Week Nine, Thing Twenty-One

Podcasts. The term is not new to me, mainly due to my husband's obsession with the spoken word. He downloads certain NPR podcasts on a weekly basis and listens to them whenever he has time. The ease of being able to listen to a favorite radio broadcast in your own time, not tied to the radio schedule, is really nice.

I have utilized a few grammar-based podcasts in my classroom this year, thanks to the information shared by another Language Arts teacher, and it has been a nice way to mix up my lessons. For myself, however, podcasts do not really appeal.

I have never been much of a fan of audio books, and I have only recently begun to enjoy a very specific program that NPR puts out ("The World", if you're interested), so podcasts and the entire audio world does not hold much draw for me. Had I lived in the radio era, I would have been the black sheep of the family, preferring to read the text of a book rather than listen to the nightly broadcast.

I did explore some of the podcasts on the links provided at Classroom 2.0, but again, nothing jumped out at me: I thought perhaps a book review cast, but I realized I get distracted listening to a disembodied voice speak, and don't get as much out of the review as if I had read it myself.

My own learning style aside, I can see the use of podcasts in the classroom, both to listen and to create. I am open to integrating this technology into my work, but I doubt it will ever find a place in my personal life.