Podcasts I listened to:
1. This American Life #377 Scenes from a Recession
2. Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
3. Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute
4. Ecogeeks: Untamed Science Video Podcast
5. Trigonometry and Geometry Papapodcasts
6. Shrink Rap Radio
7. Big Ideas
8. Awesome Vocabulary
9. The Sound of Young America
10. New Yorker: Fiction
I thoroughly enjoyed Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips, Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute, and Ecogeeks: Untamed Science Video. Grammar Girl has a web site that you can visit that corresponds with the podcast. The podcasts can be used as one more way to teach grammar which can be pretty boring. I listened to 2 podcasts and thought both were entertainting. Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute is amusing but also informative. The podcast is set to music. A word is stated and then a little song is sung containing many other words with the same meaning. I thought it would be a good way to prepare for the ACT/MME. The Ecogeeks video was amazing, although I'm not sure I would have descended to the deep ocean in a homemade submarine like the people in the video did.
I think the audio podcasts would be good for my students as long as they weren't too long. The Big Ideas podcasts are lectures and each is about 45 minutes long. I teach mostly freshmen and those podcasts were too long and too serious for them. And, if you use one method too much it gets boring so I think it would be best to use podcasts as supplements to other teaching methods.
I do have a question about how kids would access a podcast. Would kids be reluctant to download a podcast to their MP3 players? I think podcasts could be downloaded onto iTunes and kids could listen on their computers without having the podcast on their iPods, if they have a computer. I think I'd have to teach kids how to do that. I could make a link to the podcasts on my teacher page on the MHS website. Some kids don't have MP3 players but that wouldn't be an issue for me because I have a few I got in a mini grant that I could use. I'm a little nervous about kids taking them home, though, because getting them back might be hard and I'd never be able to replace them.
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Say what you want about Apple, but iTunes and iPods are IMHO the easiest way to really get into podcasting.
ReplyDeleteEven without an iPod, if students have internet at home, they can use the free iTunes software and listen to their podcasts on the computer.
You may not even have to do a demo on downloading podcasts for a students. I would ask how many have downloaded music before (hopefully legally) just to see what their experience level is.