Pouncing on Podcasts

          As I prepared for this assignment, I took a look back at a previous podcast I created using Soundcloud.  It was a quiet Saturday morning and I pretended to be an author as I “interviewed” myself.  That was the extent of my experience.  It took less than 5 minutes to create and I was more nervous about listening to myself on audio.

          This type of podcast sparked an interest in me and I often thought about what I could do with podcasts in my first grade classroom.  Needless to say, I did not pursue it since our campus was hit pretty hard with budget cuts this year.  I currently have one laptop in my classroom that I only use to take attendance.  So, basically our school is going back to the Stone Age and some of us have talked about sending smoke signals as our new method for email.  But, I digress.

          Through my 14 years of teaching elementary students, I would often communicate with parents and students by creating class newsletters and I always wondered what would be my next step when informing students of upcoming events.

          I thought about creating a news channel where students would read the daily news, but this wasn’t available to us.  So, on to the next big thing.  What if I could have students read the daily news via podcasts?  It was fairly easy to use Soundcloud, so why not?  I would designate a different student on a weekly basis to read our school’s daily news to our classroom.  Perfect!

          The trick was definitely having them feel comfortable enough to be recorded.  Some would feel okay with it and others would be hesitant.  Either way, it wouldn’t be forced on them and some would benefit from it greatly, especially in building their confidence in public speaking.

          This new venture begins with allowing students to create daily news podcasts.  We will start off small and hope to gain some speed along the way.  Here we go!

https://soundcloud.com/melisa473/lopez-podcast-1






Podcast was read by my beautiful daughter, Erin.