Thursday, June 19, 2008

Podcasting

So....always good to get new toys. The Podcasting session we went through today was great. Brian Mull gave us just what we needed. Podcasting is something I have wanted to ingerate on a large scale for some time. The oppurtunities for remediation, or make up of missed classes that it provides students with is incredible. Just think about it for a minute....how many times do students tune out during an average 45 minute class period. Some of them do so and not even intentionally. If the lesson has been recorded and uploaded to our CMS (Moodle) then students can always refer back. However we don't want to stop there. What better way to give our students a truly authentic audience than to allow them to create their own podcasts. For example you could ask your students to write an essay on the Cold War, and after they have written their essay ask them to podcast it. During the writting process they may not feel that the work is theirs, but when they are allowed to put their own voice to it, it takes it to a whole new level. You may even consider allowing them to skip the writting part from time to time and simply allow them to research and podcast their findings. Students then become an integral part of the activity. The possibilities are endless. To hear how to easily podcast using Gcast listen to the podcast posted on the right. For direct instructions on how to podcast using Gcast follow this link. For direct instructions on how to podcast using an Ipod follow this link.