Kid-Cast: http://www.kid-cast.com/
Kid-Cast.com is a great resource to use at school!It is a website for kids to publish their own Podcasts so other kids can listen. It is a safe way for kids to share their ideas, and listen to what other kids have learned as well. A teacher at my school used this last year and the kids absolutely loved it! She also posted it on their class blog so the parents could listen as well. I would love to use this tool in my classroom next year! This website can be used with any grade level and any subject.
Voice Thread: http://voicethread.com/
Voice Thread is another Web 2.0 site that teachers at my school love to use. Voice thread is a multimedia slideshow that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to make comments using a mic or telephone. I know more teachers in the primary grades that use this tool, but it would work great with the older grades as well. For example, last year we made a voice thread to send to the parents over the Christmas Holidays. The kids wrote about what Christmas means to them and then drew a picture. I would put each student's work under the document camera and take a picture of it. Then I would have that child come up and read what they had written. I did that with every student, and then emailed the parents the link. There were some great responses because the parents were so proud when they got to see their child's work. This would be a great tool to use in the upper grades as well. The older kids could make their own voice thread of a story they have written or for any type of presentation. I would recommend this to any teacher because it is easy to use and the kids and parents love it!
Mary Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of Kid-Cast. It sounds like a great tool to use in the classroom. I think it would be great for students to do podcasts on what they have learned especially in science and social studies. In second grade, I always had my stuents do a project on a different famous American. They could each do a podcasts on their person and then that could be a listening center for all of the students to listen to what their classmates learned about that person. It is also so important for students to read aloud and listen to themselves so that they can hear their mistakes and listen at how fluent they are. This might be a good way for them to listen to themselves. I will definitely check it out and see if I can use it.
Voice Thread also sounds like a great resource. I loved how you used it for the Christmas project. I know as a parent I would love it. I think most parents would be appreciative of this. I am going to go online and check Voice Thread out. This would be another great way for students to create projects and share what they have learned. It could be done individually or as a group project. Thanks for sharing two new resources. I am excited about the possibility of using them.