Podcasting to Improve Writing
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Real quick: for the 1001 Flat World Tales project, we had each writer record and podcast him/herself reading the first draft for an audience of one: him/herself (gender pronouns stink).
Podcasting for self-criticism. I know it’s not new, but it’s so easy now. And it seemed to help the young writers hear the parts of their writing that needed improvement. Here’s one student reflection:
The first thing came to my mind was that I had extremely simple and frequent grammar mistakes. I was kind of embarrassed when I heard it. Also, ideas and details sound incomplete and insights are shallow in depth; it was just shallow that proves not much thinking and brainstorming. I should work on ’showing’ since my second draft ‘told’ everything. It sounded like a lecture about Korean cultures. Well, it was embarrassing to listen to my own podcast anyways.
It’s all so easy now. Odeo, Podomatic. Students pick it up quickly, often without needing the teacher to know anything about it at all. How many teachers realize how easy it is to do this sort of thing?
Just thought it was worth a share.
(Photo credit: “EyePod (Revised)” by LeggNet on Flickr.)
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Thanks for posting this! I found it really interesting. My research project is looking at how Podcasting ehances Oral Language specifically and will also look at the off shoots for other literacies. I hope I can use this comment as an example of how through listening and reflecting a student makes thoughtful changes to their writing. Powerful stuff but so simple
[Reply]
Jane Nicholls
15 Mar 07 at 3:14 pm
When more schools stop viewing IPODS as evil it is a great way for the shy student to build up self esteem and prowess in oral presentations by doing it in the comfort of their home and getting the same feedback as if they presented in class. In addition it is easy to save your podcasts in a sort of podcastfolio and encourage students to reflect on progress throughout the year- indeed-simple, but powerful
Brad Davis
professionalexplorations.blogspot.com
[Reply]
B.Davis
15 Mar 07 at 11:05 pm
Thanks for sharing Clay! We used to do this for prepping for IB exams at my last school, and in my mind it was reserved for 11/12th grade. Time to move it on down to my area of the school
[Reply]
Kim Cofino
15 Mar 07 at 11:07 pm
Jane,
Shoot me an email and I’ll give you access to all the reflections my learners wrote after this exercise.
Funny–the reflections showed me that I don’t need to teach them. They learn much better from the podcast.
B.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
16 Mar 07 at 3:58 am
Clay, I like the idea of this a lot. I teach English to 11 -18 year olds. I’ve found that having them read their work aloud encourages a large amount of self editing. You observe them do this when they read something out in class. Speech makes us much more aware of audience and the importance of clarity, both in expression and syntax.
I think there is, at least in my part of the world, a slight feeling that ‘talking’ is not as important as reading and writing. I think we need to think about the relationships between all three areas to develop our students’ communication skills. Thank you for helping me do this.
[Reply]
Mrs. O'Neill's Blog
17 Mar 07 at 5:30 am