Podcasts

Exploring the amount of podcasts at my fingertips is overwhelming. I had never taken the time to develop an understanding of podcasts, but I always knew they were available on iTunes just a click away. I have gained a positive perspective on this new educational resource. 

I came across K-12 Greatest Hits: The Best Ideas in Education. One particular episode that I enjoyed was called Cellphones in the Classroom: Distraction or Undervalued Teaching Tool? It was argued that cellphones link to attention deficit, and they are being used as toys instead of tools. The opposite argument was that teachers of the 21st century must teach skills for today. One of those skills is mobile skills - which is required by many jobs for employment. So teachers must not ban cellphones - because we know that the students will bring them anyways - but teach students how to productively use them and make it an aware issue. 

The podcast matched identically with the research my group has been doing on BYOD (Bringing Your Own Device) into the classroom. There are many many benefits of BYOD as long as the devices are used productively and practically; there are always going to be distractions in the classroom - devices or not. 

One of my favourite things from the episode was the use of a traffic light sign on the door. If red was chosen, no cellphones visible or heard in class. If yellow, cellphones must be off and placed in the right hand top corner of the desk incase devices may be used periodically throughout the class; or green, cellphones will be used actively during the entire class.

Ultimately, it is not up to the teacher but it is up to the student to be responsible for knowing how they learn best.

This particular podcast may be beneficial to play during the first week or two during a school year, and as a class, creating a BYOD or cellphone/laptop rules or regulations guided by the teacher, regarding use of devices in the classroom.

Online Video

I'm not going to lie.. I have always just assumed that if any teacher were to use a video in the classroom, they would have found it from YouTube. It is obviously the largest free video sharing resource available, which leads it to contain much inappropriate and negative material for a classroom. I have learned that there are a variety of educational video sites, much like YouTube in the sense of convenience, accessibility and validity, such as EduTube, SchoolTube, and Ted. 

I particularly like Ted because of the many categories: Talks, Speeches, Playlists, Conferences, Ted Blog, Ted Community, and especially TedEd. By using Ted Ed, you can create lesson plans that incorporate video to better engage students and activate learning. You can use, edit, or completely create your own lesson on Ted-Ed. Also, since the videos are educational based, there is no fear of running into an inappropriate advertisement prior to the video, where this is likely to happen on YouTube. You can browse Ted Ed by Series, Subject, or Flips - which is neat because you can find the most viewed videos, which are prompt to be the best videos.

A couple of videos that I found beneficial and may use in my own lessons are:

How Pandemics Spread by Mark Honigsbaum, to supplement the Health curriculum, and

Situational Irony: The opposite of what you think by Christopher Warner, to supplement the English Language Arts curriculum.