Podcast

What! A podcast? I know what you’re thinking. Sounds complicated. Sounds expensive. Sounds, well, technical. I learned that creating a podcast or listening to one in your classroom/library couldn’t be easier, or cheaper, even free. If you have a computer and an internet connection, you already have all the equipment you need.  Podcasts are serial recordings, posted regularly online. Producing  a podcasts is the technology based equivalent of oral storytelling.  Similar to oral stories and news that has been shared with listeners by storytellers, and others.  Podcasters share news and stories with their listeners, who download the files online.

Podcasts can be used by teachers and librarians for any purpose a text might serve, they can tell fictional stories, poems, share and comment on recent events, inform listeners about a topic, and persuade listeners to take an action or adopt a stance. Podcasts are great tools for teaching students to use spoken language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes and collaborating with other students.  They're good  alternatives to use in the classroom for students who need remedial support, and allowing students to share their learning experiences with other students and with other students at different schools.

Before recording my podcast, I created three free (podcast) accounts using SoundCloud, AudioBoo, and Podomatic.   I played around with all three to decide which one I would use to produce my podcast.  I found all three user friendly, but ultimately, I went with AudioBoo for my podcast, it was just worked for me, but you be the judge.  Try them out for yourself, they're free!

I thought Soundcloud was easy to navigate through, but it seemed to be geared towards listening to music, adding music to your podcast, and downloading music. I found Audiboo also easy to navigate through and record as well, in addition to that this site seemed to be geared more towards making it easy for educators to create and share podcast with others, though you are only limited to 5 minutes of recording. All three sites allow you to create podcast pretty easily, but Podomatic seemed geared more towards offering services that allow you to look for podcast of interest, and just didn't do it for me.

 

Take a listen to my podcast featuring the October book of the month: Frangoline and the Midnight Dream by Clemency Pearce.

*Please excuse the background noise