First of all, it was soooo much fun making my first podcast!! I'm actually waiting for it to show up on our GCast Player; cross your fingers. : )I would love to add podcasts into my teaching repertoire. Right now I'm still going back and forth about the best way to catalog and share info for my class (Wiki or blog?) but I'm sure that including a podcast subscription would be an excellent addition to either. I could record class lectures and post them for students who missed class or for all students to use as study tools.
I can see this REALLY getting cool when the students start making their own. There are so many applications for their use. The students can create podcasts as a running summary of class, much in the way that I described above, or they can take book reports to a different level. Research projects can also be done as a podcast. Maybe they still write the report, but they also create a podcast over it which allows them to add in sound effects, music, and interviews. Isn't that pretty similar to what goes on in a real-life news report? Podcasting can make the learning more applicable. And like many of the other tools we've learned about in this class, because podcasts are published and set up with an RSS feed, then the work is out there, being listened to by others. Not only does this hold the students to a higher level of accountability, but it also makes their effort seem worthwhile. There's no getting a grade on this and then just tossing it in the trashcan, you know?
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"There's no getting a grade on this and then just tossing it in the trashcan, you know?"
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head there. That's the incredible aspect about publishing - period. Students are much more invested when they know there is a far greater audience for their work than their teacher and themselves. Why have their efforts end at the trashcan when you can allow them to have a global audience that can give them feedback!
"a global audience that can give them feedback!"
ReplyDeleteAh! Feedback! How important, whether it's congratulatory or constructive. I didn't even think about that aspect of publishing. It can be so beneficial for the students to see the opinions of others outside of their teacher and classmates.