Podcasting in Kindergarten

K-201 Podcasts: https://sites.google.com/ps112m.org/k201/podcasting

Why podcasting in Kindergarten?

In the summer of 2017 I was attending a technology retreat at the Mohonk Mountain House in upstate NY. During this retreat all of the attendees were exposed to various technology tools and how they can be used to enhance curriculum in our classrooms. What spoke to me was when I was shown the video of a 6 year old boy, Nake Burkuss talking about his very own podcast.

Podcasting fit into the kindergarten classroom seamlessly with the goal of increasing student vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension through the development of their oral language.

Along with this goal our students have gained so much more:

-understanding the digital world better and various platforms available to them.

-opportunities to learn about what they are passionate about and share that learning.

- increase in parent involvement to bridge the connection between home and school.

-being able to share our learning with different audiences.

- feel a part of the "world wide web" of learning.

The Process :

First we exposed students to podcasts and listened to podcasts created for and by other students. We then watched videos of how to create podcasts and had many classroom discussions on what would be needed for us to create one in our classroom.

Here are some examples of story podcasts that we listened to before creating our own story podcast:

After listening to the other podcasts the class discussed what the different sections of a podcast are so that we can recreate them!

We then began working on each step starting with the Opening. The class voted on what music to use and what it should sound like, and what it should say. Next moving on to the Ending of the podcast.

Then the journey of recording began...

In the beginning of the year the focus in the classroom in reading is using story book language: recalling how the book sounds, the sequence of the story, and creating a love for reading!

The students picked Three little bears and The Carrot Seed to Start podcasting:

After creating the story book podcasts the students then decided to create a podcast that is more about giving information. They choose to teach about people in our school community connected to our social studies curriculum. We started this with interviewing and teaching about our school nurse, from this wondering we realized that students lacked two things that they needed in order for these podcasts to be created: asking questions and using descriptive language. This became our goal and focus of the podcast so many activities and lessons were done before the podcasts were even started.

Here are some visual supports used to help with the creation of our informational podcast on the Nurse:

Assessments:

Assessment for Story Podcasts:

Students are assessed based on the level of story telling language used during independent reading. The goal of the podcast was to allow many opportunities for them to hear the language, practice saying the words, and recall the exact language of the text. Once the podcasts were completed students were given the book and the TC story telling rubric was used to determine success of the goal.

Assessments for Informational Podcast:

Students goals for informational podcasts included use of descriptive language and ability to understand and use question words appropriately.
Baseline data was taken where students were asked to interview a community member as well as baseline of looking at the environment and describing what you see. Both of these baselines were recorded.
We then had many lessons to teach into using questions and descriptive language

Next Steps (successes and challenges)

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