Blog Post #4

First Graders Create Own Read Along Book

In the blog post, it describes what a Read Along Book is. Basically, the children record a script from a book and the students can read along with the recording. What a wonderful idea to encourage children to read! This seems like a great motivational tool for children to read aloud and to themselves. The children that read Dinosaurs Before Dark did a great job! What's more great is that they're only 6/7 years old! The teacher said, "Students started to experiment with their voices: inflection, fluency, pitches, emotions, volume, speed." I didn't start practicing those elements of speech in a formal manner until I was in the 4th grade. The sound effects make it even more interesting for the students. Sounds like a fun and productive way to learn!

Podcasting With First Grade

In this blog post, the teacher writes about her success with 1st graders making a podcast. She says that they were thrilled to record and later hear their piece of work. For this particular podcast the children wrote a pretend interview with characters in a book that they liked. The students came up with the questions and the characters' answers as well. The children were able to take turns being the interviewer, the boy character, and the girl character. However, it got a little confusing because there were multiple voices for a single character. The list of skill addressed:
listening
speaking
presenting
comprehension
storytelling
performance
voice acting
oral fluency
media
technology

The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom by Joe Dale

In this video, Joe Dale says that you can use podcasts for students to listen and review the day's lesson at home or make fun and creative projects in the classroom. I learned that the difference between a podcast and a vodcast is that a vodcast uses video. Podcasts can also be very useful if a student is absent from school or if a parent is concerned about what's going on in the classroom.
I wasn't that concerned with podcasts until the suggestion was made about students being absent from school. Students will no longer have the excuse of being behind in school due to sickness, injury, ect. With technology, teachers will not have to worry about make-up assignments or trying to reteach a lesson.