Journal 8 : Podcasting Nets (1,3,4)

In the internet world that we live in there are so many new technological words that are thrown at an individual that have most of us scratching our heads. Podcasting is one such word, it looks as though its two words stuck together and has little meaning, plus it sounds kind of funny. However Podcasting is basically a combination of some audio and video files that are put together and are available for download via syndication on the we using an RSS feed (really simply syndication).
The definition is a tad confusing as well so to break it down even further I will use a science example. Let say I find a movie about mitosis (how cells divide) on the internet and I want to use the movie in my class I could download the movie (video) and then record my own voice (audio) then combine the two. Now I have an audio/visual movie. I then can use an RSS feed to syndicate my movie to others to watch and to use as needed. Now this can be done in your classroom with any type of visual queues you may want to use (movies, photos, drawings) I just stuck with a simple movie from the internet that would be easily downloaded. The educational value to Podcasting could be matched only by student’s ability to create and express their own ideas on the subject being taught and share with their peers in the classroom
In reading the 2.0 threads there was a lot of great information to be had. One questions that was posed was:
2008 Research Results! Podcast listening is on the rise in all age groups!
Edison Media Research recently reported the results of its study of podcasting trends. See the Blog in the Maze for the details.
Do you see this translating to education as well? Will we see more receptive response for the use of podcasts in teaching?
What I found interesting was that teachers were saying that they have seen a increase in test scores with the use of podcasting and that all levels of education are starting to use podcasting more frequently. So what this thread has reminded me is that Podcasting can be used not only as a visual and listening way of learning but can influence tests scores. SO I need to remember that everyone learns in different ways and we owe it to the students to use all methods we can to get our point across.
In reading another thread the author was talking about how book reviews scripts then recording them and then posting to the class website. I think this would be a great way for students to share information on books, assignments, journal articles, and an array of other materials. If students were assigned the above task in a short time there would be a library of information that students could pull from to help them in their own studies. Plus I think it would be fun to have different voices on a library of resources that students can pull from. I learned from this thread that Podcasting can be used from k-college and that it is not that hard to use this technology. A great website that was in the thread and I recommend for ideas is http://www.runkle.org/Podcasts/index.html


The information came from a professional website for instructors for social interaction and ideas.