Blog Post #4

Imagine a simple audio clip. It can have one person speaking, or three, or twenty! In its barest form, this is a Podcast. An audio file that has been recorded and then shared over the web. The word Podcast is actually a combination of iPod and broadcast. Since the iPod utterly dominated the MP3 market, when people began creating these downloadable broadcasts, the broadcasts became synonymous with iPods, giving us the term Podcast. That doesn't mean that Podcasts only work on iPods though. They are a digital media that can be accessed from any device with access to the web.

Why Podcasts?

In the classroom, Podcasts have a great deal of applications. According to Langwitch's blog, a number of skills are expanded upon with Podcasts, including; "listening, speaking, presenting, comprehension, storytelling, performance, voice acting, oral fluency, media, and technology." It engages students on so many different levels, I don't know why Podcasts aren't a part of every classroom! Hearing themselves being recorded, the children were motivated to go back and make it perfect, without any prompting from the teacher. Being able to critique your own speech from an outside perspective is much more effective than being told "You pronounced dinosaur wrong." Doing so also creates a greater self-awareness, which instills confidence. And in the classroom, confidence is key. If a student is confident, than they will try harder. When a confident student makes a mistake, they shrug it off, learn from it, and keep on going. Students that aren't confident tend to withdraw when they make mistakes, which interferes with the learning process. The old saying "Get back on the horse that threw you" comes to mind.

How do we do a Podcast?

Fortunately, Podcasts are simple in that you only need three things to create one; a recording device, an editing program, and a voice! The possibilities are endless beyond those three things. Their application in the classroom can be anything from mock interviews, to reading a book, to testing a person's speech! The Podcasts I listened to were adorable. How excited the children were at being recorded carried, very obviously, into their recordings. Listening to them, I also realized that sound effects made the Podcast so much more interesting. And that being descriptive is a must! With a Podcast being strictly audio media, bringing the other senses in with additional descriptions made it a much more captivating experience.

I think the Podcast is an under-utilized tool that will gain popularity in the future. As my generation of classmates assume the mantle of teacher, we will take these new teaching methods and technologies and revolutionize the classroom in ways that right now, I cannot even begin to fathom.