Blog Post # 4

The first link that I looked at was The Benefits of Podcasting in the Classroom. There is a short video, but what I found most helpful to me was the link that went into great details about exactly what a podcasts is. It is perfect for someone that knows absolutely nothing about podcasts. When you listen to podcasts you can pick and choose exactly what interest you. Most are free and they have very limited commercial time and some have no commercial time at all. This is because podcasts are really easy and cheap to produce.
This is a great tool for the classroom. It is easy to use. It promotes creativity and innovation. Students can practice role play and it can be easily accessed by parents and other interested parties. Podcasts also use the higher order thinking skills shown in Benjamin Bloom's pyramid.

Langwitches Blog really put using podcasts in the classroom into perspective. I really enjoyed listening to the children's podcasts It is amazing that they were only first graders. Their interview style podcasts with the characters of Vacation Under the Volcano was fantastic. I could tell that they worked very hard to accomplish a podcast that anyone would be proud of. I especially liked the different voices they used to show the personalities of the different characters. I hope that my own children,and my students, have opportunities like this in school. These same first graders did another podcasts during their second grade year. You can hear them speaking Hebrew on their podcasts. The teacher stresses though that the whole exercise is about writing a script, listening comprehension, collaboration, speaking skills, and fluency in a target language. I can't think of a better way to teach children these skills then through a hands on activity like this.
Judy Scharf's link to how to create a podcasts had a lot of helpful information it. I was able to download the program Audacity to my computer. This will allow me to make my own podcast. It will also edit it and convert it to an mp3 once I download that part of the program into my computer
I really wish these podcasts were available in the 1980's I used to spend hours locked away in my room with my microphone and radio. I would make up my own radio stations. I recorded everything on tapes. They had their own music, weather forecast, and news. I had the most fun as a kid doing this and it would have been even more fun if I could have made a podcasts with them. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a fantastic tool to utilize in the classroom.

@langwitches Thank-you for the information about podcast provided on your blog. It was very insightful and will be a big help to me. EDM310
— Heather L. Heiskell (@HeatherLHeiskel) February 10, 2013