Blog Reflection 4.2

Reflection 4.2 Podcasts

Podcasts are short audio recordings (up to 12 minutes long) saved as a MP3 and stored on a website or wiki in an archived manner so that people can access them.  Many educators create recordings of lessons.  Podcasts are often transformed with some video and English subtitles as can be seen in the Khan Academy math lessons (enhanced podcasts).  I think that the addition of the chalkboard and the English subtitles appeals to more than the auditory learners and helps the visual learners to benefit from the recordings.  There are also video podcasts which include video of the speaker (vodcasts).  Here is an example of an enhanced podcast showing how to do long division.  http://mrcoley.com/media/long_division/long_division.html.

When I was in grade 1 & 2 I did school of the air and all of my course material was in correspondence mode.  This was in 1978/79 and so there was a 1 hour class every week via UHF radio, but other than that, my parents were my teachers because I was not old enough to read the course materials myself.  Eventually my parents got a governess for me, but before that, my Dad (who was too busy to do lessons during the day for me) would make recordings onto a tape recorder at night for me and I would play the recorded readings and do the activities for math that way during the day.  Through the power of the Internet, every child has the ability to use google and find enhanced podcasts and vodcasts to teach any subject that they desire.  During my own schooling I missed some pretty important number sense learning in about grade 8 and this affected the rest of my schooling and my University career.  My parents and I knew that I had missed something fairly important and we asked the Math teacher to do some lunch time lessons.  I remember that he did one lesson with me, but he wasn’t able to explain it to me.  If I were in the city, probably my parents would have hired a math tutor and then I would have learned this.  Now, if students and parents have the knowledge, they can access the information themselves.  But initially, they have to have a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset.  Also, they have to know where to look and they need to know about the curriculum. Before I started to study secondary education, we wanted to help my son to understand the Math that I missed and some friends introduced us to Khan Academy.  

Something that studying secondary education is impressing on me is that we learn a lot about a topic once we try to teach it to someone else.  So, there is firstly merit in creating podcasts that can replicate and re-teach class activities to students.  Then there is merit in allowing the students to create the podcasts themselves to teach a subject because they add their own touch, they have a greater stake and therefore interest in the project and they learn more by having to think how they would teach someone else.

SAMR for using audio learner-accessed vs learner generated

Context	Substitution	Augmentation	Modification	Redefinition
Learner-accessed	Create a podcast or vodcast for key content of each lesson and make it available on the class wiki for students to download and listen to later.	Create a value added podcast of key lessons with online quiz to answer to check their learning – which can uploaded to the class wiki.	Create a set of vodcast key lessons with associated quizzes that are intelligent tracking student progress and offering less or more support based on performance on the quiz questions already answered.	Create a set of vodcast tutorials that guide the students through the class that they can use in differentiated instruction groups after initial group introduction of the lesson.
Learner- generated	As the students to prepare the spoken part of a power point presentation into an MP3 file and have them submit the powerpoint with embedded mp3 files for assessment.	Create an audio quiz for the end of their powerpoint session and compile the results of that quiz.	Place the powerpoint with the quiz online for a sister class to view and complete the quiz.	Create one large presentation as a shell and ask students to create an audio mp3 file for difference topics in the presentation and upload them on the class wiki.

(SAMR template table adapted from Technology Is Learning)

Questions:

 Do you use vodcasts such as Khan Academy to revise numeracy & literacy skills? 

Do you do school of the air?  How have things changed from the old UHF 1 hour per week class?