Social Networking and Social Class

Danae Boyd recently had a piece on "On the Media" about the significant differences in the social roots of My Space and Facebook, musing about whether these distinctions are being deepened. She's a researcher at Harvard's Center on Internet and Society who shares a lot of her work on her Apophenia blog. Check it out...

Kevin Kelly

For those of you interested in hearing more from Kevin Kelly, author of the "We are the Web" article we read this summer, here's a link to video of a presentation he did last year building on the theme of the article, and offering some interesting definitions of "technology."

http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/?viewcastid=37

Starting the School Year

Vicki Davis is an educational blogger (and a HS teacher!!) whom I very much respect and whose blog I read regularly. She just did a three-part series on starting the school year and I thought some of you would want to check it out, and/or flag it for re-reading in December:

http://tinyurl.com/2a9854

Podcasting Basics

Caroline called my attention to my not explaining exactly what podcasts are. A podcast is simply a digital recording, usually audio, that is turned into an "mp3" file, the format that is used by itunes, for example. Creating podcasts is quite simple. I like a tool like gabcast

http://www.gabcast.com/

where you can set up a free account and then create an mp3 file (that can be accessed on the web as a podcast) simply by calling in to an 800 number.
If you want to work with your students and have the time for them to get into production, then the free download of audacity (PC or MAC) is a great option:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Here's an audacity tutorial on "Teacher Tube":

http://tinyurl.com/27ymcq


Caroline also asked some great questions:

Is it a radio station system? How do you access them?

Many radio stations, along with National Public Radio tape their shows and make them available as podcasts that can be downloaded and listened to by anyone, whether on their computer or an a tool like an ipod. You'll get itunes on your MAC Program MAC computer, but you can also download itunes for free, for use on a PC or a MAC. You can actually subscribe to an array of podcast programs, including many NPR shows, through ITunes.

Who listens to them?

Many people, including some of the teacher bloggers you're reading, do regular podcasts as well--think of it as internet-based radio. They have their listeners who subscribe via ITunes. In the classroom, the likely listeners could be themselves (of course!!) fellow students, parents (or grandparents) and, of course, you.

I still am not quite clear about their use in the classroom either. Do I make my own? Do my students make their own or a classroom podcast?

The answer to both of these questions is yes. I strongly suggest that you think about whether having your students create little podcast/radio broadcasts might not be an exciting way to assess creatively.
Check out the podcast at this URL:

http://tinyurl.com/24j2bx

There are lots more interesting podcasts here, but Maureen Yoder has some creative ideas for the history classroom, many of which involve podcasts. I was imagining students doing podcasts of their own that borrow from one or another of these formats.

And if I make lectures available to my students via podcast, won't that make them more likely to either not pay attention in class or skip altogether?

I'm not big on this. I think that podcasts should be utilized to expand what we can do, educationally, for or with our students. We should use them (or not) on the strength of what they can do to help us teach better, and to offer ways of engaging more of our students. Trying to make and post podcasts of each day's class would be way too much work, and (I think) of mimimal utility.

What about students that may not be able to access the podcast? Doesn't this give an advantage to some students over others?

It could. Another reason not to have them required to access material crucial to the class and their grade. You can use the school lab, and files can also be downloaded to ipods, so there are possibilities, but you're right to attend to this in your thinking.
I hope that this helps....

Oh...check this out for more:

http://tinyurl.com/38ete2