Podcasting with Primary Students-Response Blog #2

As I was driving across Pennsylvania this memorial day weekend, I started to read ahead in Blogs, Wiki's and Podcasts by Will Richardson and got to the chapter on podcasts, and started to get excited about all the applications for the classroom. Richardson wrote about using Garage Band, iPods and other software to create podcasts-most of which were Mac programs.  I have a Mac at home, and love the tools they offer to create podcasts, but what do I do in my Mac-less classroom?  I thought about bringing my Mac and iPod to school, but the thought of having a class full of 7 year olds grabbing at the equipment makes me a bit uneasy, to say the least.

One Mac-less suggestion that Richardson had was Audacity, a free open source audio recording software.  I have used Audacity before, and think it would be entirely too complicated for a 1st grader to use on a regular basis.  I can see using that for much more involved projects, but not if I want to do a something quick.

One such project that I got very excited about was adapted from an idea I got from a podcast entitled Podcasting in the Classroom.  This podcast spoke of a college class that created unofficial audio tour for the Museum of Modern Art.  Next year I am teaching dinosaurs, and wanted to have a class dinosaur museum.  I thought it would be so cool to podcast a tour of our museum for parents.  If they do come to the classroom, they could walk around with a copy of this podcast just as you would at a real museum.  If they could not make it to the museum, they could still access the tour from home!

However, I wanted to find a different podcasting tool that would be easier to use on a regular basis.  I did find what looks like a much simpler way to quickly record a podcast and create a URL that others can access.  It took all of 5 minutes to record and publish a very simple podcast through Odeo Studio.  I can see myself using this for everyday fluency recording.  These podcasts could be saved for easy access later through a URL.  These could be listened to by the students, parents, as well as myself.  Listening to yourself read is such a great learning tool, and finding a way to easily share that with others really excites me.

This idea of using a podcast for fluency goes along with an idea I read about in an article by Wes Fryer.  The article, Classroom Audio Podcasting, was a great overview of the the benefits of podcasting.  One that I really liked was that it provided a window into the classroom.  

Overall, I think I can overcome the fact that I can't use a Mac to create a podcast with my students.  I wish I could have a classroom full of Macs, but you can't always have what you want-you just need to learn how to work with what you've got.