Podcasting

Podcasting
Podcasting is a wonderful way of allowing students to share their work and experiences with a potentially huge audience over the Internet. Schools are increasingly using the internet to promote what they do, and to celebrate the achievements of their children, and podcasting is an excellent way of doing this.

What is a podcast?
A podcast is like a radio show. However, instead of being broadcast live, a podcast is recorded and then distributed over the internet, so that you can listen to it whenever you please. There are thousands of podcasts available, ranging from general interest entertainment shows to those which focus on specific topics (e.g. computers / music / education).

How do I make a podcast?
The basic equipment you need is a voice recorder (could use a dedicated digital voice recorder, a MP3 player or mobile with a voice recorder feature or a computer with an internal or external microphone and some recording software). Audacity is free and allows you to record your show and then export it as an mp3 file. You can then upload this to the school website.

Once published you need a podcast player or audio software to play it.

We Podcasted Today! So, Did you Learn ANYTHING?
Below is the first part of article by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano on her blog Langwitches it explains the myriad of skills being learnt when Podcasting is used as part of a class. I look forward to using her ideas in school to promote learning in an engaged fun way. Thank you Silvia for the inspiration.

Students are studying animals in their science unit. They learned about the different characteristics of mammals, reptiles and birds.

If their parents ask them tonight at the dinner table if they learned anything today, the students probably will tell them that they recorded a podcast today!

Will the parents know that they practiced:

Podcasting Skills and Literacies

• Collaboration skills : working in groups on different segments of the podcast, tying in and back to a story that was developed by the entire class.
• Writing skills: creative & descriptive writing, sequencing, editing and revising scripts
• Speaking skills: speaking slowly, fluently, clearly and with expression in their voices
• Presentations skills: being able to express themselves orally
• Communication skills: being able to convey and teach information to others (not only in their physical location and presence, but also in virtual time and from places around the world.
• Oral fluency: increase awareness of their voice, speed and its rhythm.
• Auditory skills: practice listening skills, address auditory learning styles
• (Digital) storytelling skills: being able to weave information and facts preciously learned into a creative story, form a “relationship” with the content presented, entertain others through creative narrative.
• Media literacy: different types of podcasts (narrative, informational, storytelling, conversational, collaborative, interview style, etc), understanding different components of a podcast episode, being able to express themselves in different media.
• Information literacy: integrating, expressing and transmitting information in a variety of media.
• Technology skills: exposure to sound editing software, such as Garageband

You can read the rest of this article and listen to the children’s podcast at Langwitches
Silvia also has some excellent articles about podcasting and the use of other technologies in enhancing learning. Below are the links to the articles on podcasting.

* Producing a Podcast
* Reflections of Podcast Project
* Podcasting with 3rd Grade