Podcast
There are three kinds of podcasts. Audio
podcasts are usually an MP3 file and are the
most common types of podcasts. Enhanced
podcasts can have images to go along with the
audio. They can also have chapter markers,
making it easier to skip to different portions of
an episode. Enhanced podcasts are an AAC file
and are not supported by all devices. Video
podcasts are movies, complete with sound.
Video podcasts can be in a variety of formats,
but MPEG-4 is the most popular.
What makes it a “real” podcast?
• . For an audio or video file to be a podcast, two things
have to happen.
• First, the file has to be online. That means it’s stored
on a publicly-addressable server. It could be stored
on your school’s server, or you could purchase server
space through a number of services.
• Second, your file needs to be available as part of a
subscription. The second step can be a little more
complicated, but luckily there are many free services
that will help you create the subscription file.
Classroom Uses
• Take George Mayo, for instance. He’s a first-year
teacher in Virginia who last year started a Weblog
magazine with his students called M&M Online
Magazine (http://mrmayo.typepad.com/magazine/).
When his students got the hang of that form of
Web publishing, they decided to add an
accompanying podcast that was written and
produced by the class
(http://mrmayo.typepad.com/podcasts/). They
created their own intro music using Apple’s
Garageband software, and in the podcast itself
they discuss what’s new in the magazine, which is
a collection of individually student run blogs.
• Or Radio Willow Web from the Willowdale
Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska
(http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/ind
ex.html). As the Website says, these
Willowcasts” are online radio shows for kids
by kids. Each show has its own host,
theme, and unique segments which can
include things like “Bad Joke, Good Joke,”
“Holiday Spotlight,” “Poetry Corner” and
much more. It’s a great example of what
you can do with podcasts.
• Or Bob Sprankle’s Room 208 podcast, a third
and fourth grade teacher at Wells
Elementary in Wells, Maine
(http://bobsprankle.com/blog/). Aside from
weekly shows that cover events at school, his
students have done “sound-seeing tours” of
the local Willowbrook Museum Village in
Newfield that they visited on a field trip.
Listeners are treated to the students’
reactions to what they see, the presentations
by the tour guides, and all sorts of other
vignettes of students talking and thinking
about what they’re seeing, sometimes with
teacher prompts. It’s a concept that’s easy to
replicate.
• But podcasting doesn’t just have to be edu-radio.
There are many other ways that teachers could
bring the genre into the classroom. World language
teachers could record and publish daily practice
lessons that students could listen to at home, or,
if they are fortunate enough, could download to
their own MP3 players. Like the Madrid Young
Learners Podcasts
(http://mylcpodcasts.blogspot.com/) site where an
English speaker tells a story via a podcast and
non-English speaking listeners answer questions in
English via comments. How hard would it be to
make your own site like this (now that you know
how to blog) with teachers enlisting native
speakers from around the world to tell stories that
their own students respond to?
• Social studies teachers could have their
students do oral histories or interviews or
reenactments of historical events. Science
teachers could have students narrate labs or
dissections or experiments to record their
processes. Music teachers record weekly
recitals or special events as podcasts. All
teachers could record important parts of
what they do in the classroom that can then
be archived to the class Weblog and used by
students who may have missed the class or
just want a refresher on what happened.