Technology Initiatives - Faculty Focus
In the spring of 2007, inspired by Tech Fest presenter, Morrie Reece from Apple, Betsy Hommel incorporated podcasting into her Reading 384 Teaching Reading in the Intermediate Grades course.
Methods students created podcasts for their 5th grade pen pals at Edison Elementary School as a way to share creative poetry, and personalize the pen pal experience. As a result, Betsy was invited by Abby Ruebush, the fifth grade teacher, to bring the podcasting experience to the fifth graders, allowing them to create their own podcast poem that was delivered back to Betsy’s method students.
This project led to a current project in which two COEHS alumni and current Macomb teachers Abby Ruebush and Corindy Wolf are producing and publishing the new podcast series “Teaching’s Missing Manual”, which is designed to remove some of the mystery and alleviate stress for first year teachers entering the profession. In researching the teaching profession, they found that 50% of fifth-year teachers leave the profession. This rate was too high to ignore for Abby and Corindy. They realized that new teachers did not know what questions to ask or understand some of the commitments involved in preparing for the school year. "Our goal is to help preservice teachers, student teachers, and newly hired teachers prepare for the teaching field," says Corindy.
"We also hope to help others overcome the frustration and nervousness that comes with being a new teacher," added Abby.
The podcasts are available at: http://www.wiu.edu/coehs/podcast/podcasting/podcasts.html. Look for "Teaching's MIssing Manual." They are also available through Western's iTunes U. Click on WIU login
or visit the area as a Public/Guest login and iTunes will automatically launch. If you need to
download iTunes please visit http://www.apple.com/itunes.