Week 9: Thing #21--Podcasts

Podcasting offers teachers and librarians numerous options for both push and pull operations. As suggested, I went to Podcast.com and looked for podcasts that would appeal to me. Since I am an NPR and CSPAN junkie, I am now in newstalk heaven. Access to Cartalk no longer depends on being in my car doing errands on Saturday or Sunday morning as I can get the a podcast download anytime. It just shows up in my RSS feed.

While I enjoyed  "Circulate This: Stories from the School Library," I felt it was preaching to the choir--and that it is too long to use for outreach to students, teachers, or the community. Perhaps it should be broken into sound bytes and added, by speaker, to websites or presentations. It does, however, serve as an example of what could be done using student and parent voices for advocacy.

I found great resources at places like the Library of Congress (curricula) and Edutopia (how-to-ideas). I also made certain that everything I tried, or liked worked will at my site--while I can download iTunes at home, the site is filtered at my school. We just recently got access to YouTube--after years of missing a great resource. Using podcasts as a teaching resource--pulling content--offers content or publishing on demand that can be accessed by students twenty-four/seven. The breadth of the content is, well, breadth-taking.

However, podcasting is not just a pull technology. Teachers can also use it to create content in the classroom, by having students collaborate to make presentations in a 21st Century environment. For a library site, book reviews are an obvious use. But tutorials can also be student-created--using an OPAC is much more interesting if it is a peer voice explaining it. Classroom projects, available to classmates, family, and the world give dignity and purpose to learning--again in the time shift that the Internet provides.

I spent a great deal of time looking at podcast directories and listening to various uses for the technology. Video is so easy to upload now that it seems a bit mundane at times. But still, driving down the road listening to Car Talk on Thursday gives me great pleasure.