Student Book Review Project

This post is going to be about a project that I'm working on at one of the schools where I work, Seymour Middle School.  If you are not interested in podcasting or book reviews you may want to skip this post.  If you are into that sort of thing then keep reading!  Last year, I had an idea.  I wanted students to create audio podcasts reviewing a book they read and then take those podcasts and organize them into a website where other students could listen to them before selecting a book from the library.  It seemed like such a simple idea but there were many different pieces to consider (e.g. logistics of pc/tablet/iPad, where to store the reviews, sorting of genre/author/title, where to consistently get book information).  To this point, over a year later, I have gotten the idea off the ground but it is still only slightly hovering above the earth.  The site is live on the web (only seven reviews) and I think I have worked out the kinks to the point where I can really start to focus on my main intent which was to get kids talking about books.

Now What?

The reason I decided to post about this project is to offer ideas/suggestions to anyone looking to implement something similar in their school.  Being that I have gone through the process and managed the pitfalls, I can help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made initially.  So...if you are up for starting a project for the second half of the year send me an e-mail or a message on Twitter.