Podcasts as Teaching Tools

1. Reflect on how you could use "Podcasts" to distribute your lessons.

My first thought, since it was brought up during our group discussion, is that if the school were closed down for an extended period of time teachers could upload lessons as a Podcast. This thought is in light of the H1N1 outbreak over the past year or so. There were certainly times where our schools were discussing what to do if they were shut down.

I could also use Podcasts to supplement or enhance my own teaching. They are not unlike videos that I use from the web, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy. The drawback of that would be that most Podcasts I have seen/heard are pretty dull, especially for students at an elementary level.



2. What do you expect are the students' affective outcomes when the students use this form of technology to learn?

As mentioned above, it would be difficult to make (or find) Podcasts that were not too boring for my elementary students. I think that, as with any newly introduced technology, they would be interested at first, but then lose interest pretty quickly. I know that elementary students really thrive on interaction, and since we all learn differently, these Podcasts would be more accepted by the audio/visual learners. BUT, that leaves out the kinsthetic learners, which many young children are. Interaction and movement are so important for young people!