As we now have a few episodes recorded and the format of the podcast is hopefully becoming clearer (to me!) I thought I’d offer the invitation to any teachers out there who might be interested in being part of the project.

If you have ideas you’d like to share about what you’re doing in the classroom with ICT, please think about sharing it with the rest of us here on the Virtual Staffroom. Whether it’s about some good project you did with your students, or your stories about student wikis, blogs or podcasts, or how you’re using new technologies like IWBs or GPSes with students… if you’re doing something with technology in your classroom it will be of use to someone, somewhere. Please think about sharing it with us. Take a look the How to Participate link for details of how you can be involved.

I’ve got lots of stuff planned for future episodes, and based on the positive feedback we’ve gotten so far I think there’s a lot of scope to see this project expand over the coming months. It’d be great to have you be part of that.

In this episode we talk about the best strategies and ideas for introducing interactive whiteboards into your school. We chat with John Pearce from Geelong, Mal Lee from Canberra and Margo Metcalf from Sydney. John is a grade 3/4 teacher who uses IWBs in his classroom, and Mal and Margo are from IWBnet and they help teachers get started with IWBs. Together, they explore some fabulous ideas and tips for implementing IWBs successfully.

Links from this weeks episode:

1. Mr P’s Interactive Whiteboard Blog
2. IWB Net
3. PDtogo SMARTBoard Podcast

As always, you’re welcome to drop us a line in the comments!

 Episide 3: It Takes Leadership: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What is Web 2.0 and why is it important? This episode talks with Michael Cridland, a young Brisbane teacher who is looking at ways to incorporate podcasting and blogging into his classroom.

Some of the links mentioned in this episode are:

• Michael’s Class Blog
• Brett Moller’s Blog
• BOSE In Harmony with Education program
• Adrian Greig’s ICT Learning Inovation Centre
• Bloglines
• Judy O’Connell’s Blog
• The PodBiz Project

As always, any feedback on this episode is welcomed. Just leave us a comment below.

 Episode 2: The New Web: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Great news! The Virtual Staffroom is now available through the iTunes Store (it’s still free of course!)

Apple just approved it and you (along with the rest of the world) can now subscribe to it directly through the Podcast section of iTS. The nice thing about having people get the podcast via iTunes is we can track how many times it gets downloaded.

If you’ve got iTunes installed, click the link below and it will take you right to it.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=199687512

Here it is, our first episode!

Anne Baird from Wedderburn K-12 school in Victoria talks about her technology support role in the school, and explains how she tries to assist classroom teachers make effective use of technology to promote higher order thinking.

Links mentioned in this episode include:

• Anne’s Blog
• Teaching and Learning Wiki
• Tom March’s Blog
• Their World (video)

Hope you enjoy this first episode, and special thanks go to Anne for offering to be our first contributor. If you enjoy the show, your feedback is always welcome in the comments section below.

To subscribe to the podcast, read the How to Subscribe section for more info.

 Learning for Life: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hello and welcome. The Virtual Staffroom educational podcasting project was born out of a desire to enable leading educators from Australia and around the world to get together and chat about the ways they integrate and use technology in their classrooms.

It’s a chance for classroom teachers to engage in reflection and dialogue about the things they do that work, the things they do that make a difference, and maybe some of the the things they never want to do again.

We plan to release a podcast every few weeks, although we are still sort of making this up as we go along. You can subscribe and let your software, such as iTunes, automatically grab the latest episode automatically.

Hopefully we can all learn something in the process. Stay tuned for more soon!

Oh, and we love to get your feedback so feel free to leave us a comment or an email with your thoughts.

Chris