Kids Talk Radio

The Perfect Classroom Learning Center-Kids Talk Radio

We are working hard everyday to create the perfect classroom learning center.  Our goal is to help teachers to differentiate instruct so that every study can benefit.  Our project stated in the action research lab at Super School University.  Our teachers were looking for high motivational learning programs that integrated technology into the curriculum.  Our first project was Jr. Medical School.  This project was designed to help young girls to start thinking about studying science and having dreams about going to medical school.  Our second project was Jr. Law School.  You might think of this as a street law class.  It also help students to understand about all the different kinds of jobs you could find in a court house.  Jr. Business School came next.  This special class helps our students to get ready for the world of work.  We use FileMaker Pro 9 to simulate the products and solutions that our students might encounter out in the world of work.  Kids Talk Radio was born out of Jr. Business School.  This exciting class helps students to improve their skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and computing.  We teach our students how to become news announcers, reporters, DJ’s, sound effects engineers, and radio station managers. 

The Kids Talk Radio Basic Training Program

All new students at Kids Talk Radio go through a basic training course.  Our students need to build their study skills in order to keep up with our rigorous training program.  Brain Cogs is designed to help students to do a better job on their Kids Talk Radio projects.

We use Essay Express to help our students to write the short essays needed for the Kid’s Talk Radio news shows.  This is a wonderful training program that produces great results. Click on the video icon above to learn a little more about Brain Cogs and Essay Express.

With combination of Essay Express and Brain Cogs added to the Kids Talk Radio Tool Kit, you now have all of the training tools you need to have a successful before or after school Kids Talk Radio Training Program.

Kids Talk Radio Sound Engineers-Sound Effects Lab

One of the best jobs at Kids Talk Radio is in the sound engineering department. This is the special lab where we get to test all of the wonderful new equipment. One of our scientists in the filed is Steve Meyers. He is the CEO of head drums in Colorado. Steve did Kids Talk Radio a tremendous favor when he let us test his new Head Drum Pad. Steve is a fantastic designed and he sometimes lets us in on some of the math and technology that goes into every product that he makes. After two weeks of test the new drum pad is a winner. The stick response is so good that we think we are becoming better drummers. This pad helps you to practice for long periods of time and it leaves you with the feeling that you are getting better and faster. We have a series of special exercises that we play each morning before class begins. It helps us to get in shape for all of the special projects that we are involved in the Kids Talk Radio Sound Effects Lab.

The Seeking Dragon

An original book written by students for Kid’s Talk Radio.

Dominique and Marina have been working on their original book “The Seeking Dragon” for two years.  They work before, during, and after school.  Mr. Barboza served as a Kid’s Talk Radio advisor.  This exciting original book was illustrated by Dominique and written by Marina.  Mrs. Issari (3^rd. grade teacher) read the book for Kid’s Talk Radio.   This book is now being published for PNN.  You will be able to listen to this audio book on your computer, MP3 player or iPod for $1.00 .  All proceeds go directly to the two students that wrote the book.

This is the type of book that we want our students to write for the 100 Teacher, 100 Student Project.  For more details send an e-mail to Suprschool@aol.com

Kid's Talk Radio Announcer

What Makes Kids Talk Radio So Much Fun?

Oral Reading

The Kids Talk Radio Teachers know how to get kids excited about learning. Our students love the new reading program. All lessons are individualized. You don?t get embarrassed reading in front of the whole class. You won't read your project in group practice sessions or on the radio until you are ready to read. Our new assessment program makes it possible for our teachers to find your easy reading level. We customize your reading projects to your instructional reading level.  We have special programs that give English language learners a good shot at becoming Kids Talk Radio Journalist in their native language as well as English.  Give a chance to demonstrate what we can do.

Writing Program

Kid?s Talk Radio news reporters need to write their own newscasts. We give our students lots of help. We use Essay Express and the Kid?s Talk Radio Tool Kit to help students to meet their writing goals and objectives. We help students to improve their written language skills that are aligned to state standards.

Sound Effects Labs

Each Podcast, Zcast, and individualized learning project may need special sound effects to make the productions exciting to listen to. Our students will get to use the latest technology, build sound effects tools, and study the Golden Age of Old Time Radio.

Building Listening and Study Skills

Students will have opportunities to use the award winning Brain Cogs study skills program to build their Kids Talk Radio broadcasting skills. Each student has an individual learning plan. These plans make it possible for students to complete their Kids Talk Radio News Projects on time. All students have an opportunity to broadcast their work on the PNN Personal News Network.

Students are required to explore new languages at Kid's Talk Radio. Students need to reach out to different parts of the world and to communicate with others in a respectful and dynamic ways.

Brazil and Portugal

Super School University is in the process of establishing a relationship with the Universidade Estatal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Teachers interested in study in Brazil or Portugal, should contact Professor de Sá or Lyris Wiedemann.

Students interested in study on the Cabo Verde Islands should contact. Project Cabo Verde Gate Studies.

Student Voices:

When I signed up for Kid?s Talk Radio I just wanted to have fun working with computers. I loved using my iPod and I love music. When I started hearing about the students on the Cabo Verde Islands that speak Portuguese and English I started thinking about how neat it would be to be able to communicate with the teachers and kids on the islands in Portuguese. I started thinking about what a Podcast would be like in Portuguese. Then I went to my teacher and said, "OK, I ready to take home a Portuguese CD."

S. Lopes, student

Learning Spanish for  Mexico City Podcast as a Kid's Talk Radio Reporter

Student Voices:

I live in Southern California.  We are knee deep in Spanish speaking people.  If I am going to be successful in business one day I am going to have to read and write Spanish.  It about becoming a successful communicator with the different people in our country that I will be doing business with.  I lacked the motivation to get started. The Kid’s Talk Radio Project got me hooked in when I was told that I would have to write two commercials, one in Portuguese and one in Spanish.  What a challenge?  I just needed a reason to put my brain to work and this was it.  I am being home schooled and my parents are running the show.  The Kid’s Talk Radio Program helps me to make contact with students in the public school gifted programs and gifted kids in Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain.  My new teachers are definitely out side of the box when it comes to getting kids excited about learning Spanish and Portuguese.

 H.G. Eisenberg, student

Kid's Talk Radio Teleprompter and MusicPad Pro

At Kid's Talk Radio we take creativity to the next level. We needed a teleprompter and an electronic music pad to hold all of the music for our Podcasts. The Freehand Corp. came to our rescue.

The MusicPad Pro solves the age old problem of turning music pages by enabling students and professional musicians to simply touch the screen. It creates a paperless environment by providing storage capacity for an entire music library of more than 5,000 pages of sheet music. Freehand?s proprietary annotation technology enables musicians to mark up and compose new music while saving the original score.

The sleek new tablet computer is housed in a charcoal grey ABS polymer enclosure not much larger than a sheet of paper. Weighing just under five pounds, it is lightweight and easy to carry, although the MusicPad Pro Plus?, which comes with a rechargeable battery, weighs a little more. Both models have an easy-to-read, low glare, backlit 12.1 in. TFT LCD display. Key features include zoom in and zoom out capabilities and on-screen color highlighters and pens to add or erase rehearsal marks and notations. Digital music files in pdf, jpg and other popular graphics formats can be directly imported into the MusicPad Pro using the software provided with the device. Printed music can be scanned into a computer and then imported. At Kid?s Talk Radio we scan all of the music and text for our Podcasts and special radio shows.

The publish/subscribe model of podcasting is a version of push technology, in that the information provider chooses which files to offer in a feed and the subscriber chooses among available feed channels. While the user is not "pulling" individual files from the Web, there is a strong "pull" aspect in that the receiver is free to subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) a vast array of channels. Earlier Internet "push" services (e.g., PointCast) allowed a much more limited selection of content.

Podcasting is an automatic mechanism whereby multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files. In general, these files contain audio or video, but also could be images, text, PDF, or any file type.

The content provider begins by making a file (for example, an MP3 audio file) available on the Internet. This is usually done by posting the file on a publicly available webserver; however, BitTorrent trackers also have been used, and it is not technically necessary that the file be publicly accessible. The only requirement is that the file be accessible through some known URI (a general-purpose Internet address). This file is often referred to as one episode of a podcast.

The content provider then acknowledges the existence of that file by referencing it in another file known as the feed. The feed is a list of the URLs by which episodes of the show may be accessed. This list is usually published in RSS format (although Atom can also be used), which provides other information, such as publish date, titles, and accompanying text descriptions of the series and each of its episodes. The feed may contain entries for all episodes in the series, but is typically limited to a short list of the most recent episodes, as is the case with many news feeds. Standard podcasts consist of a feed from one author. More recently multiple authors have been able to contribute episodes to a single podcast feed using concepts such as public podcasting and social podcasting.

The content provider posts the feed on a webserver. The location at which the feed is posted is expected to be permanent. This location is known as the feed URI (or, perhaps more often, feed URL). The content provider makes this feed URI known to the intended audience.

A consumer uses a type of software known as an aggregator, sometimes called a podcatcher or podcast receiver, to subscribe to and manage their feeds.

A podcast specific aggregator is usually an always-on program which starts when the computer is started and runs in the background. They work exactly like any newsreader someone would use to manage other web subscriptions. It manages a set of feed URIs added by the user and downloads each at a specified interval, such as every two hours. If the feed data has substantively changed from when it was previously checked (or if the feed was just added to the application's list), the program determines the location of the most recent item and automatically downloads it to the user's computer. Interestingly, it is estimated that perhaps only 20% of podcasts are actually consumed on portable media players; 80% are consumed on the PC onto which they are downloaded, or deleted from the PC without being listened to.^[6] Some applications, such as iTunes, also automatically make the newly downloaded episodes available to a user's portable media player.

The downloaded episodes can then be played, replayed, or archived as with any other computer file.

To conserve bandwidth, users may opt to search for content using an online podcast directory. Some directories allow people to listen online and initially become familiar with the content provided from an RSS feed before deciding to subscribe. For most broadband users, bandwidth is generally not a major consideration; it could fairly be stated that podcasting itself is a technology that came with the increases in global bandwidth and broadband popularity.