Here’s our latest Green Team Here’s our latest Green Team announcement promoting Earth Hour at WEJ! It’s been airing all week over the morning announcements and is posted on our school blog site (www.wej1.blogspot.com)

Listen

Shaw

Hi Nathan and Jane!

We finally have our “How to” science podcasts posted on our classroom blogsite (http://www.wej33.blogspot.com/)! This project was a procedural writing/reflection piece created from knowledge we gained during our trip to the Museum of Science and Technology. We attended workshops on stability and forces. The bed tracks used for the podcasts were developed as a class on a SMART board using Acid Express (thanks for that latest TLLP workshop session!). A great shared lesson integrating technology and music!

Thanks again for the PLC, my students are truly benefiting from the PD provided by you!

Cheers, back to reports!

Jamie Barteaux

Grade 3 – CCT – W.E. Johnston P.S.

Hi Nathan and Jane and everyone

Here is my classes blog. It is with the French program using the plays from AIM, and with the students making their own radio broadcast with the weather, sports, ect.

The address is

http://radiosalleneuf.edublogs.org/

There are more pictures on our school website as I want to keep a lot of the space for the podcasts.

Our school web site is

http://www.munsteres.ocdsb.ca

and click on “Francais” in the “classroom News” area. There will soon be a link between these two pages.

Hope everyone is well. Colleen

Hi Nathan and Jane,

I have recently been delving into the blog scene for my classroom. I figured I would share as it has our podcasts posted there, as well as some other resources for parents and educators. It is a work in progress, but I am happy with the ease of creation and editing that Blogger has to offer! The site isn’t linked to our school page as of yet as I am still in my “Beta” version of the site and learning all it has to offer. Unfortunately, a lot of the content is blocked by the board filter even though it is educational and safe for viewing. Check it out!

http://wej33.blogspot.com

Thanks again for the inspiration with regards to the podcasts!

Jamie
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Jamie Barteaux
Grade 3 – CCT – W.E. Johnston P.S.

Here’s a message from OCDSB teacher, Lorraine Montgomery:

Hi all,

Please do visit our classroom podcast site:

We recorded our presentation from Tuesday and also now have our first Point of View podcast uploaded for listening.  My students would love to have comments posted for them to read on Monday when we go to lab.

Cheers!

Lorraine Montgomery
Dunlop PS 5/6

Hi Jane and Nathan,

More success from WEJ! We are loving the equipment and PD we have received as it is paying dividends!

Recently, my grade 3 class had a parent volunteer into present about her grandfather – a veteran of WW1 – Vimy Ridge.

To keep the students involved and active in the presentation (which was easy she is a great presenter) I borrowed a 5W’s and H graphic organizer to help the students write down information they heard during the presentation.

After the presentation was done, in small groups of 4 or 5 I had them share their organizers with each other to add to what they had written down. We then took up up together on the Smartboard. Next, I assigned one aspect (Who, what , where..) to each small group for them to convert the jots into a paragraph or two. Then, they decided who would say what and we recorded the tracks. I did most of the editing this time in Audacity and layed the music bed, but I modelled it for them on the Smartboard with hopes that after a few tries they will be able to do the majority of the editing. Roughly 200 minutes from start to finish, with a little extra time for me to polish.

Overall, this was a fun, fast and fruitful activity. The kids (and parents) really do love to hear the finished product, Check it out! As Jane mentioned it is on our school website’s parent page at

http://wej4.blogspot.com/

The other brief clip “The Call” was recorded using the DVR [digital voice recorder] we got in the package as well. Although the quality wasn’t very good because of all the excitement, etc. going on in the background the content is truely Canadian! This was an enrichment project for a student to gather some audio (interviews and play by play) from our ministick league final game. “The Call” is the winning goal from the overtime shootout!:-)

Thanks again Nathan and Jane! Podcasting rocks!

Jamie Barteux

W. Erskine Johnston Public School

Shaw Jackson is a participant in our TLLP podcast workshops.

Hi Nathan,

I did a podcast with our school’s EarthCare Green Team advertising our upcoming Festive Light Exchange. We are playing this brief announcement over the PA system each morning this week. Parents can also hear this podcast at our school’s website (wej1.blogspot.com) – click the Parents link.

It did not take too much time at all to create this (writing the script, recording the voices, editing). We used the portable audio recorder to record the students’ voices. The music was downloaded from Soundsnap.com.

Shaw Jackson
WEJ

P.S. Just wanted to let you know that another teacher here at WEJ, Pat Ollevier also worked on our Festive Light podcast (we run the Green Team together). She was eager to learn about audacity!

Download

I was just recently asked by a journalist if I knew of any student produced podcasts done in Toronto schools. It was really difficult to answer that question. One problem is that a lot of these podcasts are really only being done for a particular audience and so they don’t “advertise” by registering with a podcast provider or a directory.

I keep my eye on the iTunes Education K-12 section. The new and notable area is a great source of information on what I could be subscribing to. I have found several school podcasts that way but not everyone posts to iTunes.

Another place to find podcasts is through podcast directories. An example of one of those is CanadaPodcasts.ca A quick google search will give you all kinds of these but again if people haven’t registered it is hard to find them.

Another problem is that often the podcast descriptions and even the blogs or websites associated with the podcasts don’t give information on where the school is or what grade the students are. Be sure when you post that you provide that information so that others can find you.

So here is my call. If you are producing a podcast with your students please let me know. Leave a comment with this post. We would love to give it a listen. Tell us what school you are at and where and what grades of students are involved.

And as a personal plug…. take some time to listen to our student produced podcast PortableRadio. Our show is produced by two grade 5/6 classes in Stittsville, Ontario just outside of Ottawa.

It is always great to promote one of our own.

Merivale High School, one of our OCDSB high schools, has begun podcasting.  MoRadio is on the air. This project is the brain child of teacher Scott Hughes. They promise “We’ve got Mo Music, Mo entertainment and Mo information than any other Podcast!” . With 3 podcasts out at the time of this writing, they are working hard to meet that promise.

Be sure to visit them at moradio.ca

written by Jane Smith

Studio 26 is a podcast that is produced by the students in Lorraine Montgomery’s grade 6/5 class at Broadview Public School in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board. Lorraine’s students have produced and recorded mystery stories. There are a variety to choose from. The titles get you interested right away: “Who Killed Sarah?”, “Exhibit Gold” and “Unfriendly Family Reunions” are just a few.

Just to keep you guessing, many of the students have recorded the solutions to the mysteries as separate audio entries from the story. This lets you play detective and test your skills of deduction.

Check out this podcast at: http://mysm2000.edublogs.org/