I have been a fan of the Storycorps projects for many years and wrote about how to adapt their oral history recordings in schools for Podcasting at School. Setting up podcasting stations outside of the library’s Book Fair and watching parents and students share stories was a real highlight of my time at Beverly School, especially as back-to-school creeps up on me and I remind myself I won’t be there this fall.

The New York Times reports on a project to animate StoryCorps interviews and insert them into episodes of P.O.V. on PBS.

Here’s a preview:

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

As you plan for back-to-school open houses and think ahead a few months to parent-teacher conferences, I highly recommend creating StoryCorps-style stations as your contribution to the event. It is so richly satisfying for everyone.

PS - The P.O.V./Storycorps shorts premiere August 17.

Today, Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers blog pointed me to Wicked Decent Learning’s blog, which hosted a recent podcast of a panel discussion among educators about how they use graphic novels in their classroom. 

Of course, having had comics and graphic novels on the brain for the past several weeks, I had to tune in.

Why is it worth investing an hour-plus in this podcast?

1. There’s a great plug for librarians at 1 hour, 10 minutes into the podcast.
2. Hear about how comics are being used in the classroom to promote reading and writing with a variety of learners, including ELL and special education students. Hear specific outcomes that go beyond, “Kids love ‘em.”
3. Learn about popular graphic novels and comics that these educators use so you can build your collection.
4. Hear some lesson plan ideas, including use of tech tools like Comic Life software and VoiceThread’s online discussion forum that will help you connect your collection to the classroom.
5. Refamiliarize yourself with the language that teachers use, like anticipatory set and kinesthetic learning. Hear how they talk about the resources you buy in the language they use.
6. Enjoy listening to a bunch of passionate educators, which is always a shot in the arm at this stressful time of year.
7. They love Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, too.
8. Learn about resources to support your growing understanding of comics/graphic novels and pedagogy, including Comics in the Classroom.
9. Sometimes, we librarians are a rather self-oriented group.  Sometimes, we forget that our classroom colleagues are interested in some of the same collection development issues that we are. Podcasts like these remind us that we’re not on a solo journey.
10. Whet your appetite to learn more about comic books so you’re ready when Kids Read Comics announces its programming agenda for its FREE conference in Dearborn, Michigan, on June 12 - 13, 2010, featuring Raina Telgemeier!

Enjoy!

Here’s a short list of podcasting/video ideas we’ll be giving out at Monday’s inservice. What additional ideas do you have?