MFL podcasting potential for TES Newsday

TES Newsday 2007 organiser Brian Robinson has announced that there will be six new Podcasting categories for this year's competition. The idea is that participating pupils from the UK and abroad choose a date between 12th - 16th March on which they produce 'live news' in the form of a newspaper, website and now podcast. They then have to submit it on that day according to its category including Best use of a Modern Foreign Language.

The event is sponsored by Softease the producers of Podium, a new audio editing software launched at BETT 2007 which has been 'developed for education' to make the process of podcasting easier. The company is offering a free trial to any school wishing to take part in TES Newsday 2007 and has created a step by step guide explaining what a podcast is and how to download software to retrieve and play one on your computer or mp3 player.

For additional support, Brett Laniosh and James Watson from Softease have set up a wiki on how to get started and there are also downloadable case studies from Thames Primary School in Blackpool and Oakington Manor Foundation and St Mary Magdalen’s RC Junior Schools to have a look at for inspiration.

If you would like more general ideas on how to start podcasting, I suggest you read the excellent eggdeutsch blog that Samantha Dernley, MFL teacher from Egglescliffe School in Stockton-upon-Tees has put together, in particular the posts Stockton Collaborative PD day and PGCE MFL Training. Sam has added a training page to her eggdeutsch wiki too which includes many useful links to prospective podcasters. There is also the eduBuzz wiki which includes pages on podcasting to check out too.

Steve Beard, ICT consultant from Shropshire has also been involved with training language learners on the potential of podcasting at Oldbury Wells School in Bridgnorth. Look at the comments at the bottom of the post MFL podcasting at OWS to see how motivating they found the experience!

On the TES Newsday site itself, there is extra guidance and support including a downloadable PDF file with a section on podcasting in education.

For more information about TES Newsday 2007, get in touch with:

Brian Robinson
Newsday 2007
PO Box 163
Redcar TS10 1WY
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0777 3356880

Comments

[Sam Dernley]

Thanks for the mention Joe! If anyone has any questions or queries to do with podcasting, blogging, wikis or subscriptions please feel free to join my eggdeutsch wiki and leave a comment on the discussion page:
http://eggdeutsch.wikispaces.com/message/list/home
Thanks!