Thing 18

Before beginning this, I thought of podcasts as music related. A few years back, I was decorating for Christmas and couldn't find my Christmas CDs. I went to my ITunes, only to find I never put them on my computer. I noticed the Podcast tab and decided to see if there was anything Christmas related. There was, I downloaded one and loved listening to it throughout the holidays. Since then, I got Sirius Radio and have used the Christmas stations on there instead. So, it's been a while since I thought about podcasts.

In keeping with the theme of my blog, I immediately searched the recommended sites for math related blogs. NPR was no help. I spent a lot of time exploring on Educational Podcast Directory and podcast.com, with not a lot of results. I was really only able to find one decent podcast that would be somewhat useful. I also found that many of the podcasts that were of some interest to me hadn't been updated in at least a year, and in some cases more than two years! The podcast was an instructional one on using the graphing calculator. It was very informative, but the presenter was not all the interesting. For someone looking to learn the basics of the graphing calculator, it would be a useful tool. The link to it is:

http://www.mathpodcast.com/videos/Calculator_Tips/Entries/2009/8/17_How_to_REALLY_Use_The_TI-84_Graphing_Calculator_-_Part_1.html

Since I wasn't able to find any other great related podcasts, I decided that I'd just choose a fun, music related one, so I went to Itunes only to discover there was an amazing amount of great math related ones to choose from. What I found on Itunes was far better than any on the other sites. (For a future course, you may want to suggest Itunes as a resource. If I hadn't been so frustrated by the others, I probably woudn't have looked here.)

The two podcasts from Itunes that I chose to subscribe to were Mental Math Secrets and Teaching with Smartboard. Mental Math Secrets contains a variety of episodes that contain useful strategies for working with numbers. What makes this podcast different from some other presentations and videos I have shared is that these strategies are ones that are expected to be taught by teachers in our district. They are not tricks, but instead strategies that will help students compute efficiently and accurately. The one that I'm sharing here focuses on multiplying two digit by one-digit numbers mentally with a focus on place value. There are also additional episodes that extend this strategy to multiplying by two- and three-digit numbers. These are perfect to be shared on my blog with parents!

Check out Mental Math Secrets!
http://www.screencast.com/users/nerfherder/folders/Mental%20Math%20Secrets%20-%20Your%20Secret%20Weapon%20for%20Success/itunes

The other podcast that I chose to subscribe to has 75 existing episodes. (These took a while to download.) All of the episodes contain lessons on how to use the SmartBoard for instruction. While they help the teacher to become more comfortable with the SmartBoard tools, they also give some good lesson ideas. The one that I'm sharing here is called, "Math, Math, Math." It shares some great ideas on working with formulas and geometric shapes. I have actually done similar lessons to some of the suggested ideas, but did pick up some helpful hints along the way. Because I am not a classroom teacher, I don't have day to day practice using the SmartBoard and therefore don't pick up on a lot of the tips and tricks that come from practice. While I have some great content at my disposal as far as math instruction goes, I do feel that before I utilize it in a classroom, I need to brush up on some of the SmartBoard basics. This podcast seems the perfect way to do so. I can also see this podcast being used as professional development for teachers. Terri is always offering to present SmartBoard classes, which many people take, but sometimes, teachers just need to brush up on particular parts of the SmartBoard. This would be a perfect way to do so! I know that once I get through all of my reflections, I will be going back to this podcast. I may actually find a way to integrate parts of it into my graduate class!

To get to "Math, Math, Math" for the SmartBoard, go to:

http://smartboard.libsyn.com/rss - then choose number 57...Enjoy!