iTunes University 2

The first podcast, The Edible Schoolyard is a terrific example of learning outside the classroom. These students spend their first period, growing and maintaining an organic garden of fruits and vegetables. The students are learning and engaged as they can both eat what they grow and examine firsthand things like plant root systems.

In A Night in the Global Village, students in Arkansas experience a night as a citizen of an impoverished country and attempt to barter with each other for simple things like water and wood. Through this experience, the students better understand what people in third world countries have to endure everyday just to survive.

Podcasts like these are of terrific use to me as a teacher. Having been born and raised in Mobile, AL I have only been exposed to Mobile County style teaching. Therefore I have little experience with how subjects are taught in the rest of the county, much less around the world. So by examining schools in Arkansas and California I am able to see teaching and learning from another perspective. The examples shown here are important because although the students are outside the classroom, they are learning and engaged.

As a teacher, this is a fine line to walk. Although lectures get tiresome, it is difficult to get the students outside of the classroom and yet still have them focused and engaged. These students were given responsibility and were able to adapt to their circumstances creating lasting memories and learning that far exceeds any typical classroom lecture. These students were respected and trusted, and they gave the same courtesy right back to their teachers.