Week of October 30

(This post is out of order because I realized I had somehow skipped this week.)
This week I was introduced to podcasting. I have heard of it, and my husband downloads some, but I have had no personal experience with it whatsoever. I found the use of Audacity to be a big difficult. The recording was easy, of course, and the editing wasn't terribly difficult. One frustrating point was listening over and over to my recording in order to pinpoint exactly where the parts were that needed deleting. What I found most challenging was adding in the music. My husband was there to help, and we had a time getting it to begin playing at the right point, getting the volume correctly adjusted, etc. Once we (okay, he mainly) figured it out, however, it was fine. I was pleased with the final result. My presentation was on the three kinds of rocks, and I got a chance to use one of my favorite songs, the theme from "Rocky." I am not sure how effective podcasting is for first graders. They need a lot of stimulating to hold their interest, and I think simply listening would bore them. They would enjoy the music for the first little while, but then they would go into their own world of thinking about something completely different. With first graders, I have found you must incorporate all the learning styles as much as possible - visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
I do think podcasting is useful for upper grades, especially if a student has been absent and missed a lecture. Also, if a student needs remediation it would be useful.