Response Blog #3

Podcast seem like they are an excellent tool to use in the classroom. I have never used one myself but I did observe an excellent teacher use one in his AP Biology class last year.
The teacher was able to take a podcast that he found on http://epnweb.org (which I thought was fantastic that Richardson mentioned this same address in his book)and use a podcast to spark a role playing debate about genetics and their place in our society.
I personally am still finding how to set my own up, but this year i do plan on using one from the aforementioned website. It is an excellent way to get your students to see how podcast can be used in the classroom and supplement your curriculum and bring some excitement to your students.
In Chapter 9 on Richardson's book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcast, and other Powerful Web tools for the classroom", Richardson states "We are at the beginning of a radically different relationship with the Internet, one that has long standing implications for educators and students"(Richardson, p133). This statement stood out because I agree that we our at a very important time in relation to technology and public schools. Over the last few years I have only seen a handful of teachers use the read/write web effectively in their classroom. Most have said it hard to fit it into their busy schedule or their just unsure of the technology side. Those 5 teachers that I have seen effectively use the Internet seem to have saved themselves time in the long run as well as (and most importantly) enriched their students education.
Richardson speaks of "ten big shifts" in the transfer of education using the read/write web. The most important of which is "big shift #6: Readers are no longer just readers". Richardson states that "...now given the opportunity to converse and interact with the sources they find, readers must also be writers"(Richardson p130). A growing trend that I have seen in students over the last few years is their inability to successfully process what they have learned/read and then write about the material on an "acceptable level". Hopefully with more teachers implementing blogs, wikis, and podcast into their classrooms; our students will shift to become better writers.