Podcasts

From watching the many podcast we were assigned to this week, I learned the importance of using technology to your benefit in the classroom. Podcast can be very useful tools in sharing information over the web to large audiences that it might be otherwise difficult, or expensive, to get the info to. You can podcast about anything imaginable, but I find the educational podcast the most useful personally. As a teacher, these can be very affective tools for allowing students to fully understand how much the technology around them can help them succeed.





Connect Learning is a podcast by a guy named David Warlick, pictured on the left. This Podcast is designed to discuss emerging technologies and how to use them in classrooms, grades K-12. How can we use the internet to strengthen their learning habits. Kids today are growing up with technologies being no more new to them than a book is to our generation, so why not give them what they're used to? Kids love blogging and podcasting, rather than writing for no one but their teacher. These blogs, such as episode 96, discuss things like how to put these things in motion to help our next generation learn to use yet another tool for gaining knowledge.








SmartBoard is a podcast hosted by award winning teachers Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger, who teach the useful tasks of Interactive Whiteboards. These boards are a combination of computers, projectors, and whiteboards/white walls to create an easy to use and change picture to go along with lesson plans. The two hosts also gave lessons and shared links so that someone could follow along with them. They would take the time to address questions emailed to them over the air. Unfortunately, the podcast is no longer airing, but you can still listen to the ones already recorded, which hold very helpful information and tips.







EdTechTalk and KidCast go along these same lines, showing educators and students alike the great advantages of technology. ETT allowed people watching and listening to participate in interactive chat rooms about the podcasts. KidCast is geared toward instructing teachers on how to build successful podcasts for their students. It also stresses the importance of podcasting for a purpose, a message, instead of having students go through the motions just to say they did it. This way, students are able to relate to the message, therefore absorbing the purpose of the podcast more effectively.








Like I said before, many people podcast about millions of different things! For instance, MacBreak Weekly is all about Macintosh and whats new in the biz. This way mac and apple owners and users can log on and listen to any new product information that might be useful to them. This Week in Photography is also a different type of podcast. On here, photographers of all kinds can come and listen, as well as watch, the new products, tricks, and news on the job, or hobby, they love!






Podcasts can be fun and very easy. They enable people to share words with no more effort than just to speak them! No confusing written instructions, no long drawn out directions, and no typing for hours. Just speak, or listen, or both! Podcasts are something I plan to use in my classroom as an educator, and in my home as a parent.