My entry for 21st Century Learning Wiki ,which is part of a Virtual Speed Dating Session ( web 2.0 style) that Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is convening on Tuesday 17th July :
Croeso i'r Gymru - Welcome to Wales
A Podcasters Tale! ( with apologies to G. Chaucer)
A brief biography of where I am with Web 2.0 technology and how I came to be here :
I have been a Primary (Elementary) Teacher at my school Cefn Fforest Primary for 19 years having taught right across the age range - from 7 to 11. About 19 months ago I began to see the possibilty of giving my pupils a wider (global) voice, and giving them a 'real' audience as an important thing for me to look into.
I began by downloading probably the most important single piece of software ( freeware ) that I have ever found - Audacity and its MP3 Encoder.
My only problem for about 4 months was that I had no idea how to upload my audio files to the internet, as I didn't understand how the RSS Code for each podcast could be used!!! ( you see a beginner).
I used Audacity myself in the first instance to ensure that I knew how to use it before showing it to pupils ( in retrospect I should probably/ and would if i had to do this again, share this with my pupils earlier.
It wasn't until I stumbled across a number of Podcast hosting sites like Feedburner and Podomatic ( other very good podcast host sites would be Odeo, Jellycast and for video BlipTV and TeacherTube )that it began to dawn on me that this wasn't as difficult as I first thought. In fact uploading a podcast onto Podomatic is basically as easy as a bit of word processing and finding the audio file on your computer and clicking upload.
We were off and running - I began with the notion of creating a Podcast Radioshow Format and indeed our early podcasts were along these lines at Cefn Fforest FM Podcasts. However our podcasting journey has taken us much more into the realm of giving our friends ( link schools around the world ) a window into our small corner of Wales. Fab Podcast Directory is at Recap ( educational podcasts under 5's, 5-11yrs, 11+yrs and College Podcasts)
Some friends that we have met through our podcasting :
Allanah King in Appleby School, Nelson New Zealand
Jane Nicholls Pine Hill School, Dunedin, New Zealand
Kathy Shields Little Voices Kindergarten Podcasts Georgia US
http://mr_h.podomatic.com/ A Storyteller from Texas US
High School Podcasts of note : Chris Fuller's (UK) Spanish Podcast , Joe Dale's French Podcasts (using Voki), Colegio Internacional de Caracas (CIC) Podcasts podcasts( Neudis Abreu on Art )at recap.ltd.uk , Sandia Prep Radio International Podcasts from Albuquerque, New Mexico,
A further source of Educational podcasts across all age ranges is on iTunes Podcast Directory - search Education - K-12.
As a last word there is no way that my pupils would have a readership of their work that they do without our podcasting and class,(978 views) personal blogs (2825 views )- No longer is their work just written for me or their parents - The World reads it as well.
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