techs in the city: APPI Journal

Techs in the city --- article published in the APPI Journal ... magazine for members of the Portuguese Association of English Teachers. www.appi.pt

iTeach, uTeach!

Last Christmas my wife bought me an MP3 player. It seems that after 12 years she’s finally realized that I like toys for Christmas! I happily filled my Creative Zen with pictures and music and off I went wired up and happily oblivious to all around me. And that was that.

A month ago I bought a new laptop and was given an iPod Nano along with it. Ah, well … now I have two MP3 players. I put some music and went on my way. However, I discovered something else that comes with the iPod … iTunes! I knew you could download music from iTunes, and I knew that you didn’t need an iPod to have it on your computer, but it never interested me. Until now!

A colleague of mine introduced me to PODCASTING. She downloads free MP3 files from the internet.
Needless to say, this all started me on a voyage I wasn’t expecting.

Let me say something at this point. I am not telling you to go out and buy an iPod! I would if they paid me to!

If you already have an iPod, fine. If you have a different MP3 player, fine. Basically, a computer is what you need to start out.

What is a PODCAST?
• POD from the word iPOD
• CAST from the word broadcast.

Podcasts are audio files which are normally placed on the internet for download. They can be placed on MP3 players, such as iPods, for portable use. You can listen to them on the train, in the car, in bed, as you jog, at the gym, on your computer, basically ANYWHERE. I’ll give you some examples of some things I and some of my colleagues are listening to (these are all available on iTunes).

• 60 minutes Podcasts
• Katie Couric’s Notebook (CBS)
• Food for Thought (Vergetarian Podcast) – not me!
• Jamie’s Podcast (Jamie Oliver) – yes, me!
• The Podcast Academy

Audiobooks
A step up from the podcast is the AUDIOBOOK. You can get the latest Harry Potter, or John Grisham – if you pay!

However, there are also FREE audiobooks in MP3 format you can download and listen to. I recently downloaded the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain; and White Fang by Jack London. (check the end of the article for URLs)

This is all great. So, now instead of walking down the street listening to just music, I can now catch up on some reading, or listen to an interview with Condoleezza Rice on 60 minutes. My trips to school on the metro have taken on new life!

Podcasting in Teaching

Of course, so far this has all been a bit selfish – I’ve just been using it for myself. But over the past weeks I have started to see ways where I can implement podcasts into my lessons and give my students more opportunities to listen to authentic material, which is up to date and relevant to their needs and their interests.

My colleague, Abeth, also started using podcasts in her classes. She emails her students (and my students) a weekly listening task they can do on their computers at home. They email the answers back to her later during the week. She keeps a running score of the points gained and the student who wins gets a prize.

For the past few weeks the pair of us, Abeth and myself, have been discovering ways to benefit our students’ learning experience with this “technology”.

There is some very interesting material about how DUKE university and Harvard in the USA have been using podcasting. Things are happening in education!

Video

One of my latest discoveries is video podcasts. There are a number of interesting videos I’ve found that can be easily used in a classroom. One of the best is called EVOLUTION, a one minute commercial by DOVE – there is no speaking in the video, and it is only about 2 MB in size; which is easy to carry around with you on a pen drive.

Production

The next level to explore is the production stage. I have not yet entered this realm. It’s a bit scary, but it’s the next logical step. Creating my own podcasts; or getting my students to produce something! This may be something I can come back and talk about at another time – or present at the conference in April.

The Borderless Classroom

Digital literacy is a 21st century skill. Over the past 10 or 15 years we have needed to become more and more proficient in the use of computers, and especially the internet. I commented to a friend how our lives have been changed and how it is virtually impossible to work without the internet.

Students are generally much more at home with using computers than the majority of teachers. However, that doesn’t mean we need to be intimidated. You may know little, or nothing. Just download some podcasts and start learning!

Using podcasts is something anyone with a computer and connection to the internet can take advantage of. It is a resource students will access outside the classroom – as Jorge, one of my 13-year-old students said “anything which is an excuse to use the computer is great!”

I’ve forever been trying to get students to be more independent and listen to the right things in English … it seems that I have started to find some resources that (some of) my students are finding interesting. Again, this is something I will probably need to get back to sharing in the future as I gain more experience and probably make some mistakes ;)

Here’s are some ideas from Bred Niessen:

Integrating MP3 Players in the Classroom
Using recording devices in the classroom is nothing new. Teachers and students have been using tape recorders for years. But the traditional cassette tape content was not always the easiest media to edit, store and share. Well, the times have changed with the introduction of MP3 digital recording devices. Here are 23 ideas that I have come up when using these wonderful devices.

1. Use these devices to record and then evaluate students decoding and reading fluency skills.
2. Keep a digital reading portfolio for students- keep an audio history of their progress. Then at the end of the year these can then be transferred to CD so students have a copy.
3. Have students create an audio book library.
4. Let's take that last idea one step further; allow students to take home the audio recordings of a book or passage along with the book itself so they can practice guided reading.
5. What about having speech therapists record students for evaluations and keep an audio portfolio. They could also create recorded activities and strategies for students to take home and practice. This can also support strategies like self-correction and ongoing self-assessment.
6. Teachers can record audio instructions for students who may struggle with reading the instructions, but not with the actually activities or tasks themselves.
7. Do you ever have students who have been gone for extended periods of time because of illness or on a trip? What about recording students assignments with oral instructions and also to add that personal touch.
8. Students could use these portable recording devices and act as roving reporters for school podcasts or newspapers.
9. Students record the thoughts for writing activities so they can capture their ideas and not get bogged down with conventions and grammar. Then students get listen to their recoding and transcribe their thoughts and when finished, let them begin editing process.
10. Students lead interviews of local historical figures? Once these recording have been collected, they can then be achieved for future generations.
11. Recording of field trips to create a sound seeing tours of local museums or historical sites - these files could either be kept for classroom projects or given back to the museums or historical sites so future visitors can enjoy this special audio guided tour.
12. Let children interview relatives about family history or create an audio family tree.
13. Have students create "Reading Rainbow" style books reviews.
14. Instructors can wear a device like the iRiver and record lessons, instructions, and lectures so students have access this content later.
15. Recording assignments or activities for foreign language courses
16. Teachers with ESL students could record written text along with possible definition of words and vocabulary lessons
17. Use these device to quickly create audio books for students with learning disabilities
18. Audio directions to accompany assignments for students who are home-bound.
19. Create audio test-casts or audio study guides to help students review for test.
20. Students could use the recorder to create digital storytelling projects- students can then create final projects with multi-media software like Microsoft's Photo Story or PowerPoint
21. Let students record pod-pal messages
22. Use these devices to create classroom podcasts. These MP3 files can be uploaded as is, or brought into Audacity or Propaganda to be clean up.
23. Use these devices to make it easy to document School Board and academic meetings. Use the recordings to produce meeting minutes and provide the audio to the entire community.

Please feel free to either add your ideas by clicking on the comment link below or feel free to e-mail them to me at: niessen@cox.net

Listen to the podcast http://media.libsyn.com/media/thetechteacher/mp3recordingdevices.mp3

Just one other small note. As far as I am aware, iTunes is not compatible with MP3 players which are not APPLE (iPods, etc.) If you prefer not to use iTunes, there are a number of other programmes you can use instead. Below are a list of links with resources which I am sure you will find interesting and useful.

I hope I’ve managed to make some people a bit more curious. Feel free to email me. My email address is:

mason . neil (at) gmail . com

RESOURCES

Finding Podcasts
• http://www.podcast.net
• iTunes – if you don’t have the programme, you can download it from APPLE.com
• http://www.podcastalley.com
• http://www.podcastdirectory.com
• http://podcast.com

Podcasts about Podcasting (and Technology)
• The TechTeacher - http://thetechteacher.libsyn.com
• The Podcast Academy http://pa.gigavox.com/series/podcastacademy.html

Hosting Podcasts
• http://www.gcast.com

Free Audio Books
• http://www.free-books.org
• http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/screen_main.asp
• http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com
• http://literalsystems.org/abooks/index.php
• http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video
• http://librivox.org
Other
http://www.apple.com/education/resources/podcastingvideos
http://www.edupodder.com
http://www.podzinger.com
http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/index.php

FOR THE (MUCH) MORE ADVANCED
http://reelreviewsradio.com/archives/2004/12/27/podcast-about-the-podcast

Glossary
iPod - an MP3 player belonging to APPLE … check out www.apple.com
Podcast – read the article and find out!!
MP3 – a sound file which can be played on mp3 players and computers.
Audio Books – speaks for itself, doesn’t it? The new thing is that they can now be in mp3 format for you to download!
iTunes - a computer programme from Apple which you can connect your iPod to and download music and podcasts.
Apple - a computer company … it’s also a fruit you can eat! ;)
Digital Literacy - ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information.
uTeach - well, I made that up “I teach, you teach”; just thought it sounded good.

eNjoy!!