Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Podcasting

The articles and chapter on podcasting(and screencasting) were very helpful. There are obviously loads of advantages to using podcasts in an educational setting. Campbell’s article describing the student who listens to her fellow students’ podcast on their upcoming presentation, who listens to a podcast from one of her classes on her way to breakfast, and who gets “hooked” on her science teacher’s weekly podcast helps convey the exciting educational possibilities, as well as the rapidly-growing popularity, of podcasting. It is clearly very important for librarians to keep up on their knowledge of all the latest technology tools including podcasting and screencasting in order to help students and teachers as they increasingly use these tools in their classes.
The relative ease of producing a podcast means that really anyone can make one (as we are finding out this week!). The possibilities for librarians using podcasts in their own libraries are also fun to think about. An interesting weekly podcast from the school library about the latest technology tools, current library events, available resources, and new books in the library collection could go a long way in conveying that sense of excitement about the library that the student in Campbell’s article feels about her teacher’s science podcast. Librarians could use podcasts to reach students and teachers and remind them of all the resources and help that are available to them through their libraries.

2 comments:

Linda Braun said...

One thing I love about the Campbell article is the discussion of a professor that creates a podcast about the things he's into outside of the classroom. The things he reads, listens to, views, etc. I love that idea for a library teacher. What are you reading? What are you watching? I think that makes these podcasts a way to make the library and the library teacher human. Do you know what I mean?

In terms of ease of creation, absolutely. Pretty much anyone can do it - students, teachers, parents, etc. What about a library teacher having a workshop for members of the school community on creating podcasts. Do you think people would be interested?

Elizabeth Rey said...

I think members of a school community would be very interested in a workshop on creating podcasts. Of all the technologies we've looked at in this class, podcasts are arguably the most fun! My own kids had so much fun recording their voices using Audacity. I had to put them to bed in order to get my own podcast recorded! Kids and teens would get a lot out of learning about and using podcasts. School librarians would definitely be serving a useful purpose for the school community by helping members use podcasts.