Podcasts: The New Teacher

Podcasting is a new method of communication allowing anyone to create audio files and post them to the Internet for others to download and listen to at any time. These audio files can be downloaded to a personal computer or handheld device such as an iPod. Podcasting has rapidly become a new medium for both commercial and home-grown talk shows on multiple subjects. The relative ease of production and low costs associated with the making of a Podcast has opened this new medium to the masses. Our students today are all now native speakers of the digital language of computers and the internet. It was only a matter of time that this medium will reach the classroom. The potential of podcasts as a teaching tool is limitless, so much so that there are fears that it can replace the teacher in the classroom. This of course will not happen, not under my watch at least. Mark Prensky describes teachers as “digital immigrants” who speak an entirely different and outdated language and who are struggling to speak an entirely new language. Well some teachers do behave as though it is impossible to learn this new language and some, who have learnt the language, lose it because of lack of practice. Well Mark I am proud to say to you that I am comfortably "bilingual"

Where are we going

Web 2.0 technologies have revolutionised the way I look at teaching and has turned my pedagogical practices on its head. This has become necessary and it was almost inevitable. It was bound to happen. But how ready are we for the revolution. There are many revolutions that has proven destructive to persons who were not prepared for it. They were somehow caught up in it and it spelt their demise. The entire scenario reminds me of a line out of a Michael Critchton novel. It goes "Sometime in the 21^st century our self-deluded recklessness will collide with our growing technological power" Are we so ignorant to think that this brave new world of the 21st century will somehow not be affected by our growing materialism and greed? Every revolution has a hero and liberator, teachers are to step up and be that sane and liberating force that will save our children from the corrupting influences that they are sure to face when they hone their already natural computing skills.

"Bookation" blues

Well the "Bookation" is almost over and how do I know how my kids felt about it? I ask them to write. My daughter who likes to write and for whom a pen or pencil is like an appendage on her right hand, got to the task immediately. My son however begins to complain almost before I am finished speaking. Well its vacation and I believe vacation time is their time so I don't insist. He is yet to work on the task though. Simply put: reading affects writing and writing affects reading. According to recommendations from the major English/Language Arts professional organizations, reading instruction is most effective when intertwined with writing instruction and vice versa. Research has found that when children read extensively they become better writers. Reading a variety of genres helps children learn text structures and language that they can then transfer to their own writing. In addition, reading provides young people with prior knowledge that they can use in their stories. One of the primary reasons that we read is to learn. Especially while we are still in school, a major portion of what we know comes from the texts we read. Since writing is the act of transmitting knowledge in print, we must have information to share before we can write it. Therefore reading plays a major role in writing.

Thank you Aisha Wood-Jackson

I am no prude but I am always wary of technology, it seems to me that it has become too pervasive and in too short a space of time. It has captured the imagination of the innovative, grabbed the attention of the distracted and provided a platform for the expressive. Just a minute, books have been doing that for centuries and quite frankly history have shown that when books were becoming as ubiquitous as computers in Europe in the late 17^th century, its detractors were calling it the devil’s tool. On the other hand computers and their applications can lead to crippling addictions, psychological complexities and the systematic “mushing” of brain cells. But wait alcohol has also been doing that for centuries and fact is both books and alcohol are here to stay. Another fact is both books and alcohol have been used and manipulated in good and not so good applications. The reality is the computer is powerful and in the hands of an innovative, imaginative and expressive teacher, it becomes the greatest thing that has happened to education. Thank You Aisha for making this clear to me during this semester and helping me to appreciate the “good” that computers can be used for. “Wikis’, “blogs”, “podcasts”, “e-books”, “digital stories” are now tools I intend to use on a daily basis.