2016) Some advice from a (somewhat) experienced sticker maker:
Happy sticker making! References:
Miranda, C. (January 2012). Why we need to let kids be creative. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/living/let-kids-be-creative-p/index.html. Van't Hul, J. (January 2016). The Benefits of Art for Kids. Retrieved from https://artfulparent.com/2016/01/the-benefits-of-art-for-kids.html. I think that in today's technologically-centered world, the act of actually penning (or penciling!) a story on paper has become a foreign concept for many young students. The challenge is to get them excited about story writing and telling, and digital storytelling meets that challenge! In my media class we have discussed and played with several different forms of digital storytelling. We looked at videos, such as this one about a boy who created a cardboard arcade, and this one with no images, just words. We also dipped our toes into Five Card Flickr after talking about how well images alone can tell or inspire a story. There are countless other ways to create digital stories as well (Cool Tools for School, 2017). While these mediums are amazing, they can be a bit complicated if a class or teacher is new to the idea of digital storytelling. By far the easiest method to implement in an elementary classroom, in my opinion, simply uses Google Slides, which is readily available to almost anyone.
Each member of my class created a slide simultaneously, and together our slides created our very own Important Book! In an elementary school classroom this would be an ideal way to incorporate both individual and collaborative work. Depending on the age there are practicalities which should be considered though. As a teacher, you might want to preemptively create a slide for each student, and attach their names to them. This would avoid the confusion that my class had as we all tried to create our own slides in the deck at the same time. I would also suggest creating one example slide as a class, to clearly show what students are expected to do and how they can do it.
Some examples of collaborative digital story topics are: an Important Book, in which each student explores the importance of a specific topic; a book of slides about each students' favourite place in the city; a book that lays out the purpose of each part of a plant; a book that showcases every students' Thanksgiving weekend. The possibilities are truly endless and any grade level can do it! Digital storytelling is a powerful tool (Dillon, 2014) because it interests students who enjoy using technology, and it is something that they can share and be proud of. It is not simply an assignment to hand in to the teacher. Instead the students get to work together and create something amazing, that they can share with anyone - which is particularly easy using the shareable link feature or even creating a QR code (E Flanagan, 2015)! An interesting extension of this activity might involve connecting with another classroom in the world, creating books on similar topics, and sharing the books with each other to see the similarities and differences! References: Cool Tools for School. (2017). Thing 4: Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from https://cooltoolsforschool.wordpress.com/digital-storytelling/. Dillon, B. (December 2014). The Power of Digital Story. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon. E Flanagan. (2015). Making Digital Books Google Slides. Retrieved from http://www.erintegration.com/2015/07/09/create-share-digital-books-with-google-slides-for-free/. In one of our first classes of my Media and Digital Literacy class, the question "what is media literacy?" was posed. Myself and a partner created a large web diagram on chart paper, with media literacy at the center and various definitions, terms, and ideas associated with the concept branching off. It was a great way to introduce a new idea, and to get us talking! Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the original web, but we did create a digital word cloud based on what we as individuals believed to be the most important aspects of media literacy. Word clouds are an excellent tool for bringing together ideas to create a fun, visual representation of our thoughts - try it out using the link below!
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AuthorCassy. Teacher in training, student, reading enthusiast, and dog mom. Archives
January 2018
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