Module 4

I enjoyed the simple irony of the New Literacies video!

I have a sad confession to make..........despite being fairly well technologically literate, and also having a strong interest in music, I have missed (so far) the whole MP3 thing.  I don't have an ipod or an iphone, and I have only used itunes in very limited ways.  I'm still very much a cd person, and also have never previously used podcasts.

So my experience in this area is relatively limted, and thus I suppose is my imagination regarding how podcasts might be used in learning.  To me they seem to be an extension of the old 'make a tape recording of...' activity that I used back in the day, which was always an interesting variation on writing as a form of publication, but invariably fraught with some difficulties from the technical to social.  Obviously the enhanced access that our students today have to technology for creating podcasts, and combining them with visuals in different formats is a clear improvement on past scenarios.  One of the challenges in my mind is creating authentic audiences for such products....there are just so many bits and pieces floating around on the internet that in some ways I hesitate to add more!

Last week I made some use of digital storytelling (if you could call it that!) as a way of carrying out my module evaluation with my English class.  Thus I gave the students a real audience for their creation - they could direct it to me, prospective students or to the Principal (if they wanted to give him feedback on how the course was going).  I presented this as a challenge type task in which their mission was to 'find a way to communicate to others their views on the module and what they had learned during the term in English'.  They could have created an advertisement, straight speech or interview, and given the brief time available they all decided to carry out interviews.

I think that this activity and the material presented in Module 4 have given me more food for thought about further ways in which ICT tools can be used to develop, record and present students' understandings in creative, enjoyable and easily shared ways.