Podcasting

"Podcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it." Doc Searls of IT Garage as quoted from the article "Podcasting 101 for K - 12 Librarians" found in Computers in Libraries v26.

Podcasting in Plain English refers to podcasts as "Personal On Demand Casting," which is a clever phrase that makes sense to me, although it is not the origin of the word podcasting according to Wikipedia.

I love Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe but very seldom am I close to a radio on Sunday afternoons at 1:00 pm in order to listen to this great program. Not only that, but I would love to have my English students listen to Stuart telling one of his humorous stories about Dave and Morley and their "real-life" antics. Well, through podcasts, I now have this ability, and I am THRILLED!!!

For the past few days, I have been reading about and listening to podcasts, as well as searching for different podcasting sites. What I have discovered amazes me and terrifies my husband . . . I could spend literally every minute of my day listening to presentations, music, and discussions through podcasts!

I love listening to the radio, particularly the CBC, as I am working in the kitchen, which is where I spend a lot of my time. In fact, the radio is the only way that I can stay informed because I am one of the few people in the world who doesn't watch TV. And, of course, I have some radio programs that are favourites such as Vinyl Cafe, Hot Air, and Sounds like Canada (which sadly no longer exists as of September). But what I have discovered through learning about podcasting, is that I can actually listen to most of my favourite shows, or specific episodes that I want to hear whenever and where ever (once I get an ipod) I want to. AMAZING!!! The question that I kept asking myself this past week is why didn't I explore this sooner. Granted, I don't have an ipod, and I just assumed that I would need one in order to be able to listen to podcasts, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

I now have our laptop plugged into the kitchen, and I find myself searching for something to listen to as I wash dishes or make lunches. I had no idea that there were so many podcasts of personal and professional interest available on the Web. This has truly opened up a new world for me. I have even gone so far as to ask for an ipod for Christmas from my family, so that I can download podcasts to listen to when I go for long drives, or when I finally manage to find time to go walking again.

I have to admit that most of the podcasts that I listened to the past few days have been for personal pleasure, but I also spent some time looking at podcasts that could be used in teaching, and I came across a few sites that were quite useful: Podcasting in Education, is a helpful site that explains what podcasting is and how it can be used in the classroom; The Education Podcast Network, which is provided by David Warlick and The Landmark Project, is designed to bring together podcasts for teachers and students, and Education World has several articles on podcasting. Of course there were many more to choose from, but I found that these could be useful for teachers and students. Furthermore, I was even able to listen to a podcast about Podcasting in the Classroom.

My head has been spinning with the possibilites for podcasting in my classroom. In the next few weeks my grade 11 students will be studying Macbeth, and I plan to divide students into groups, and have each group create a podcast for one of the scenes that we will be reading. I think that this will be a great way for them to work with podcasting, as well as allow them to collaborate and be creative through the editing process. I can also see this being beneficial for me and my colleagues, as it allows us to access and listen to educational materials when we have time. We can also incorporate podcasts into our teaching to support our auditory learners, as well as to encourage other students to develop critical listening skills. Clearly there are many more ways to use podcasting in the classroom, but I am going to start with Macbeth in hopes of getting my students excited about studying Shakespeare.