Podcasts-Why and What For?

Podcast-Why and What For?

What is a podcast, well according to wikipedia: A podcast is a form of digital media that consists of an episodic series of audio or digital radio, subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. The word is portmanteau of "pod" and "broadcast."  taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast.  

So what does that mean, well to me in my classroom and hopefully one day a library it means creating a sound recording for various purposes.  

So now you are thinking how can podcast be used in the classroom or a library?  There are so many different ways that students can use podcast to showcase their learning.  Some that I have found are:

Discuss and summarize learning units

Read Alouds

Library Tours

Book Talks

Reader's Theater

Current Events newscasts-great for social studies

Reading Radio - summaries of books they are reading

Roving Reporter - interviewing key people in important upcoming events in school

Celebrate Culture - telling about important cultural events at the school or community

Bring Your Teacher Home-for that need review or were absent, podcast important parts of the lesson.

Music Casts - bands and choir, could use to showcase instruments, their sounds, characteristics, etc.

Awesome Audio Tour - give students a chance to be tour guides for new students.  Can give a detailed tour of the school that new students could listen to as they enter the school.

Podcasting Pen Pals - have interactive or encouraging podcast that are sent to another classroom in another school or country.  

Reenactments - have students reenact important events in history using period voices and word choices.

Oral Presentations- this could be for so many applications/subjects

Ideas found at: 

http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2014/08/07/10-podcasting-projects-every-teacher-should-try and

http://www.edutopia.org/podcasting-student-broadcasts

I love doing read alouds on podcasts so that students can listen to them time and time again to hear fluency, expression and voices modeled.  One of my all time favorite books to read this time of year is Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini  It ties into Fall really well with fairs and witches.  It is a fun book to read and my students last year loved it so much that I had students practice reading it over and over until they wanted to read to the class with fluency, expression and varied voices.  It was great!  I even invited parents to come hear their child.  My students this year are loving it as well.  

How did I make my podcast of my read aloud?  It's not to hard and with technical glitches I created mine.  My computer at school would not allow me to record the audio so I used my Iphone and created an audio file using my voice memos.  I emailed it myself and then converted it to a MP3 file. There are so many free conversion programs available.  I was then able to upload the file to Soundcloud and embed it into this blog.   So even if you don't have fancy equipment you can still have students create podcasts showing what they know without always using paper and pencil. Sometimes the ears do have it!

Happy podcasting and creating lasting sounds with your students!