This week we're learning about podcasts and vidcasts. It's exciting that I'm building an entire multimedia home page. It's neat (and challenging) to see how everything is done. It's surprisingly simple! I think children would really enjoy doing vidcasts. I would like to have my students record a play about the various explorers or about life in Mesopatania for example. I would like to have students make a podcast of their own book on tape using lots of animation. This would encourage writing and reading with expression.
The skills that I'm learning are being spread as quickly as I learn them. I didn't realize that my 11 year old son was watching me set up my google calender. The next day he was making and printing his own. He was so excited about it. We both enjoyed setting up repeating events. This would be a good thing for students to learn so they can organize their activities and homework. The coming generation is truly computer literate. Facebook, email, YouTube, texting, and other technology is commonplace to them. They live in an age of instant communication.
I watched the video called "why blog?" It's amazing how many benefits there are of blogging. I think the interaction with other people, the creativity, reflection, and having an audience are great byproducts of blogging. My teenageer isn't a huge communicator but I think blogging has expanded his thinking and vocabulary. I would love to have students blog about a book that we are reading together, make comments about current events, or debate about controversial social studies topics.