A podcast to introduce yourself 

A podcast is an audio recording, similar to a radio programme, but you subscribe to it on your mobile what let you listen to it whenever you like, and as many times as you wish. Nowadays, new technologies are having a heavy impact on education and podcasting is one of the alternatives that is becoming very popular among teachers. Podcasting is one of the latest mediums to emerge into the mainstream and a very interesting alternative to teach our lessons. You can record your podcasts to give explanations to the students about different topics or propose activities, but also you can provide them with different tools to help them to create one by themselves. I am sure they will have a good time feeling like they were a journalist in a radio program🎧🎥🎤. 

There are different programs and applications to create and after that to upload your podcast. In my case,  I recorded the audio with my mobile and I inserted different music and effects using Audacity. It is a free application where you can edit your audios. It is really complete, however, in the beginning, it can be a little bit difficult to use, but after some research, the final result is quite good.  You can upload different audios, join them, insert music, effect, increase or decrease the volume and many different tools that can be considered "more professional". For the labour that we need at the school, you can watch the following video where you can see some tips to create your first podcast. 

The podcasting service that I decided to upload my project is Soundcloud. It is a  platform to share and categorize your audios according to different topics or lessons, something really useful if you decided to use this resource at shcool with your students. They have a free version with a lot of possibilities for listening to different audios, so I invite you to discover all of them.
 
After register on the web site, it was time to start working on the podcast. To create one I followed the following steps🏃🏃: 

1. Decide your topic: In my case, I wanted to do a podcast to welcome my students to the new academic year. I introduced myself and I explained a little bit my intentions and objectives for the year. 

2. After decided the topic it is time to think about what you want to say. The perfect thing will be to write a draft with all the information that you want to say, and after that, write exactly what you want to record. Here, you can see my script. 

3. If you have already created an account into an application to upload your podcast, the next step will be to create a playlist to have your different audios organised. In the link above you can see my playlist for the sixth graders. 

4. The four-step is to record your audio. If you consider that is necessary you can use a program to edit it as I said before. 

5. Finally, after these changes, your podcast will be ready to be uploaded to the platform that you choose.  This is my final result, I hope you like it!

Teacher Sandra · Sixth grade. Lesson 1

See you in the next chapter👋

 Educational slideshows 

As we have commented in previous posts of this blog, visual elements👀 are attractive and motivating for children. It is tested that this kind of factors is going to benefit the student´s learning process, supporting the theory with images, pictures, graphics, videos, and so on. 

Slideshows are one of the possibilities that teachers have to go with their lessons. They are presentations of a series of still images projecting on a screen or in an electronic device. Apart from the one that everybody knows, the power point, there are many different online resources to make your presentation more entertaining, dynamic and attractive to your students. Some of them are the following: Powtoon, Prezi, Biterslide, and the one that I decided to use, Genially. 

👍I absolutely support and recommend this resource to build your own slideshows. The thing that I like the most about this resource is the big amount of templates that they provide to you to carry out your presentation. There are a lot, and about many different fields or thematics. Furthermore, you can add your own images, videos, and associate these elements with different audios. To make your presentation more attractive, you can insert text, with many different types of letter, interactive elements, emojis, transitions and effects. They also have a part with smart blocks with graphics, flowcharts or barchart to make your work more professional. It is easy to use

If you follow the instructions at the beginning you will not have any problem achieving exactly what you have in your mind. Besides, with good scaffolding, you can also ask your children to create one. 

👎If I have to say something negative I would say that the best templates only are for the premium version, so you have to pay for it. 

See you in the next chapter 👋