Sunday, November 1, 2009

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

Although I am a complete believer in podcasts, I can only follow about two at a time.  I currently am following This American Life and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from National Public Radio.  These two casts I have followed for about four years now and I am able to keep up with.  However, I have tried several times to subscribe to newscasts from the BBC, programs about money management, and book review shows, but I have not been able to sustain the third for very long.  With subscriptions, and now  the increased ability to subscribe to everything, one has to consider what they can realistically manage.

With that said, I love podcasts and podcasting!  I am an iTunes user so I was a bit leery about trying a new podcatcher.  I was a little disappointed with 23 Things when I clicked on the link for Yahoo Podcasts, only to find that Yahoo had discontinued their program about two years ago.  I guess I would expect that link to be updated on the blog.  However, I did venture on over to podcast.com and found lots of podcasts of interest.  I did subscribe to the weekly podcast for middle level educators put out by NMSA.  Their interview format provides helpful insights for teachers at the middle school level.

As far as podcasting for middle school students, I have found that there is huge appeal.  As a Mac school, we have access to Garage Band, which is a great podcasting tool!  It is so easy for students to get the hang of and then to explore to make more advanced podcasts.  I have done big podcasting projects, e.g. the students create a promotional video for their favorite state park.  The only piece I have yet to figure out is how to have a group of thirty kids record without getting background noise from the other students or signing out the lab for over a week.  I also have found that podcasting is a great way for students to share pictures and information from trips they have been on.  Instead of sending students with a lot of homework during their trip, I will often ask kids to bring back photos of important landforms or sights they have seen to make a podcast and share with the class.  This has been a great way to bring the world back to my classroom and to promote learning even while on vacation.  Just a thought...

1 comment:

Cathie Ruble said...

I like your idea of your students making a podcast of their vacation. I thought podcast were just audio. I think this would be way more beneficial than giving your vacationing student extra homework. They would benefit and so would the rest of the classroom.