Thing #17

Well, I believe that podcasting in education definitely has the advantage of bringing other worlds and their people into the schools for us to experience. My example of this is the podcast I heard on the Education Podcast with John Merrow - PBS, the podcast directory that I chose to subscribe to.

The first podcast that I listened to was from Haiti after the earthquake, it was entitled "Read, Read, Read" in English but in Creole it is called "Li, Li, Li". The gentleman speaking is in the courtyard of the demolished school where a tent city has sprung up. He is part of a group that is taking books to the children during the day. They carefully select the books to be read so as not to cause the children to become upset by the subject matter. Such as a book about a child's room would be upsetting because these children no longer have homes.

As the gentleman reads he starts out with say 12 children and a few older students standing around. The group increases to around 40 as he reads several books. The children all ask if he will return tomorrow. They have enjoyed the luxury of thinking only about the topic being read to them. This is also something that families did not do on a regular basis prior to the earthquake. So hopefully this will benefit the children as their nation recovers.

The second podcast that I hear was "A Brand New Ballgame". The subject this podcast dealt with is the loss of learning in low socio-economic areas during the summer break. The summer break is a time when these students do not receive the same nutrition as they did during the school year. The partnership of schools and communities is encouraged as a way to provide food and a summer learning environment even though we are having budget cuts in the non-profit areas.

Also, looking at summer school as a way to prepare for the next grade level. A time full of learning that is fun and full of new teaching ideas.

I saw this as relevant here in MISD. Because we do have summer lunch programs and our summer school is evolving into more of a preparation time for the next year. Hopefully, this trend will continue making summer full of learning and promise.

After listening to these two podcast I felt that our ideas can be shared and we can also learn from other teaching communities by listening to each other. This can all be done in our own schools without the cost of travel and with the same benefits in many cases.