Power To The Podcast
This week I had the opportunity to explore and enjoy a few podcasts. While I focused my attention towards education, there are a cornucopia of podcasts on endless subjects; they're just waiting for you to discover them! Podcasts are a great tool for professionals to expand their current mindsets and progress in their craft. Along with podcasts covering all the bases as far as topics go, and being as readily available as oxygen, they are also free and convenient to access and use. You can listen to a podcast and drive, clean, walk, cook, (almost) anything! Podcasts make it possible for anyone to learn and explore with ease. There's not many valid excuses for not taking advantage of the wide world of podcasts!
As for me, I spent some time today cleaning the house and tuning into the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with Vicki Davis.
The first podcast I selected was Virtual Valentines: The Global Valentine Project Sharing Love and Learning featuring Micah Brown. It was a simple selection for me. "Virtual Valentines" caught my attention, and as I cleaned my empty house alone, I thought the valentine vibes would give me some pep, and surely it did!
Micah Brown's Virtual Valentines project spans across the globe, bringing together classrooms to share love and educate each other on their differing and unique communities. Offering two levels, one for teachers experienced with technology in the classroom, and one for the more tech-novice. It's a basic yet inspiring project that allows classes to create a valentine through a chosen web tool (Buncee, Green Screen, Chatterpix, Canva, Animoto, etc.) and share this valentine with another classroom around the world through Skype, Flipgrid, or Google Hangout. The project is meant to provide students with geographic awareness as they research and discover their own homes, histories, and cultures, and others' as well. All grade levels and locations are welcome! You can access the project site through this link for more information on Micah Brown's inspirational work.
Following that podcast, I tuned into Educating Kids For Life Not Tests with Pam Moran. A bit of a switch in tone from the last one, but that's what's great about podcasts-- they are as flexible as you.
Pam Moran spoke heavily on the importance of creating relationships with this generation of students, and balancing face-to-face interaction and technology in the classroom. Moran emphasized the fact that teachers today shouldn't be teaching their students the way they were taught in school. It is vital for today's educators to provide their students with real-life tools that can be utilized in our present and future economy. Moran shared an anecdote of an educator that would stress answering students' further questions on any given subject, worried that she would not get through the required material for her students to pass the proficiency exam. And at this point, Moran made her grand statement of the podcast: we must shift our focus from the test to the learner. When students are given the opportunity to create a relationship with their teacher, feeling as though they have a voice in the classroom, they will soar past "proficient." We can't teach this generation the way we were taught because they do not learn the way we learn.
Both podcasts left me thinking and analyzing my own methods and intentions of education, and prompted me to further listen to podcasts throughout the day. Great podcasts are gems of the perfect blend of technology and education that we can all learn from-- these gems are waiting for you to discover them.
As for me, I spent some time today cleaning the house and tuning into the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with Vicki Davis.
The first podcast I selected was Virtual Valentines: The Global Valentine Project Sharing Love and Learning featuring Micah Brown. It was a simple selection for me. "Virtual Valentines" caught my attention, and as I cleaned my empty house alone, I thought the valentine vibes would give me some pep, and surely it did!
Micah Brown's Virtual Valentines project spans across the globe, bringing together classrooms to share love and educate each other on their differing and unique communities. Offering two levels, one for teachers experienced with technology in the classroom, and one for the more tech-novice. It's a basic yet inspiring project that allows classes to create a valentine through a chosen web tool (Buncee, Green Screen, Chatterpix, Canva, Animoto, etc.) and share this valentine with another classroom around the world through Skype, Flipgrid, or Google Hangout. The project is meant to provide students with geographic awareness as they research and discover their own homes, histories, and cultures, and others' as well. All grade levels and locations are welcome! You can access the project site through this link for more information on Micah Brown's inspirational work.
Following that podcast, I tuned into Educating Kids For Life Not Tests with Pam Moran. A bit of a switch in tone from the last one, but that's what's great about podcasts-- they are as flexible as you.
Pam Moran spoke heavily on the importance of creating relationships with this generation of students, and balancing face-to-face interaction and technology in the classroom. Moran emphasized the fact that teachers today shouldn't be teaching their students the way they were taught in school. It is vital for today's educators to provide their students with real-life tools that can be utilized in our present and future economy. Moran shared an anecdote of an educator that would stress answering students' further questions on any given subject, worried that she would not get through the required material for her students to pass the proficiency exam. And at this point, Moran made her grand statement of the podcast: we must shift our focus from the test to the learner. When students are given the opportunity to create a relationship with their teacher, feeling as though they have a voice in the classroom, they will soar past "proficient." We can't teach this generation the way we were taught because they do not learn the way we learn.
Both podcasts left me thinking and analyzing my own methods and intentions of education, and prompted me to further listen to podcasts throughout the day. Great podcasts are gems of the perfect blend of technology and education that we can all learn from-- these gems are waiting for you to discover them.
Fantastic reviews! I really enjoyed reading about Virtual Valentine's Day and plan on sharing this with my staff as we get ready for the big day later next month!
ReplyDelete15/15