Educational Vod/Podcasts and Bl/Vlogs

The topics of pod/vodcasts, bl/vlogs are not new to me but as a special education teacher, I guess I have spent much more time concentrating on topics such as data collection and functional behavioral analysis that I have kind of put this type of technology aside. I know typically in the past year and a half when I have been assigned tasks such as this one, I do the work necessary and then later try (if it applies at all) to apply the tasks to whatever I can in my classroom. I thought I would be doing the same with this activity. However, after researching a few blogs and pod/vodcasts I found a site that has inspired me to try some new ideas within my classroom.

For both requirements for this activity I found a website sponsored by an Australian Public School called Orange Grove Primary in Western Australia. This is a K-7 school which uses the web to display virtually all aspects of school life. The two areas that I found most appealing were the blogs and pod/vodcasts sections. I was especially fascinated by the grade 4/5 areas since those are the grade levels that apply to my classroom.

The pod/vodcast section for the month of August is centered around National Reading Day. The year 4/5 students took a book and created a website for this book. The students interviewed the author of the book they chose. Those students turned their interview into a vodcast for students all over the world who are reading this book as well. This was very inspirational to me because it gave me so many ideas for ways I could apply this to my own language arts and literature classes. The students were engaged and genuinely interested in what the author, Elaine Forrestal, had to say about the book.

For the blogs portion of this assignment I also chose to use the year 4/5 Orange Grove Primary students' websites. These students took the book that was chosen for National Reading Day and developed a website that gave chapter summaries, displayed their artwork surrounding the book, and blogged their own reflections for each summary. This was a great way for students to share their thoughts and make inferences and comparisons about the rest of the novel. Many of the goals and objectives in my students' IEPs are geared toward these very same standards. This would be a fun and exciting way to fulfill those goals and objectives.

I team teach science with a general education teacher who is rather technologically savvy so I would like to try this with him first. I think it would be very helpful to have another person to bounce ideas with and troubleshoot with. We could use this technology in our constellations unit as well as our upcoming food chain units. This can seem overwhelming and stressful but I think if you were sharing the responsibilities it might not seem so overwhelming.

Here are all of the links in case one of the hyperlinks do not work:
http://www.ogps.wa.edu.au/room_3/
http://web.mac.com/nationalreadingday/Site/Welcome.html
http://web.mac.com/nationalreadingday/Site/Interview_with_Elaine_Forrestal.html
http://web.mac.com/nationalreadingday/Site/Chapter_Summaries/Chapter_Summaries.html
http://web.mac.com/nationalreadingday/Site/Chapter_Summaries/Entries/2007/7/25_Chapter_1____.html
http://www.podkids.com.au/index.php?post_id=251469