Tracey, Luke and I attended an interesting Professional Development morning in Leichardt today. It was all about using iPods and Podcasting technologies to engage children in language experiences.
It was presented by Jeff Vardy who is a primary school teacher in the Wollongong Diocese.
Jeff's presentation was great, as he is a classroom teacher his ideas were very practical and he was able to present work his students had done with podcasting and class websites, that enriched his presentation as we could then see it "in action."
Jeff's session focused on where technology has its place in the curriculum and that "the teaching comes first. " He also gave us examples of how the use of the iPods came about in his classroom.
He began with the all important, and sometimes overlooked area of Talking and Listening. The idea of the podcasts and making Radio Shows with the children complimented this area of the English KLA very well. He also gave examples of using iPods in Maths too where children listen to their Maths problem and have a series of activities to do. (Great for chn who need to listen to the question several times to really understand it or for the poorer reader.)
The session ended with all of us having a go at making a podcast ourselves. Apple computers were favoured and using the program was quite easy.
It was a good intro to using this form of technology in the classroom.
Coleen.
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2 comments:
Coleen,
It sound like the PD was very worthwhile. I would love to be shown how you used an apple computer to make a podcast. I agree that talking/listening is the most neglected aspect of English. What you have learnt and hopefully have an opportunity to have-a-go with sounds exciting. If I can assist in any way give me a holler. Would love to be involved! Thanks for giving up some of your personal time to benefit the staff & students at HFS!
Coleen, the observations you made about talking and listening also came up in Learning Group A. Moira, Wendy, Toni & I talked about the importance of talking & listening in the early years- for developing vocabularly and sentence structure (among other things). It might be worth talking to the Learning Support teachers about resources in this area as I know Wendy & Moira have some great resources on this topic (apart from some great insights and wisdom).
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