... educators across Frederick County (MD) Public Schools, have discovered the potential of podcasts. They use them to enhance classes, engage students and translate classic subjects into the digital age.‘‘You can use podcasts in any subject area,” Amy Boehman, a technology curriculum specialist for Frederick County Public Schools said. ‘‘You can do interviews, or record student research ... Any content that a child learns can be turned into a podcast.”
High-tech classes plug into iPods
At Chenango Valley (NY) High School, Michael Breed's freshman earth sciences class members receive and submit their assignments not with notebooks and day planners, but with iPod Shuffles.
The iPods are used as electronic storage devices. They hold assignments, Breed's podcasts of test preps and, yes, a few songs of the student's choosing. "They're the only kids in the entire district allowed to have an iPod in school," Breed said.
The iPods are effective because most of the nonschool day, students are listening to their iPods, instant messaging, text messaging or surfing the Internet, Breed, a 13-year science teacher, said. "And they get to school and it's cut off. It's not a surprise to me to see that kids are bored."
Breed produces his own podcast for the class, where he assigns homework, reviews for tests and offers some personal music selections. A podcast is a digital media file distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players, like iPods, and personal computers. They are most often audio files, like a radio broadcast.
NoteStar is an Internet utility to assist in the preparation of research papers. Teachers and students can set up research projects with topics and sub-topics. Students may then take advantage of NoteStar's many features to collect and organize their notes and prepare their bibliography page.
All Day Nightmare- This book is a good fit for a reluctant reader because the story is spooky, the reading level is not overly challenging, and it is fun for students to feel like they have control over the story.
RSS, huh? There are differing opinions as to what the letters R S S stand for. And, it's not really important anyway.Imagine a room full of middle school students arguing to stand at the head of the class and answer a question. No, it’s not some alternate universe of overly zealous 13 year olds – it’s Jessica Voss’ eighth grade language arts class at Del Rio Middle School.
Voss is one of more than 250 teachers in the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District who gave of their own time to obtain a technological foothold in their classrooms.
“Students today are surrounded by technology … get them into a regular classroom without it and they’re bored,” said district technology director Donnie Weaver.
Getting that technology into classrooms, however, proved to be a challenge, said Weaver.
In the past, the district purchased classroom computer equipment that sat almost entirely untouched because teachers weren’t properly trained on how to use it.
This BBC web site will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about computer viruses, including ...
I've put together two edtech toolkits. One is for anyone who wants to get started in podcasting. This toolkit includes Windows software and a collection of informational and instructional videos to help you get going. The other kit includes all the tools to build and use a PowerPoint version of the popular game show Jeopardy in your classroom.
