My Personal Learning Space!

This posting refers to an online commentry entitled ‘Integrating podcasting into your classroom’ by Colette Cassinelli, Technology Evangelist (2007).

In this commentry, the video quotes the following statement from Mark Prensky: ‘Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital laguage of computers, video games and the internet… our digital immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language, are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language’. The issue that this commentry then addresses is how teachers can learn this new foreign language and then use it within the classroom. By using a program such as Garageband (for Macs) or Audacity (for PC’s) students can make their own radio stations programs. In these programs, students can interview famous people (acted out by other students), recite a poem that they have written, give a verbal account of something that they see, and so much more. Podcasting can be a way by which students teach students about a particular subject, or even communicate with students from another school across the other side of the world. For someone who for the first time only recently made a podcast, I think that it has many uses in the new age classroom, and I cannot wait to have the opportunity to test it out.

This is my second posting I have ever made on a blog before. This being my second because I accidently deleted my first. This blog is a part of one of my UNI class assessments so I will be writing about my experiences with various forms of technology within the Primary Classroom, along with my views and opinions towards various literature and commentaries related to e-learning in the classroom.

In my very first class Ihad the opportunity to try out and experiment with the program photo booth. In this program a student can take a picture of themselves (either using the inbuilt camera which most macs have, or a web cam) and then edit it through the various effects that they have. These effects can ultimately distort images giving them a warped end result. Effects include mirroring, a fish-eyed look, swirling the image and also making a student look as if they are in a cartoon. Students are only limited by their creativity. This program is very simple to use. So simple that I believe students in Kindergarten can use it. Most children now days can use cameras and have basic computer skills so a good end result is quite achievable. These effects can ultimately distort images giving a warped end result. Above is an example of an image I created within class. It was really fun to use, and most of the photos I took were really funny. A teacher can most definately base an art lesson around this program. Hope you like it.