The first podcast I listened to was from a first grade class that had just got done reading about Flat Stanley by Jim Brown. They made their own Flat Stanley's and sent them to their friends and family around the world and had them write stories and take pictures and send them back. These students were inspired by the worldwide success of another first grade class's podcast, that they wanted to make their own.
After brainstorming with their teacher, they came up with a story line so that every student would have a part in the cast. The students were asked to pick one place in the world that they would go if they were to be flattened like Flat Stanley, and choose a book from the library on that place or research it using the internet. They had to include in their script the location, how they got there, what they did, and how they got back home. After creating their own stories their teacher compiled them into one huge story to share with other students around the world, and you can listen to it here!
Podcasting with First Grade
It is strongly encouraged in this post to do podcasting with your students even if they are at a younger age. The first graders at this school had listened to the second grade podcast about animals and they loved their story and became very inspired. The students loved the fact that the second grade got so many comments from teachers around the world. The students were eager record their own voices so that way they "could get into other peoples computers and iPads".
Their teacher had just recently read to them Vacation Under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne. For their podcast the idea was to pretend as if they were interviewing Jack and Annie, two main characters from the book, about their last adventure that made them end up in Pompeii. They broke the chapters up and talked about what happened in each and afterwards the teacher typed up all of the questions they compiled. The teacher rotated through all of the students being the interviewer, Jack (boys), and Annie (girls). You can listen to this exciting podcast here.
Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom
In this video/post, Mr. Bell describes the benefits of podcasting in the classroom. Some things he mentions are as follows: it is an effective way to interact with students outside of the classroom, this is a form of learning that students are unaware of so it helps become more relevant to them, it gives different perspectives for learning and project-based learning, it helps promote creativity and innovation, and also one of the most important factors is that parents can see what their children are doing at school.
I particularly like the last one mentioned, parents being able to see what their students are doing in school. I agree with Mr. Dell, that it is very beneficial for podcasting to be introduced in the classroom for many of the reasons mentioned above. Here is a clip of benefits of podcasting in the classroom.
Good job.
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