Blog Post #4

Podcasting with First Graders


Podcasting addresses the following skills:

• listening
• speaking 
• presenting 
• comprehension 
• story telling 
• performance 
• voice acting 
• oral fluency
• media 
• technology

Silvia Tolisano is right when saying, "Believe it or not, but having an audience matters... even to six year olds."

She started off by picking a book that her class would enjoy reading called, Vacation under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne from the Magic Tree House series. She broke down the book by chapters and discussed it as a class, then she had her students come up with questions and answers. Once the whole book was completed the students were rotated and recorded so that each student participated. Silvia Tolisano's results were amazing. The students paid attention to what was going on the whole time and were really interested in editing parts of the podcast. My favorite part about her findings was when she mentioned that the shy students were fully engaged as well and "coming out of their shells."

1st Graders Create Their Own Read-Along Audiobook

Teaching first graders how to podcast is amazing. I enjoyed listening to all their books they recorded. I could hear in their voices how excited they were. The students were fully engaged in the activity and were very creative when bringing their characters to life. This is a new and inspirational way to get all students involved with reading even for the students who don't like to read. Recording the student's voices will encourage students to want to read better. Also, creating a booklet is a definite plus for the students so that they are able to follow along.

Listening-Comprehension-Podcasting

I loved this post from Silvia Tolisano's blog because she fully explains why it's important for younger students to learn about podcasting. That in order to learn a new word a student must review the word multiple times and listen to the context it was written in. Silvia points out that tone matters when teaching students new words. That the words surrounding the definition as equally important as the word being learned.