Turn the Ipod into a teaching tool for special needs students!

My frustration with the reading and studying difficulties of my students forced me to become more creative. I saw them "plugged in" daily to their Ipods and mp3 players and decided I had to harness that to help them learn material for my regents classes.

Well, so far it is a huge success. I have created video podcasts for review for each chapter of my class and the students clammer to get them on their ipods. It is amazing how students who would never study feel very comfortable doing so with this type of technology and approach.

My success led me to create a website over the summer to share my work with others. We created a learning community site with the hope that other teachers will also share their work so we may help students achieve success. It is working so well in my classes so far that a local college is looking at doing some research with the concept and my kids. Visit www.masterymaze.com and explore the maze to see the review masterycasts as well as the other features and philosophy. This has changed the way I teach and my students are thrilled with the results!
It is a whole new way to teach, and it works with special needs students!

Tags: blogging, community, education, learning, masterycast, podcasts, special

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Christine Southard on November 23, 2007 at 4:24am

Wow Maze! I have so many questions for you!

What type of podcasts are you creating? Are you just recording your daily in class lessons or are you creating how-to podcasts specific to your curriculum/topic?

Are you writing the scripts or are your students writing/recording the podcasts for you?

How do you make your podcasts available to your students? I'm asking, b/c in my class we use gcast and we post them on the class website. I'm assuming you post yours on The Maze site, but do you also have them available for itunes?

Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on November 23, 2007 at 11:10am

Take a look-- they are in the Subjects section of my site! I am creating them using Camtasia Studio and I will be running them as a podcast show listing in iTunes as well. We have just finished the album art work for iTunes and are putting the finishing touches on the link. I am hoping to have that submitting in a week or so. The iTunes show will be called MasteryCast for intellectual property reasons- long story!.

My students download them into their video players, and they watch them from the site. I also create a mp3 version which is not on the site yet but will also be downloadable for them,although most of my students are running them through iTunes and not media player, so I am not sure I am going to continue that for too long. The world can watch them from my site-- you only must register to download. When you do, you will see a download link under the podcasts-- you right click and it pulls it to your computer and opens in iTunes.

These are created by me as a review MasteryCast tool. As you will see, the purpose of my site is to share review materials and be a community around the topic of mastery! I will be having students create them as well and I am looking for collaborative student and teacher contributions from the world! I do believe that we can achieve the best results if we work together.

Take a listen to the MasteryCast podcast. My next episode will be on the concept of a masterycast, and how I create it! Let me know how I can help!

Thanks!

Sue Palmer aka The Maze

Permalink Reply by David James on January 5, 2008 at 9:19pm

I am inspired by your story to make podcasts for my students. I have the feeling that I can become real busy just making podcasts to review for tests.

Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on January 6, 2008 at 8:42am

David

It is worth the time! Also, they do not need to be as involved as mine. I started with simple audio only in Audacity and just recorded the summaries of the chapters. The response was so positive that I continued from there. They can be used again as well. I am creating a library of sorts on my site to be shared by the world. You may find other teachers who want to work with you on it. You can spend as little or as much time as you want.

Another option if you have the time ( perhaps in resource) is to have the students record their own! This would be a good processing activity as well as creating the review tool.

Lot's of options. Let me know if I can help!

Sue

Permalink Reply by Christine Southard on January 7, 2008 at 3:24pm

Ask the students to write the scripts for the podcasts, then you can edit the scripts, help them to record using a mp3 recorder, edit the audio with audacity (free) and post the podcasts on your class website using a provider like gcast (also free). Lisa and I have been having the students in our class create podcasts. We even give the kids an option to sign up for the topics that interest them so they have vested interest in creating the podcasts. Here is a link to a podcast the students created on dealing with test anxiety. http://www.herricks.org/webpages/spcollaborative/news.cfm

Permalink Reply by David James on January 22, 2008 at 10:42pm

Last week, we used iPods for oral administration of semester exams. It went so well, our admin gave me the green light to purchase 10 Nanos to use in our Inclusion program. I have several ideas how to use them, I just need to get started. If the rest of my job would leave me alone long enough, I could actually flesh out some of my ideas. :)

Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on January 23, 2008 at 4:33am

Great! Our district uses them for reading tests as well. Great idea. Keep us posted on the uses you come up with. Since I have been podcasting our district has purchased iPods as well. You will find them very useful!

Sue

Permalink Reply by April Chamberlain on January 25, 2008 at 8:04pm

This would be a great place for everyone to share their ideas and help each other flesh them out. Our school district just purchased 25 video iPods for all special ed students in the 6th grade. I have podcasted before for professional development so I am comfortable with the tools but need suggestions from those who have already worked with podcasting in the classroom. I have ready many articles and received some ideas but whould like to learn more.

Permalink Reply by David James on January 25, 2008 at 9:38pm

Our school recently purchased 10 3rd generation Nanos. They are a bit smaller but since they now support video, we can afford more than the video iPods. I have several ideas, but have not fleshed them all out yet. Plan to do a lot with them this semester and keep everyone here posted. Good luck with you and your podcasts. I would love to hear them.

Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on January 26, 2008 at 10:07am

Dave,

I use Camtasia Studio to create mine. I am self taught on the program but find it pretty user friendly. I started in Audacity creating audio only and moved to the "screencasts" once I was pretty comfortable with the audio. I also started with scripts so they would sound better and I would not "stumble" as much. Sometimes I would just read the review sections of the text for my students. The podcasts were behind a password protected site so it was not a copyright issue. Now I create my own scripts so it is not an issue.

Another important thing, I think is not to worry about them being perfect!

Sue

Permalink Reply by April Chamberlain on January 27, 2008 at 9:10am

I have Captivate to record presentations at school but it cost. However, there are two free tools that you can use to create recordings of your desktop - Wink , http://www.debugmode.com/wink/, and Jing, http://www.jingproject.com/.

Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on January 27, 2008 at 10:58am

Thanks. I have just downloaded Jing which I think is also a Tech Smith product, like Camtasia. Will it always be free? I thought it was just in a trial mode? I have not used it as of yet. Can I record audio and the screen at the same time with these?

Thanks for the info!

Sue