Potentials of Podcasting

I really enjoyed creating a podcast.  It was fun to choose a topic (reading a personal essay from 10 years ago) and then to actually do it.  The topic I chose allowed me to step back into the shoes of my 18-year old self, which was interesting.  It was encouraging and surprising to read my words again.  Especially since I was recording myself reading, I tried to get into character and feel the emotions I felt when I wrote the piece.  I loved it.  It also allowed me a chance to read my teacher's comments again, which was so encouraging.  Now that I am an educator, I read the comments differently than I did previously.  I understood how essential it is to provide feedback on a student writer's ideas, not just her mechanics.  I knew this before I did the podcast; I internalized it as I was re-reading my teacher's comments.

Once I finally figured out how to turn my blog into a podcast using Blogger, morphing my audio file into a podcast was simple.

Podcasting could be used for a variety of activities in the classroom.

• Booktalks:  If the technology were available, podcasts of booktalks could be shared among students, classes, and even from year-to-year to promote a culture of reading in the classroom.  Although I would not use this as an assessment for comprehension or independent reading, since students could easily read a summary online and translate that into a booktalk.  It would be a nice supplement to other classroom activities.
• Interviews:  There seems to be a lot of potential for using podcasting as a tool for interviews.  Specifically, I think it would be neat to have students interview characters, authors, or other readers about a book.  These would be excellent extensions for other activities in a regular English class.  Depending on the unit of study, students could interview other students, teachers, family members, community members, school staff members, etc. for a variety of reasons.  There really are so many possible uses for this tool!
• Radio Shows:  In a media class, it would be neat to have students research information about various radio shows, such as All Things Considered, A Prairie Home Companion, This American Life, call-in shows (for advice on finances, relationships, etc.), sports shows, conservative talk radio, etc.  It would be neat to have them look at the different kinds of radio shows, targeted audience, bias, and other unique aspects of the genre.  As a culminating project, students could create podcasts of radio shows.

It's been really fun for me to learn about podcasting.  I believe that this medium has so much potential for use in classrooms that have the available resources.