Teachers Podcast Poems

November 5th will go down in history for many reasons, not the least of these will be the podcasts made by Luton teachers to reflect the BBCs 'Off By Heart' project enticing children to learn and recite poems off by heart!

It was a murky day as we assembled at the Luton Learning Resources Centre and a full house was promised for this podcasting session. Amazingly some teachers turned up begging to be allowed to come to the session ... we even let them in !

The session began with a look at how people could use digital sound in their classrooms ... all the way from getting the text on a page to be read to keeping a reading record. We moved on to the functionality behind the software of the day - Podium - and simply had a great deal of fun with Podcasting.

You can listen to the Podium Podcasts here.

Podium Podcasting in Luton

The sun shone on us on Friday in Luton where, in the ICT suite of the Luton Learning Resource Centre a group of primary consultants gathered to podcast using the Podium Software from Softease.

The idea was for these professionals to discover both the functionality of the software and the curriculum implications behind its use. Able users they were, with lots of enthusiasm and interpretive minds to see challenges and advantages. The software proved itself on all counts, being simple to use and safe and secure in its operation. The key thing was the application of the concept of recording sound and syndicating it so that subscription meant continuity.

Ideas flowed thick and fast as the consultants worked with the software.

The use of the podcasting as an audio record of reading was developed and as one professional said: 'Rather like and audio blog with each book read being a blog post.' ... and so it was. In Podcasting terms each episode of the podcast of a reading record was associated with a specific book on a specific date with room for comments and 'book review'. The idea that this meant that there could be a wider audience for reading progression and that this could engender a sense of ownership and audience was not lost on the group.

As they mastered the software the consultants worked with multi-tracking ... recording a story on one track and adding sound effects on another. 'Rosie's Walk' by Pat Hutchins was a favourite text here with some very inventive animal sounds produced.

We looked at, and experimented with, the idea that podcasting was a great revision tool and examined its application in teaching and learning languages.

Finally the group looked at the 'scripting tool' and examined how its use to practice and refine speech before publication with its manual autocue could be a real 'tool' for developing the links between reading, writing and speaking.

By the end of the two and a half hour session the consultants had loaded the software onto their laptops, set the systems up to 'ftp' their podcasts to the server, sampled and experimented with the functionality of the software and discussed the contexts.

A great afternoon in the sun in Luton.