The rise of podcasting in schools has been a grassroots occurence. Depending on what school you look at, podcasting -- if present at all -- may be introduced by teachers, administrators, students, media specialists, or technology specialists. At Willowdale Elementary in Omaha, Nebraska, the technology specialist Tony Vincent introduced podcasting and has taken upon himself much of the work of spreading the innovation and guiding the quality of the podcasts produced. At Beverly Elementary School in Birmingham, MI, the media specialist Kristin Fontichiaro podcasts (herself) and hosts a Podcasting Club for 4th graders. The podcast is disseminated through a blog. At other schools, no one is podcasting.
So, imagine a teacher approaches you and asks you if you can help him to start up a podcast for his class (something like Radio WilloWeb). In truth, you may know little about podcasting. So, how do you respond to the teacher? Do you tell him farewell and good luck? Do you tell him you don't know much, but you're willing to find out? What is your role? What are the reasons behind how you choose to respond to this teacher?
If I were approached with podcasting for a class, I would get excited. I may not know alot about the subject but I would be thrilled that a teacher in my building wants to use some of the equiptment already available to us. I would explain that we have digital video recorders, a MAC computer with iMovie, and microphones if needed. I would make my role be the person who can teach the teacher how to use the equiptment and be a resource to the teacher and students as they start the process. I wouldn't want to do all the work because as my mentor once said "If you do it for one, you have to have time and ability to do it for all." I would choose to help the teacher because our administration is excited to see technology used in the classroom and enjoys knowing that teachers and specialists are collaborating. I can see the fifth grade teachers at my school using podcasting with the students. It would be a project where they could create book talks for younger kids. We could podcast them or just start by uploading them to the web for parents and students.
As media specialists, it seems this would fall under our area of "stuff we are expected to know about" as this is a prominent form of media communication and a potentially effective educational tool. Maybe we shouldn't be expected to be the authority on all things blog, but we should be able to point to examples of blogs being used for instruction, and maybe share some of our own blogging efforts, if we are really into that. Even knowing little, we should approach these opportunities with a spirit of helping, even if we need to learn or brush up some, ourselves. We build an army of media program supporters one person at a time.
ReplyDeleteI think that you raise a very important question. What is the appropriate response in the situation? This is a universal question for many similar situations in the Media Center. As a media specialist, you will be seen as the technological guru of your school. Though you will be viewed as the expert, it is important the accept the fact that you cannot know about and master the skills for everything that is out there today. But what you can and must do, is know where to look and be willing to research things as people come to you with questions. "Maybe we shouldn't be expected to be the authority on all things blog, but we should be able to point to examples of blogs being used for instruction" I completely agree with Mike. If you don't know about podcasting, find some great resources that you find beneficial and share these with your teachers! :)
ReplyDeleteFortunately, I have had a little bit of training for podcasting, and I have actually created a couple. I am by no means an expert, but I do have some idea of where to start, and what is needed. In addition, I created an online tutorial/learning module in my instructional design class, so that is something I could make available to teachers who want to get set up on their own. I agree with Patti's point that we don't want to do it all for them--not just because of the time factor, but I'm a firm believer in empowering the teachers to be able to do things "on their own" (with a little guidance), instead of enabling them to rely on others to do things for them. Even at a technology magnet school, you'd be amazed at some of the teachers' resistance to embrace Web 2.0 and technologies which are not exactly "cutting edge" but are new to us as digital immigrants who didn't grow up with these formats.
ReplyDeleteLike Susan said, there are so many teachers that aren't open to using technology in the classroom - especially something relatively new, like podcasting. They simply don't see the importance. What we, as media specialists, need to convey to these teachers is how easy some of these technologies are and how important it is for the students to be knowledgeable about different technologies. You never know when you will really inspire a kid due to technology - they are so willing to try new things. We need to take a page out of our students' books and be willing to learn!
ReplyDeleteI'm just beginning to learn how to use and understand Podcasts. So, if I'm approached about starting a Podcast, I would offer to help. We could put together a Podcast as a collaborative effort to implement technology in the school. The Podcast would promote student achievement and that what's important.
ReplyDeleteHaving worked in a public library, I was never approached for collaboration on an issue such as this. However, I often had the experience of someone asking me for help when they really wanted me to do it for them. It was great that you mentioned how much should the media specialist should be involved. We are there to be a resource but not the creator. It would be hard to make sure you treated every teacher equally, especially when a teacher comes to you with a project that you like. I think that it would be appropriate to help a teacher further if time permits, but to make that known.
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