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Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Dr. Z Shares his Research on Building Student-Teacher Connections on the Teaching-in-10 Podcast

I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by Dr. Sarah Montgomery for her Teaching in 10 Podcast.  This podcast is designed to allow higher education faculty to share teaching strategies and stories about how they engage students and support student success and well-being.  

In my session, I discussed how I have been using an Opening Question Activity in my classes (both on-line and in-person) to build connections with my undergrad students.

I begin each class session by asking each student the question for the day.  These questions might be "What are your hidden talents" or "If you could have a super power, what would it be?"  Taking the time to ask each individual provides them a chance to share something about themselves and for me to learn more about them.  The most important part is that it builds a connection between me and my students.  It makes a BIG difference.

We discuss the research I have been doing on using these questions to start a class. You may remember that I discussed this earlier in Dr. Z Reflects (Connecting with Students through Opening Questions).  We even discussed the additional research that I did at the same time about Why Students Turn Off their Online Cameras which I also shared on this blog.

Please give it a listen and give me some feedback about what you have experienced using icebreaker questions or other methods for connecting with your students.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Z

Friday, January 24, 2014

Moving Away from "Teaching" Toward Empowering Students


Vicki Davis is a Cool Cat Teacher.  Actually she is THE Cool Cat Teacher.  You may have heard of her blog, CoolCatTeacher.com  It is the most visited education blog followed on the planet. 

Fortunately I had the opportunity to meet Vicki a few years ago and become good friends over the year. I am in absolute awe of her as a teacher, blogger, educator, motivator and organizer (do you know that she has over 100 people come to her house for Thanksgiving and she LOVES it!!!)

One of Vicki's latest projects is her Every Classroom Matters Podcast through the BAM!RadioNetwork. Vicki uses this podcast to interview a variety of educators from around the world about their areas of passion. These 10-minute interviews range from 21st Century Learning to Financial Literacy to Empowering Students.  Fascinating stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Mrs. Davis.  She asked me some interesting questions about my teaching philosophies and practices. She wanted to know about how I interact with students and what happens in my classes. In listening to the interview, it turns out that she didn't have to ask me too many questions at all because I just kept talking . . .

Anyway, here is the link to the interview.  I would suggest that you click on the iTunes link to listen to it.

Listen to the podcast by clicking below: 

It is #6 in the iTunes list. They named it "Steps away from Teaching . . . "

Moving Away from "Teaching" 
Toward Empowering Students
Audio Interview with Dr. Z

Saturday, June 16, 2012

How to Subscribe to Podcasts

iTunes 6, vlog, shared libraries
iTunes 6, vlog, shared libraries (Photo credit: thepatrick)
Now that you have the background for podcasting, it is time for you to subscribe to some podcasts.  How do you go about doing that?

It is possible to go to a site directly and subscribe to a podcast from a specific website, but that can get a little complicated.  I would suggest that you use iTunes to organize your podcasts. iTunes began as just music management application, but it has blossomed into so much more. Now you can use it to organize songs, TV shows, podcasts, movies, books and even radio stations.  Let's see what it will take to use iTunes to organize your podcast listening on your computer.
  1. Download iTunes to your computer.  It is available for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms.
  2. Next open an Apple account. This will be part of the process of initializing iTunes.
  3. Find a podcast to which you want to subscribe.
    1. Go to the iTunes store (this cannot be accessed through your browser. You must use the iTunes application to access the iTunes store.
  4. Across top of the opening iTunes screen, you should see a black menu bar. Click on the Podcasts link.
  5. You will find a plethora of podcasts. Click on the drop down menu in the upper right corner under the "Podcast Quick Links" header.  Select Education.
  6.  A wide collection of podcasts will appear on your screen. You can select audio or video with the buttons in the upper right corner.  Explore for a little bit.
  7. Find a podcast that you find interesting.  It might Story Nory (elementary story books), This Week in Science, Ted Talks (an necessary addition to your collection), or whatever looks good.
  8. Click the Subscribe Free button below your selected podcast.
  9. iTunes should immediately subscribe to the podcast for you. Click on the Podcast link in the left column of your iTunes app. You should see your selected podcast in the list.
  10. Click on the arrow to the left of your selected podcast. It will provide a list of podcasts that are greyed-out. This means that they are not yet on your computer but you can select them by clicking on the Get button to the right of each title.
  11. Click on the Get button next to a couple of the episodes. You will see them begin to download. The title will turn black.
  12. Double-click on one of your selections and it will begin playing.
Now you can listen to your podcasts using iTunes on your computer.


Searching for a Podcast and Subscribing.
  1. Return to the iTunes store (click on iTunes Store in the left column) and click on the Podcast selection.
  2. Using the Search Store box in the upper right corner, enter "Z & M MediaCast" and hit Return.
  3. Our podcast will appear.  Isn't that cool!!!!!!!! 
  4. Click on the Subscribe Free button below it and subscribe to our podcast.
  5. Remember to go to iTunes to ensure that they have been downloaded onto your computer.
Downloading Your Podcasts to Your iPod, iPad or Phone
Now you have your podcasts on your computer but maybe you don't want to sit at your computer while you listen to them. Wouldn't it be great if you could download your podcasts to your iPod or iPad or phone?  You can.

The process is actually called synching.  This means that files on your computer will be downloaded to your phone and files on your phone will be uploaded to your computer so that they are the same ('N Sync). You can actually modify the synching process so they only synch the podcasts or songs or ????  BTW, you need to have a Smart Phone (not necessarily an iPhone) to do this.

Here is a video that tells you how to do this:

If you don't want to use iTunes to corral your podcasts, you can download specific podcasting apps for your smart phone.  I use Downcast.  I don't know how to link this with iTunes, but it does have access to some rather interesting podcasts.

What do you use?  How do you use podcasts?

Z

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Friday, June 15, 2012

RSS in Education

English: Podcast or podcasting icon Français :...
English: Podcast or podcasting icon Français : Icône pour les podcasts ou la baladodiffusion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
RSS (Real Simple Syndication)
RSS is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Resources (audio or video) placed on the web are given an RSS Feed. This RSS Feed enables users to subscribe using RSS readers (e.g., iTunes, iGoogle). A user only needs to open the RSS reader and it will automatically check and load new episodes from the subscribed podcasts.

It is important to remember that it is the RSS that makes it podcasting. It is a form of automated delivery or subscription.  You can use RSS for audio files or video files. Blogs use RSS for subscription as well. You might even say that Blogs are podcasted using the model we are discussing.

RSS in Plain English


Educational Podcasting
Podcasting is a medium that teachers can use for teaching ideas and students can use for sharing their knowledge. It provides a medium for organizing and sharing resources. Students can create projects that can be posted to the web and available for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even university students to enjoy.

Watch each of these 3 10-minute videos (not vodcasts) to hear how educators use podcasts.
  • Podcasting in Education 1 - What is Podcasting?  How to create a podcast using Garageband 3. (You will not be required to use Garageband to do your assignment, but it is an interesting demonstration that can be generalized to other tools.)
  • Podcasting in Education 2 - 7th grade Language Arts middle school teacher from Wisconsin. She uses podcasting for her Integrated Thematic Curriculum.
  • Podcasting in Education 3 - Middle School Principal from Georgia sharing how use podcasting to reach out to the community.
Additional Resources:

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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Listen to my Blog - Odiogo Audiblizes Dr. Z Reflects

This Odiogo opportunity is snaZZy!!!

If you are too busy to read Dr. Z Reflects, now you can listen to it.  I was reading the latest posting in David Warlick's blog, 2 Cents Worth, when I noticed that there were buttons at the beginning of each posting that allowed me to listen to the posting instead of having to read it.  Not that I am lazy, but it was a wonder option.

Odiogo provides a audio podcast production system that will use sophisticated text-to-speech technologies to verbally read each of my postings into an MP3 file that can then be played through iTunes or some other music player system.  I am quite impressed with quality of the synthesized voice.
Now, as well as subscribing to the RSS feed for the textual version of Dr. Z Reflects, you will able to subscribe to an audio podcast RSS feed so that you can listen to a computer read my blog to you. 

Think of the opportunities that such a system. It isn't difficult to do. Here is a video on the Odiogo blog that shows how you can add it to your TypePad blog.  Adding it to Blogger is basically the same process.

Imagine what you can do with you can "mobilize your media" to make it available on your phone and iPod.

What do you think?  How do you see that you might use Odiogo to mobilize YOUR media?

Z
image: odiogo.com

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Podcasting from Your Phone

Podcasting is a great way to record what is happening or what is on your mind, but the technology is sometimes daunting for some educators. That's too bad because usually simple is best. Cell phones are in everybody's pocket in schools today. Yes, school policy usually restricts students from having cell phones at school, but they have them anyway. Wouldn't it be interesting to find an academic application for them?


I just returned from joining 15,000 of my best friends to ride our bikes across Iowa (500 miles) in a week. This was an annual experience called RAGBRAI and I rode with Team Flamingo. This experience is something that I wanted to share with my friends and readers so I created our Team Flamingo blog. I tried to maintain the text-based blog, but the wireless access was limited from the back of my bike. =-)

I tried posting to our blog using by texting from my Treo 800p smartphone, but Verizon decided to add 9 additional lines of advertisements to the end of each of my posts. I called up Verizon and went to their stores to find out how to stop this but it wasn't possible.

Ultimately, I decided to use my phone to post audio podcasts to my blog. It was easy to call the 888 number and leave updates about our progress. It was easy, it was quick and it was effective.
The coolest part of it was that I could embed the podcast receptor into my webpage/blog. This made it easy to access and enjoy.

I used GCast. It only took creating an account and then putting the receptor on my webpage/blog. I called up the GCast phone number, 888-654-2278. I entered my secret code number. Then I created the podcast. When I was done, I could review the podcast to approve or deny its posting. Once I have approved the podcast, it was posted within minutes. Best of all, this is FREE. You can even upload files from your computer if you want to include a file that you custom-made instead of limiting it to the phone versions. I found that I could even subscribe to the RSS feed of my GCast podcast using iTunes.

A similar service is Gabcast. You call a toll-free number (they provide phone numbers for multiple continents) and leave your thoughts through your phone. Gabcast has a three levels of service. The free version doesn't allow you to upload files from your computer but you can do that for $6 or $12 per month. Paying for the service will provide you with more storage space services as well. One capability that I found in Gabcast that didn't seem to be in Gcast is that you can link to individual recordings. They suggested that you could use this to verbally explain things like eBay postings or interesting webpages.

Westley Fryer wrote an informative article about these sorts of tools entitled Mobile Digital Storytelling for The TechEdge: The Journal of the Texas Computer Education Association. This is an informative article with lots of links if you want to learn more about it.

I don't know that this storytelling is the only way that students will benefit from this mobile digital recording system, but it provides an exciting way to chronical throughts, ideas and experiences.

Have you used these tools? If so, share what you have done.

Z

Friday, September 07, 2007

Is the Medium the Message?

I must say that I am having a wonderful time reading and responding to the blogs that my students in our Emerging Instructional Technology course are writing. Different students are evolving in their expressions at different levels and it is exciting to see how things are growing. Some students are introducing themselves to the world in their early postings. Some students are sharing emerging technologies (complete with direct links to the sites under discussion.) Some students are reflecting on how we are exploring the exploding world of Emerging Technologies.

One such blog where the student is exploring her world of learning is Put Up Your Dukes.
Sarah is explaining how she is finding direct comparisons between the technology environments found in k-12 with the corporate world. She says that the comments/experiences/problems she is hearing from the Tech Coordinator of Maine about the 1:1 computer initiative is quite similar to her experience in the business world.

Perhaps the most exciting part of her postings is her reactions to learning about things through different forms of media. She has listened to the podcast about 1:1 computing in Maine. She watched and listened to a PowerPoint presentation from Boston College about their research into the differences that providing 5th graders with laptop computers for 24/7 use can make on their learning. She says that listening to the discussion engaged her better than reading a textbook or article. She isn't talking about the content but rather about the medium through which it is delivered.

In 1964, Marshal McLuan said that "The medium is the message."
He was stating that the content was almost irrelevant and that it is the medium through which the content is delivered that "changes our consciousness." This student who is engaged with content because she "can multitask, reflect, make connections, talk to people, hear or see things I wouldn't have come up with on my own."

There is a great deal to be considered here. It sounds like a cliche, but in the multimedia world, we need to engage our students by sharing content with them through media that are important to them and that correlate with their learning conduits.