My final podcast for this class….weird to think that we have made it thus far. In this podcast I will be discussing how I am going to take these new found skills of blogging and podcasting into the classroom setting. I have really enjoyed doing the podcasts and blogs with this class and have learned so much in such a short amount of time. When I began this class, I had heard of blogs, but I had no idea what it was or how to use one. Then the podcasting came along and that was totally forgien to me. Now that the class is completed, I can say that not only to I have a stronger understanding about blogging and podcasting, but I also understand and have knowledge of how to use, create and listen to one.

How will I use it in the class??? Well I will use it to help students with information that is in an audio file. For instance, if they need help with homework and forget how to do the assignment, they can go to my podcast and listen to today’s notes on the lesson. This will help them to understand a step of part of the lesson that they may have been confused about.

Click here to listen (1.19 MB)

For this review, I wanted to post this all for you because child obesity is very important and has become a very big problem to deal with.  There are more and more students every year that have serious health problems because they are over weight. Studies have shown that child today are having adult like symptoms of over weight. Such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and asthma.

In my class, I make sure that they are active each day. We do an activity that is called the 100 mile club where each day we run laps around the field. Every day we add on a lap- for example- on Mondays they run 1 lap, Tuesday they run 2 laps etc. Then by Friday, they are running a full mile of 5 laps. Every set of five goes toward miles for the goal of reaching 100 miles. Children need to learn nutrition, exercises, why and how to take better care of their bodies, and about self image. Why wait until they are in High School to discuss this with them. By then, many of them are over weight, have these related problems, or better yet…in serious trouble.

Next year, the state is banning all candy and sodas in the schools. Not saying that this is going to cure the problem, but for the 6 hours or so that they are with us, they can certainly be eating better. For my class, to get a  piece of candy is a big deal. If the kids are hungry and need something to snack on, I have a fruit basket in my class so my students can go over and have a fruit instead of junk.

Listen to the podcast from parents magazine.com and here what they have to say about how to help, control, and prevent child obesity.

Overweight children

I wanted to dedicate this podcast to how to use technology in the classroom to better reach my students. I use a great deal of technology and media in my class to help reach all my students (ELL’s, GATE, and the lower achieving students). The types of technology that I use on a daily basis is of course the computers, LCD projectors, TV, grade cam, cameras, and laptops. I am apart of the Fifth Grade team this year which is an accumulation of techy’s. We all have LCD projectors, laptops, 3-4 computers in the class for student use, and a grade cam. We all attend conferences and work on purchasing more technology for our school.

In my podcast, I also talk about how I am a DEN member for Discovery. DEN stands for Discovery Education Network teacher. Discovery selects several teachers a year (through an interviewed process) to represent Discovery and use their technology for the students.

Listen and enjoy… and use technology in your class. Don’t be afraid to teach your students as well.

Click Here to Listen (1.61 MB)