Article 6: iPods in Class

Butterfield, G. (2007, April). Tech teacher: ipod, upod. In Edutopia. Retrieved March 9, 2010 from http://www.edutopia.org/node/3949

Article Summary:
Podcasts are a fun, easy way to share your thoughts and ideas in a radio station sort of way. This article describes how easy and affordable it is to create a podcast. All you need is a computer with a microphone and speakers, and a podcast program for recording. There are several programs that are free to download such as Audacity. There are even programs that you can phone in your podcast and record it such as a voicemail. You don't even need to own an iPod to enjoy listening to podcasts, you can subscribe to them online and listen to them on your computer. The program creates a special kind of URL called an RSS feed that is like your own personal radio channel.

My Thoughts:
Podcasting would be a fun activity for students to create a newscast about a particular topic and then create their own class "radio station" that the other students could subscribe to and learn more about each others' topics. This seems like it would be a cheap, easy way to get kids to listen to each other and teach each other rather than me lecturing to them. Many of my students have iPods and mp3 players that they listen to all the time. It seems like it would be a great idea to teach them that these can be educational tools and not just for listening to music or playing games.