Probably the technology I am most excited about and want to see flood the classroom is podcasting. If you haven’t listened to one, a podcast is a series of audio or video programs you can subscribe to (usually for free) on topics that cover the gamut of human endeavor.

A little background

One of the easiest ways to discover podcasts is to use Apple’s iTunes. Once installed and launched, iTunes features a link to Podcasts in the iTunes Store right along side the Music, Movies and TV shows. In the Podcast section you will find traditional broadcasters like NBC, NPR and CNN making their content available for download alongside a new breed of independent content producers like Leo Laporte and his This Week in Tech (TWiT) network of shows.

What is truly exciting for educators, however, is iTunes U – which sits two buttons over from the link to podcasts in the iTunes Store. There are 227 universities and colleges, as well as a number of K-12 schools, who have signed up with Apple to post content on iTunes U. This is an amazing resource for educators. Imagine bringing a portion of a lecture from Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley or my own alma mater, the University of Arizona, into your classroom to augment the materials you provide to your students.

But what if you want to learn to create your own podcasts?

Well, there are podcasts for that too:

• David Jackson’s School of Podcasting
  
• Richard Harrington’s Producing Video Podcasts
• Jason Van Orden’s Mastering New Media

Or, if you are anywhere near Tempe, AZ November 14-15, 2009, you could attend PodCamp AZ. The “Relevant Media Unconference” will take place at the University of Advancing Technology (2625 W. Baseline Rd.) from 8:30a – 5:30 both days. The conference is open to anyone with an interest in New Media including blogging, podcasting or webcasting.
In addition to talks on getting started with podcasting (Podcasting 101 – The Technical Side by Kevin Kittredge) or improving your existing podcast (5 Reasons Your Podcast Technically Sucks by Evo Terra), there are also a number of talks of interest to educators:

• Learn on the run: A study of instructional design practices in podcasting by Lisa Young
• Teaching math with technology by Sue Glascoe
• Creative chaos in the classroom by Shelley Rodrigo

Dollars and cents

PodCamp AZ is free to attend. A $25 donation is suggested to help the organizers defray the cost of putting on the event. You should register to help the organizers know how many are planning on attending and to vote on the talks you will be attending.

I want your comments

If you are an educator and listen to a podcast you think is great… Post it in the comments below. I would love to hear from you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Events, For Teachers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.