Podcasts

I am very excited about Podcasts. It began yesterday when I created mine for our class. I had soooo much fun. I thought it was going to be a long, tedious process. It was long. But time flew. This is because creating a podcast involved all of my senses. I had to write, I had to speak, I had to listen, I had to look...I did everything but eat and smell. Truly, it's a fascinating process. It's rewarding to be able to play back your hard work. My favorite part was listening to where I laid multiple tracks at once. Having various layers to the podcast makes it sound professional. Knowing that I had the options of creating a rich product and knowing that my classmates would be listening to the product, motivated me to do a thorough job.

I'm even more excited about Podcasts after having read an article for my research paper. The article is titled, "A (Pod)cast of Thousands," by Ann Marie Dlott. It discusses three projects her class did with podcasts. Not only are the projects great models of researching, reading, writing, and learning for English or Social Studies classes, but additionally, the points Dlott makes about employing podcasts are convincing. Her argument proves that podcasts increase writing, speaking, listening, and even research skills. When students begin a podcast, they must contiunually revise and edit what they are going to say to be sure it sounds fluid and complete on the broadcast. This revising and editing process is widely absent from academic writing because students often do not see the point of it or because teachers do not often allow enough time for it. In the podcast process, it's almost built in. Podcasts also increase writing skills because if students know people other than their teacher will listen to the podcast, students have various audiences in mind. Whenever teachers give students options to choose their own audience, students write more authencially. This is because when students choose their audience, their writing becomes closer to professional writing. What I've mentioned above are just a few of the ways students learning increases through using podcasts. The overall point is that podcasts increase students intrinsic motivation and they increase authentic learning. This is important because with the former, students develope a thirst for learning; with the latter, students retain more of what they learn. I cannot wait to start using podcast projects when I am a secondary ed. English teacher. I just hope the school I teach in has the technology!