Thing #17

I previewed a number of the podcasts including Webster's Word of the Day, Teachers Teaching Teachers, Just One More Book, and Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips.  The two podcast directories I liked the most were Learn Out Loud and PBS Podcasts. With Learn Out Loud, you can learn Spanish, French, or improve your English just to name a few things.  Since I'm more of a visual learner and so are most of my students, I chose  the PBS Podcast DragonflyTV as a science learning tool to follow.  We will no longer have Discovery Education streaming videos so this podcast will help my students learn about topics visually, and on their level.  For myself, I picked The Victory Garden so I can enjoy watching someone who knows what they're doing plant flowers and have them actually grow!  In the Education Podcast Network I found 1-Maple Audiobooks which had first grade students reading original books they had written.  It was a great idea because their families and friends from across the country (maybe around the world) could hear their children's voices reading and then post encouraging comments.  It was a great idea for encouraging students to want to write and read even more.  The speech therapist let me use two iPod nanos with my students at the end of this last year.  I put music and pictures on them and used one with my autistic student to record his speech and encourage more verbalization.  He was fascinated.  I can see where these podcasts could be a very useful tool in the classroom.