Post by jsweber on Feb 3, 2013 21:16:45 GMT -5
One project that I will be incorporating in my classroom soon is Podcasting. I want my students to create a podcast that demonstrates knowledge of a topic presented in class. They could teach others or use the podcast to go into further depth on a specific subject. I believe this could be a powerful tool because now students are the teachers and they are creating rather than sitting, taking notes, and writing a paper. I was intrigued by the concept of livestreaming using a product like UStream, but I'm not sure we have the bandwidth at school capable of allowing this kind of internet usage.
One problem we have in our building is access to the internet. We have a good connection but it does not allow for easy streaming. This is a multi-point problem because it isn't just about bandwidth. Our proxy does a great job and at times it is too good. We have problems with it messing up updates and allowing for successful streaming. So, many of these projects are fun and they could work some of the time I can't guarantee that they would work all of the time. Even though we are a 1x1 school I have come across the problem of students not having internet access at home or their parents limit the amount of internet they have access to. For some projects and assignments this wouldn't be a problem but using an app based tool I can see the issue of slow connections or limited connections. One way I could work around this is to allow students to create during classtime. However, this could be a waste of classtime if students don't have a strong enough connection in my room to complete the necessary task.
One project I'm going to bring up to our administration is the podcast guided tour. I think it would be a great marketing tool to have students make short podcasts that could be incorporated into our website to show what they are learning and/or why St. Joe's is a good fit for them. This could be something recruiters could point to when they are telling other schools in the area about the programs we offer. This could also be used by our newspaper staff. Instead of writing articles they could make a podcast that we could upload to our site.
One problem we have in our building is access to the internet. We have a good connection but it does not allow for easy streaming. This is a multi-point problem because it isn't just about bandwidth. Our proxy does a great job and at times it is too good. We have problems with it messing up updates and allowing for successful streaming. So, many of these projects are fun and they could work some of the time I can't guarantee that they would work all of the time. Even though we are a 1x1 school I have come across the problem of students not having internet access at home or their parents limit the amount of internet they have access to. For some projects and assignments this wouldn't be a problem but using an app based tool I can see the issue of slow connections or limited connections. One way I could work around this is to allow students to create during classtime. However, this could be a waste of classtime if students don't have a strong enough connection in my room to complete the necessary task.
One project I'm going to bring up to our administration is the podcast guided tour. I think it would be a great marketing tool to have students make short podcasts that could be incorporated into our website to show what they are learning and/or why St. Joe's is a good fit for them. This could be something recruiters could point to when they are telling other schools in the area about the programs we offer. This could also be used by our newspaper staff. Instead of writing articles they could make a podcast that we could upload to our site.
