I am having my students take the topic list, essential questions and unit questions for our study of the Interwar years and have them voice record their current understanding of each. This should especially help those students who struggle getting their ideas down from their minds through their fingers into Word documents. It should also offer another modality to support their efforts to take notes and outline. What I will be interested to survey is when they students review for their external exams to see how helpful it will be for them to listen to their sound files.

I keep reminding them that with six area exams, they will be on information overload trying to put two years of learning into their minds this Spring. The more they can hear their own calm, confident voice recordings before they take their exams, the more I think they will quickly remember and connect to their past learning.

With so many recordings of famous speeches and podcasts on so many topics, it also works to either download the files when possible or set the home page in your classroom browsers to have direct links to podcasts that tie into subject matter. If you are a 1:1 laptop school, look to create a Web page with the podcast links, images and research links for your students to add as a tab to their browser home pages.

A nice source for images and screensaver software is Webshots.  Download their slide show presenter and start adding images from their vast photo database to construct a show that fits your curriculum needs. Don’t forget to check out their community pages where Webshot members share their best shots for you to download. Also think about challenging students to find more images or draw their own (think literature lessons where students draw their pictures of characters and scenes) to be added to the collection.

Cheers to Mike Lambert for starting this practice many years ago in my son’s classroom.

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