Podcasting

Part five in this week’s series of 5 technologies I use in my classroom every day is podcasting.

I started out with a weekly show called the Frank and Moix Week in Review featuring Carl Frank and myself.  The show typically runs about 30 minutes and covers a lot of territory.  Carl and I talk about what’s going on in our department and our classes, but we also encourage students who are participating in clubs and activities.  We try to have a third voice each episode as well.  Listen to a little bit of our newest episode or pick another from our episode archive:

It took about a month to really get the podcasting technologies figured out.  To get more practice, I started a daily show called the MoixLand minute in which I bring up one topic or item of interest and give it 60 seconds.  

the MoixLand minute for October 24, 2008 is about the often overlooked academic calendar.

I use the podcasts to reach students.  Other educators use the process of podcast creation as vehicle for a lesson.  Check out Bob Sprankle’s Room 208 podcast produced by his elementary students.

How do you make a podcast?  At its most basic, you record your voice using a computer microphone, post the recording on an RSS-enabled blog or wiki, and then share that RSS feed with your friends, neighbors, and podcast directories.  I use the Behringer Podcastudio USB equipment that was donated to our school by Wal-Mart and the free audio editor Audacity.  Karen Fasimpaur of Karen’s Mashups fame introduced me to podcast production at a workshop at the Hot Springs Technology Institute in 2006.

Give podcasting a try.  You can do it with a small computer mic and you never know who you’ll reach.