Non-Examples Work Well
October 2, 2008 — Vanessa RileyWell, yesterday, I forced my podcasting students to listen to a short “State of the School” podcast. We listened and we completed an evaluation rubric that I borrowed from Region IV’s podcasting in-service for teachers.
One thing that I learned from teaching writing is this: students love to find fault with other people’s products, and giving them a rubric gives them a chance to exercise this to the fullest. They weren’t overly mean, just creative in some of their responses.
They all decided that we could create a much more professional podcast that the one that we listened to. I think they saw it as a challenge. Hooray! The motivation is there!
A teachable moment today: The Klein ISD wikipedia page was edited with derogatory comments (with an especially stinging comment about Vistas) that was quickly changed back, but not before they were seen. I decided to use this to our advantage and pressed the idea that all of the materials that come out of our school need to be professional and appropriate so that we could shake the negative stereotypes that harangue our school (Wikipedia users are still debating on whether or not we are *actually* a school – The word “Program” throws them off.). This too, they took as a challenge and are eager to dispel any myths about the intelligence level on our campus.
The problem that I am now facing is the filter – nearly every page we try to access for example podcasts is categorized as “audio-visual” and is blocked. Podcasting is a pretty “audio-visual” field, so we are trying to figure out a way to allow access to appropriate sites. Copyright-free music and other sound files that we want to use are blocked, and it’s a pain to save on my home computer and transfer the files over to my school computer. It’s very hard to get the students to listen to podcasts that they aren’t interested in, and I can see why. It’s hard work.
March 20, 2009 at 6:13 am
I understand completely about the filter issue. Hopefully we are moving in the right direction to a more open internet, but it is going to be a slow process. I appreciate your work in making this happen.
I want to hear more about your teachable wikipedia moment. Let’s talk on Wednesday.
March 20, 2009 at 10:55 am
This is a problem that we’ve had for well over two years. I can’t believe that there is no way to allow quality podcasting sites through the filter.
If I understand correctly, you would in essence need to construct your own webpage containing quality audio/video; get it approved by KISD; and take time each day and/or week to update the webpage? If this is the case, who is in charge of allowing these sites through the filter?
I tried to gain approval for the website, Engines of Our Ingenuity by Dr. John Leinhard at University of Houston. Since it’s an audio/visual site the district says, “no, your site request is catologued correctly”. Yes, I know that it is an audio/visual site and that it is catalogued correctly. I requested approval to allow the site to be used by me in my classroom to help educate my students.
I am concerned that we are not allowed to have access to any audio/visual websites. I don’t understand why students are allowed access to video games, but not to quality audio/visual websites that have a powerful educational impact. As a podcasting class, it seems counter-productive to not allow students access to the very product that they are expected to produce.