Yo Yo Yo, My Name is Joe!

The title of this blog entry is actually from my brother whose name isn't Joe. I started with that because from an early age, my brother loved rapping. He would try to rap everything and it always started out with Yo Yo Yo, my name is Joe.

In a way, this reminded me of Podcasts. As an educator, we stress listening skills in our classroom. In the old days, before TV, citizens of the United States used to listen to radio broadcasts as a family. They would gather around after dinner and listen to news or a Western story. Children and adults alike would try to imagine what is going on in each episode.

I personally think imagination is a lost art now. Because children are passively receiving too much information, they have become like little robots. Now when teachers ask students above the age of seven to imagine something, students are often stuck and because imagination requires a lot of thinking, they will generally give up.

Recently, I asked a 2nd grader to write about anything he wanted to and he came up with nothing after five minutes of thinking. Nothing. I prompted him with questions about his life, his family, things he like to do... NOTHING came to mind.

Finally, I launched into my own made-up adventure where I was an invisible person and I could fly around the world, sneaking up on people...THAT'S when an idea hit him. When I came back to check on him a few minutes later, he basically just copied my adventure and added more words to it.

I think of Podcasts as an oral story. Think about all that can be done if teachers integrated this into the classroom. Students with avid imagination can take this to a whole other level. They can integrate music and sounds and then play it in the classroom.

Challenge of the Week: Integrate some form of Podcasting in your own classroom! See if this new project leads your classroom to new heights!