Cast into the pods!
Today's blog is all about podcasts!
Years ago, before Ipods were Iphones, I had participated in a teacher workshop that was all about podcasting. While it had seemed mildly interesting back then, today it is something that has really blown up! The information gathered from the class I'm taking now has really renewed my interest in not only listening to them, but bringing them into the classroom.
Podcasts can be a great way to reach kids, who are already glued to electronics as it is. There are a multitude of them out there with a variety of subjects. These can be used in the classroom as an additional resource to get kids to learn about a certain subject. I currently teach Food Science at the high school in which I work, so I started looking for food, science, and food science related podcasts. And lo and behold I found them! I've been thinking a lot lately how to get around the old and tired lecture to a presentation, and think this may be one option. I read in one article that the teacher would set up listening stations as an option to a variety of resources, and I this is an example I plan to follow.
The teacher or librarian can make their own podcasts for the students to follow. Instead of finding others to follow make your own! This way you can plan and control the content of them. One librarian that I met at a conference has created a book talking podcast. You can even get the kids involved with your podcasts.
We want our students to do more than just listen though, we want them to be creators! There are many free and easy to use tools out there that the kids can use to create their own podcasts. Instead of doing a poster or Powerpoint, have the kids present their research via audio recording. You don't have to make the kids create their own podcasting site, but you can post it (with permission) on your own site, or maybe put them up in the feed of your Google Classroom to share with the class.
In the interest of exploring how to create podcasts, I looked at a few platforms myself. Specifically I looked at Soundcloud, Podbean, and Audioboom. Both Soundcloud and Podbean have a free trial version that limits you in how much you can upload. Audioboom was also free to sign up for, but you could not publish anything unless you had a payed subscription. All of them had paid upgrades that ranged from $9 to $99, depending on how many bells and whistles you wanted. With Soundcloud, I got the feeling it was meant more for budding musical artists, than podcasters. It didn't really feel like a site that would be available at school because of all the music. Within 1 minute of signing up I had someone following me, though I had nothing uploaded, so that was a little suspicious. Podbean however, was totally podcast-centric. You had the option of following other podcasters, and it showed you some you might be interested in. On the home screen you have a follower count, and a comment board in addition to your list of podcasts. The upload process was pretty simple, and you could add a description, picture, tags, and other things when you created a podcast. Audioboom looked pretty neat, and it was also a podcast-centric platform. It advertised analytic tools you could use and an embedded player, but as it was a pay only platform I couldn't explore it as much as I wanted to. So in the end, I went with Podbean to publish my podcast.
To actually record the podcast was a jouney as well. My partner, Jaime Vezurk, and I originally wanted to create a podcast that was like a conversation between the two of us. She had read that you could record Skype conversations, so we tried to use that. Unfortunetly, it only recorded as mp4 files, so it was not usable. Instead we discussed what we wanted out of the podcast, and I recorded myself using Audacity. Audacity is a neat tool that you can use to record and edit audio tracks. Thank God for the editing, my initial run was atrocious! I wound up cutting a full 5 minutes of umms, ands..., and restarts. I then used www.freesound.org to find a music track to add as a intro and outro. Freesound.org is a creative commons website to find audio tracks. They've got muscial numbers, background noises, I even found crickets chirping! After editing, I posted up my podcast on Podbean, as seen here:
https://glibrorian.podbean.com/mf/play/8skuw9/podcast_1_3.mp3
Don't let my "amazing" podcast fool you though, there are plenty of great podcasts out there for educators! I'll end with a list of some good ones that I came across. Don't limit yourself to these though, go forth, search ,and find some great podcasts just for you!
Good Podcasts for kids
-Brains on!
-Book Club for Kids
-The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian
- Ear Snacks
-The Big Question
-Tumble
-April Eight
-Buttons & Figs
Years ago, before Ipods were Iphones, I had participated in a teacher workshop that was all about podcasting. While it had seemed mildly interesting back then, today it is something that has really blown up! The information gathered from the class I'm taking now has really renewed my interest in not only listening to them, but bringing them into the classroom.
Podcasts can be a great way to reach kids, who are already glued to electronics as it is. There are a multitude of them out there with a variety of subjects. These can be used in the classroom as an additional resource to get kids to learn about a certain subject. I currently teach Food Science at the high school in which I work, so I started looking for food, science, and food science related podcasts. And lo and behold I found them! I've been thinking a lot lately how to get around the old and tired lecture to a presentation, and think this may be one option. I read in one article that the teacher would set up listening stations as an option to a variety of resources, and I this is an example I plan to follow.
The teacher or librarian can make their own podcasts for the students to follow. Instead of finding others to follow make your own! This way you can plan and control the content of them. One librarian that I met at a conference has created a book talking podcast. You can even get the kids involved with your podcasts.
We want our students to do more than just listen though, we want them to be creators! There are many free and easy to use tools out there that the kids can use to create their own podcasts. Instead of doing a poster or Powerpoint, have the kids present their research via audio recording. You don't have to make the kids create their own podcasting site, but you can post it (with permission) on your own site, or maybe put them up in the feed of your Google Classroom to share with the class.
In the interest of exploring how to create podcasts, I looked at a few platforms myself. Specifically I looked at Soundcloud, Podbean, and Audioboom. Both Soundcloud and Podbean have a free trial version that limits you in how much you can upload. Audioboom was also free to sign up for, but you could not publish anything unless you had a payed subscription. All of them had paid upgrades that ranged from $9 to $99, depending on how many bells and whistles you wanted. With Soundcloud, I got the feeling it was meant more for budding musical artists, than podcasters. It didn't really feel like a site that would be available at school because of all the music. Within 1 minute of signing up I had someone following me, though I had nothing uploaded, so that was a little suspicious. Podbean however, was totally podcast-centric. You had the option of following other podcasters, and it showed you some you might be interested in. On the home screen you have a follower count, and a comment board in addition to your list of podcasts. The upload process was pretty simple, and you could add a description, picture, tags, and other things when you created a podcast. Audioboom looked pretty neat, and it was also a podcast-centric platform. It advertised analytic tools you could use and an embedded player, but as it was a pay only platform I couldn't explore it as much as I wanted to. So in the end, I went with Podbean to publish my podcast.
To actually record the podcast was a jouney as well. My partner, Jaime Vezurk, and I originally wanted to create a podcast that was like a conversation between the two of us. She had read that you could record Skype conversations, so we tried to use that. Unfortunetly, it only recorded as mp4 files, so it was not usable. Instead we discussed what we wanted out of the podcast, and I recorded myself using Audacity. Audacity is a neat tool that you can use to record and edit audio tracks. Thank God for the editing, my initial run was atrocious! I wound up cutting a full 5 minutes of umms, ands..., and restarts. I then used www.freesound.org to find a music track to add as a intro and outro. Freesound.org is a creative commons website to find audio tracks. They've got muscial numbers, background noises, I even found crickets chirping! After editing, I posted up my podcast on Podbean, as seen here:
https://glibrorian.podbean.com/mf/play/8skuw9/podcast_1_3.mp3
Don't let my "amazing" podcast fool you though, there are plenty of great podcasts out there for educators! I'll end with a list of some good ones that I came across. Don't limit yourself to these though, go forth, search ,and find some great podcasts just for you!
Good Podcasts for kids
-Brains on!
-Book Club for Kids
-The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian
- Ear Snacks
-The Big Question
-Tumble
-April Eight
-Buttons & Figs
I like how you shared our journey of trying to make the podcast. Not always easy but keep trying to until you figure it out. I also like how you shared ways to use podcasts and then lead that into platforms for creating your own. Nicely done!
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