The Learning2Go Blog and Podcast - podcasts, ebooks and news from the Wolverhampton Learning2Go Initiative

 Long Knowle Podcast - Episode 1 [7:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today, we have been creating a podcast with Year 6 at Long Knowle Primary School. Here are the highlights from their broadcast:

• A run-down of educational software and games on the PDA
• A description of the rewards system at the school with interviews with the “Pupils of the Week”
• What does the school council do? What is “Huff and Puff”? (a play centre within the school)
• A review of the 50th Anniversary Celebrations for Long Knowle in 2006

Pictures from the podcasting session have been uploaded into the new Gallery Section.

Congratulations to all of the learners at Long Knowle for their hard work and creativity today. Please submit your comments on the podcast by clicking on the title above (”Long Knowle Primary Podcast”) and entering your comments into the form. (All comments are moderated before appearing).

The main Learning2Go website has been redesigned and has moved to a new home - www.learning2go.org. Please update any links on your websites to point at this new address.

 St. Jude's Year 6 Blue Group Podcast [6:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today, we have been supporting St. Jude’s Primary in creating podcasts. Sixty students from Year 6 worked in groups to put together two podcasts. This podcast is from the Year 6 “Blue” class. Highlights of the broadcast include:

• A radio play on the issue of bullying
• A countdown of the top five things about the new St. Jude’s buildings
• A report from the red carpet at the Casino Royale premiere
• A quiz on World War II

We hope that you enjoy the podcast. Please submit comments to tell the students what you think!

(To comment on this podcast, click on the post title above - “St. Jude’s Primary Podcast - Year 6 Blue″ - and complete the online form. All comments are moderated (checked) before appearing in the blog. I’m sure that the students of St. Jude’s would love to hear what you think of their podcast!)

 St. Jude's Year 6 Red Group Podcast [4:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today, we have been supporting St. Jude’s Primary in creating podcasts. Sixty students from Year 6 worked in groups to put together two podcasts.

This podcast is from the Year 6 “Red” class. Highlights of the broadcast include:

• The latest news from FeederReader and sport from St. Jude’s
• A report on the students’ top 5 favourite subjects
• Interviews with students - “What do you like about the new school buildings?” (St. Jude’s has moved into a new building this year)
• Movie reviews of Open Season and Casino Royale

We hope that you enjoy the podcast. Please submit comments to tell the students what you think!

(To comment on this podcast, click on the post title above - “St. Jude’s Primary Podcast - Year 6 Red″ - and complete the online form. All comments are moderated (checked) before appearing in the blog. I’m sure that the students of St. Jude’s would love to hear what you think of their podcast!)

If you’re interested in finding educational podcasts, then check the website “Educational podcasts for teaching and learning” which you can find at http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/. It is by far the best attempt I’ve seen at identifying podcasts that could be used in an educational context. The maintainers of the site actively review all podcasts before accepting them for inclusion on the site, providing some guarantee of quality for those podcasts listed.

The site also publishes their own podcast (see http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/archive.php), reviewing podcasts from elsewhere on the internet in a series of “Subject Specials”.

If you find any fantastic podcasts or newsfeeds you think we should be listing, please send them using the contact form.

You can now easily subscribe to the Learning2Go podcast using iTunes. The podcast has been accepted for inclusion in the iTunes podcast directory, so you can subscribe (free of charge, of course) to the podcast using the software. iTunes will then automatically download new episodes straight to your desktop or laptop PC and allow you to easily transfer podcast episodes to an iPod.

• A direct link to our entry in the iTunes podcast directory

We’ve also added a new permanent button onto the left hand side of our blog pages to take you straight to our iTunes entry. You will need iTunes installed for the links to work. If you don’t have iTunes installed, you can download it (for free) from the Apple download site.

Alternatively, you can easily find the podcast from inside the Music Store in iTunes by searching for “learning2go”.

(Note that iTunes will not run on a PocketPC. Wolverhampton learners using FeederReader on their devices are already subscribed to the podcast during the install of that software)

 Wednesfield Village Podcast Ep. 1 [9:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Over the next four weeks, Paul Porter from the Local Authority Learning2Go team and myself are visiting Wolverhampton primary schools to lead podcasting sessions for groups of learners. Today we visited the Year 6 class at Wednesfield Village Primary School. Over the course of the day, learners planned, recorded and edited a podcast which included the following sections:

• An interview with the Headteacher of the school, Mr. Carruthers
• A book review
• A collection of “vox pops” (brief interviews) with other students in the school about their friendships
• A report on the benefits of the school’s involvement in the Learning2Go project.

We hope that you enjoy listening to the podcast. Congratulations to the students for all of their hard work and creativity in putting together a great broadcast.

(To comment on this podcast, click on the post title above - “Wednesfield Village Primary Podcast Episode 1″ - and complete the online form. All comments are moderated (checked) before appearing in the blog. I’m sure that the students of Wednesfield Village Primary would love to hear what you think of their podcast!)