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Kindergartners prove podcasting child's play

Published May 31st, 2009 | 1 Comments

KINGSPORT — Recent kindergarten graduates Jacob Mullins and Sophia Kiser have already done something few of their peers across Sullivan County schools have done.

It’s something many older students and even some adults haven’t done.

At the ripe age of 6, Jacob and Sophia of Miller Perry Elementary School are veteran podcasters.

The two are among 17 students in the class of Jamie Whitinger who have podcasted at Miller Perry, where all 85 or so kindergarten students did podcasting this year. In addition, fellow kindergarten teacher Felicia Kellner had her whole class put together a single podcast.

For the most recent of Whitinger’s class podcasts, viewable on the Web sites of the school and their teacher, the class split into two self-chosen groups: planets and animals.

Since March, Whitinger has taught the students to go to Google for information, along the way teaching them which photographs and images they could re-post as podcasts and which they could not.

Each podcast includes the online source used for that podcast.

“I kind of tried to integrate science and research,” Whitinger said.

Then the students copied and pasted their research into a PowerPoint program, afterward pulling it into a Windows Movie Maker program, where it was saved and credits and transitions created. The last component was the spoken words of the students, explaining what they had found and what the photographs and images meant.

All five classes did some audio podcasting, while Kellner’s class also did a single class podcast on her Web site. All this occurred since March.

Come August, the plan is for the whole school to start podcasting, including Principal Karen Broyles.

“I will do my message on the Web site, at least once a month,” said Broyles, who this fall marks her second year as principal at the school.

Whitinger said Director of Schools Jack Barnes asked her about starting a podcasting program, and Broyles suggested using Whitinger’s students and others in kindergarten.

Whitinger said she’d never done podcasting with students before, although she’s done class books and video work on the computer with students in the past.

“It’s real fun,” Jacob said, while Sophia said she most liked choosing the photographs and speaking.

“They’re so exited about that, they really want to learn,” said Whitinger, the mother to four children.

The students worked every day on classroom computers and once a week in the computer lab.

“You can put them upon the big screen, and you can watch it,” Jacob said while demonstrating his podcasting techniques on a mock report on Jupiter.

Together, they read “Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun.”

“Jupiter has six moons,” Jacob read, to which Sophia added, “It’s the largest planet.”

On the Web, Sophia did her podcast on sea turtles, and Jacob did his on giraffes, although they are not otherwise identifiable unless someone can recognize their voice.

“We did not want any identification,” Whitinger said, so the podcasts include no photographs of the children or names.

However, at least one includes initials, which helped the grandmother of a student from Ireland access her granddaughter’s podcast from overseas.

Whitinger has a bachelor’s degree in communications, with a focus on public relations. She began her career with the county school system as head of technology, including development of the system’s Web site and in-classroom technology.

However, Whitinger spent so much time in the classrooms she found she wanted to teach and went back to school to get a master of arts in education.

“I did so much in the classroom, anyway,” Whitinger said. “I discovered I liked working with the kids.”

She also has parents who are retired educators, including former school system personnel director and principal J.W. Hilton.

After getting her teaching certification, she taught fourth grade at Indian Springs Elementary her first year and moved to kindergarten at Miller Perry her second year.

Her third year, starting this fall, will be teaching fourth grade at Miller Perry, although she will spend much of the summer helping get Miller Perry and the whole system up to speed on podcasting. She’s also going to get the system ready for its online high school class offerings to start after the Christmas break.

Whitinger will teach a professional development workshop on podcasting this summer open to all Sullivan County K-12 teachers.

School system spokeswoman Janie Barnes said podcasting is new to the school system, although Brookside Elementary first-grade teacher Lesley Fleenor has had students do some podcasting.

To see the Miller Perry podcasts on the Net go to www.scde.k12.tn.us and click on the Miller Perry Elementary School link or visit www.kellnersclassroom.com or www.mrswhitinger.com.

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Great article. I podcast with my six-year-old son who has mild autism. He writes a lot of little books, some of which I would post on my blog about him called The Adventures of Mr. Busypants. Then we took it to the next level and added a podcast.

He's quite proud of himself.

http://mamabusypants.blogspot.com/2009/03/slideshow.html

Jeannie @ The Adventures of Mr. Busypants

Jeannie Anderson | 6/19/2009 - 11:39 PM - ( Comment

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