Podcasts 1

What is a podcast?
A podcast is the combined technology of the IPod and broadcasting, although an IPod is not necessary. It's most listened to on computers, is timeshifted and is not platform specific, so it will work on either the pc or the mac.

Compare/Contrast to another technology:
A podcast is similar to the radio, but with more benefits. Unlike a radio, podcasts can be listened to at any time and can be paused, stopped and skipped around. A podcast can also be saved for later use unlike a radio show. With radio shows, there aren't many options to choose from while there are 65,000 podcasts to chose from and the number is growing daily. Radio shows, on one hand, are very expensive and time consuming to produce while podcasts are very inexpensive and take very little time to put together. Another feature of podcasts is that they can be subscribed to and instantly downloaded, unlike radio shows.

Three usages/ Why use them in the classroom?
Well why not use podcasts? They can be used to send assignments to students, to connect your students to the rest of the world by giving them an audience, to practice in foreign language classes, to study for exams, to record/save oral projects and my personal favorite, to hear famous speeches from history. Also, podcasts are very simple to put together and are very inexpensive for teachers. When implemented, they also increase student motivation to succeed.

Why not use podcasts in the classroom?
The only reason I could think of to not use podcasts would be if the technology such as computers or software were not available to the students.


Having listened to the podcast on podcasting, I feel much more comfortable with how they work and would really want to try it in a classroom. My main thinking before this was that podcasts were really only for radio show type uses but now I see that they are much more versatile. I also didn't know if they were free or expensive to make so finding that they are very inexpensive makes me want to make one that much more.