Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (ch 8) Reflection

There were a lot of different technologies talked about in chapter 8 of Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts that would be great to use in any classroom. The tools talked about all had to do with producing audio or video that could be shared with anyone in the world. The tool I liked the most was publishing videos to the web. I’m sure a lot of the students that I will teach in the future will have either posted a video to YouTube or watched a video from that site. As a teacher, I want to make sure that my students know how to use these sites appropriately so I would incorporate them into my classroom. One way to do this would be to tape students giving presentations during the day and upload them to the internet so their family and friends would also be able to view them. You could also tape announcements every day and have them on a wiki or blog that parents can access to find out the important events that are coming up. The chapter also talked about podcasting. I like the idea of podcasting because it could be used to tape lectures given in class. Once you tape the lectures you could post them to a blog, wiki, or to your own website so students would be able to access them at a later time. This would allow them to add to existing notes, or catch up on notes if they missed class for some reason. The only draw back for this would be that students may deliberately skip class because they know you will post the lecture online later and they will still get all the information as everyone else. You would have to think of a way to make sure that this didn’t become the case because it could punish everyone if you had to stop posting your lectures. As future teachers, I feel it’s our duty to learn about all the ways that we can help our students succeed so when we get into our classrooms we will have a big toolbox to use. I want to be able to solve any problem that my students throw at me, whether it is keeping them engaged or finding a different way for them to learn something. I want to help my students succeed in school as well as in life and I know that they will be asked to use different types of technology in whatever they decide to do after they graduate. By introducing them to new technology or helping them get better at using the technology that they already use, I am preparing them for their future as well as helping them learn the information they need to know now for the class they are in.