Podcasting and the Classroom

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What is a Podcast?

A podcast is an audio or video recording created to share information with the world. The true power of the podcast unfolds through podcasting, the ability for readers to subscribe through RSS news feeds. RSS feeds deliver podcasts instantly to a subscriber's computer or mobile device, just like a magazine subscription is delivered to a mailbox. Apple's iTunes provides some great tips for finding, playing, and managing podcasts.

Why Podcasting?

In the classroom, the podcast can become a powerful tool for teachers and students. Podcasts provide an excellent way for teachers to deliver instruction with text, audio, and visual support. Podcasting also provides an avenue for teachers to connect with their students' families. It also provides an easy way for teachers to share ideas with the education community. Student podcasts are a great option for projects. Podcasts also provide a digital collection of a student's work that can be shared with the student's family, teachers, and other students.

Where to Start?

This week our Emerging Instructional Technologies class at UNI was given the opportunity to wander through iTunes in search of podcasts relevant to our everyday lives. There are an overwhelming amount of podcasts available in iTunes. My focus this week was locating podcast related to education and technology that would provide current ideas in practice I could apply to my classroom. As I clicked around and listened to a variety of different podcasts, I quickly discovered my preference for video podcasts, or vodcasts. While many audio podcasts were really interesting and provided lots of great information, keeping my attention without a visual element was a challenge. I'm sure I would feel differently if I had a long commute. Podcasts and vodcasts that were set up as conversations between two or more people were also much more entertaining.

Here are a few podcasts I subscribed to this week:

Learning with Technology Weekly

Created by the TILDE Netcast Network, this podcast provides great resources for the classroom, and how to use them in the classroom, along with student examples. Watching Episode 31: Drive-By Digital Storytelling was really interesting, they discussed tools we are currently using in our Emerging Instructional Technologies class through UNI. This podcast consisted of three educators discussing how their students use tools such as Myna, Voice Thread, Audioboo, Animoto, WeVideo, and MindMeister for digital storytelling. They also discussed Google Drive, Google Drive's Terms of Service, and how to link many web apps to Google Drive. Although this webcast was long, it kept my attention with the video format and content that was directly relevant to my classroom with an abundance of resources. The only suggestion I would have for this vodcast would be to break it up into shorter episodes.

C12 - Tool of the Week

In this podcast, also available in enhanced podcast, Christopher Dawson and Richard Byrne discuss two research tools Flash Card Flash and TalkMiner. Flash Card Flash is a custom search engine for flash cards services. It's useful for finding flash cards to help learn basic ideas, work with vocabulary, or study for exams. When looking for an additional support for students this would be a great resource. The research tool TalkMiner searches inside video lessons in their database to quickly locate content. Searching for video content to use in the classroom can be really time consuming. This tool allows teachers to easily locate information that could be used in the classroom without having to go entirely through each video. Each of these tools are a great resource for the classroom. In their podcasts, they introduce tools, discuss the benefits, and describe how the tools could be used in the classroom with students. This conversation about technology tools for the classroom was engaging and purposeful. The length of this podcast was excellent. They took enough time to cover the topic, but it wasn't so long that I lost interest. The visuals in the podcast also helped to make the podcast more personal and appealing.

MacMost Now

These vodcasts provide information, tips, and tutorials for the Mac, iPhone, and iPod. This is something I am interested in personally and professionally. The format of the video was really interesting, the presenter was pictured in the upper right hand corner of the screen as the video showed what was being demonstrated. As I was watching the vodcasts, I realized this would be a great resource to use with the students and the teachers I work with. Our schools use Macs and the Google Suite, so tutorials such as RSS Feeds with Google Reader and Google Drive would be a great resource. With new episodes being posted every few days, the information provided is always current, which isn't always the case with some podcasts I found this week. Because the vodcasts were short, to the point, and easy to follow, they will be easy to keep up with.

Imagine if...

Imagine if teacher's professional development days provided time to find and share podcasts for professional learning and use in the classroom. How could that impact the integration of technology in the classroom and student achievement?