This week I’m going to take a leaf out of the book that the major television networks seem to operate from and show a repeat post. This isn’t because the news from our classroom is a bit thin on the ground (NAPLAN…), it’s actually a perfect opportunity to show the students in my current class how to produce a clear, interesting and entertaining podcast. It will also give me an opportunity to demonstrate a few of the uses for podcasts in the classroom. Also, a few of the schools in our local area are interested in producing podcasts and this will give a bit of an explanation as to why I use them.

The first one was made by Holly and shows how podcasting can be introduced to the Pre-Primaries. It was a simple example of students presenting their news in a format that their parents can listen to on the blog. Also, it gave Holly an opportunity to demonstrate her great interpersonal skills. The second shows how podcasts can be used to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of a topic, in this case post traumatic stress disorder (a topic from or studies of the Vietnam War). The final one is a discussion where students chat informally about their opinions on a quite personal topic (this was a deep topic but it tied in with a learning programme we were doing). This type of podcast still relies on the formalities of turn taking and expression, rather than just playground type speech.