Can you hear me now? Working with Podcasts

From Billy in his basement to the stars of every major news show, podcasting is becoming a common occurrence on the internet. Whether the more popular audio podcast, or the more elaborate video podcast, the ability to broadcast to the world, whenever the world is ready to listen, is becoming very popular within many walks of life.

With the tools that are so readily available over the Internet for no cost at all, people all around the world are becoming Toffler's prosumers and creating their own radio and tv shows with tools such as Audacity and Ustream.TV One of the big advantages to these shows is that people can download them to their computer or MP3 player and listen to them at a time of their own choosing. Combining these tools with software such as iTunes and RSS feeds allows this to be done automatically, taking out the tiresome chore of searching for new podcast postings and downloading them.

But where does all of this come into our classrooms? Many teachers are integrating the use of podcasts into their curriculums in a variety of ways, from directing students to podcasts posted on the web, creating their own for students to listen to, or getting their own students to create podcasts based on what they are studying. We are living in a technology age where the use of pen and paper is fading fast. Having students learn how to use and create this new medium is an important 21st century skill that we need to be teaching. As The Sabre Tooth Curriculum suggests, we need to be teaching the skills that students need for today, and we should be changing our curriculums to reflect this.

However, although I have made extensive use of Audacity and dabbled with Ustream.tv, I have not yet taken the plunge into using them within my classroom. Some of this is a fear of the unknown issues I can foresee. I can see the students now complain they could not listen to it for homework because they lost Internet connection or mom would not but them a new iTouch to play the podcast on (obviously not needed). Creating them also has its problems. When making Photostory movies in the classroom, one of the biggest challenges is recording the narration that goes with them. I can see the same problem when students try to record their own podcasts in the lab. While I would like to think that I could set the creation of one for a homework assignment, I know some will balk at spending the $15 on a microphone.

Despite all of this. I know that this is an area I need to explore with them and create solutions to the problems that I may face. Our students, the N-genners, do have a different approach to learning and are wired in to new modes of presenting information other that the written word. Instead of teaching to the same old traditional style, I need to meet the demands of new curriculum requirements and explore more fully the benefits of podcasting in the classroom.

Why Blog?

In his book "Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms", Will Richardson suggests that blogs are ideal tools that use collabortaion, reflection and conversations to:

1. Promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Promote creative, intuitive and associational thinking.
3. Promote analogical thinking.
4. Increase access and exposure to quality information.
5. Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

On reading this, I thought about some of the the values and approaches that Dr. Norton has been teaching to us on the GMU ITS course. These have focused around a number of key concepts, including:

Search, Sort, Create, Communicate -
Problem solvers, Information users, Community, Knowledge, Literate - both of which encourages students to be good handlers of information, good problem solvers and creators of ways to communicate with others.

To me, this would suggest that the use of blogs would make an ideal tool to use within the ITS program to help teach these skills. However, it is clear from Richardson's book that it is important for people to select their activities using blogs very carefully, for although blogging can take a variety of forms, only a few are really effective in the classroom. These would take the following form:

Simple blogging:
1. links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content.
2. Reflective, metacognitive writing on practice without links.

True blogging:
1. Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind.
2. Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links and comments.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Everybody is doing it, newscasters update regularly, book clubs across the world and meeting through them and mothers around the world are sharing ideas with others thousands of miles around the world.

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a buzz phrase right now both in the real world and in education, but what is Web 2.0?