Being a physical education teacher I was naturally drawn to the heath category of for my initial podcast selection. I listened to S’more Outdoor, which is based on the premise that spending more time outdoors is beneficial for our emotional, physical and spiritual well-being, that everyone needs to incorporate the outdoors into their life and experience the Nature Effect, natural healing from the outdoors. The second podcast I previewed was TED. TED is a nonprofit that uses short talks (TED Talks) for spreading ideas. TED talks cover almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. I have listened to TED talks in the past, and was motived and inspired by the speaker. Ted Talks are so content rich, and presented in such a captivating way that I felt this would be a good podcast to share with my students.
I used iTunes to search, listen, and now subscribe to my selected podcasts. iTunes was extremely user friendly, and has thousands of podcasts to choose from, covering nearly every subject.
In my opinion podcasting incorporates nicely into education. With so many educational podcasts, not only does the content provide additional educational resources for the students, but it also supplements the teacher’s knowledge to share with her class.
First, the students have access to information from nearly every single subject area. Podcasts provide opportunities for students to further educate themselves on assigned topics. They can also explore other topics of interest and develop new educational interests. Another benefit of podcasts for students is the convenience factor. Podcasts vary in length from just a couple minutes to overview a topic, all the way to hours which detail all aspects of other topics. Short or long, podcasts can be listened to at them at the convenience of the students, which is another asset of podcasts.
The benefits teachers gain from podcasts are just as beneficial. Teachers have an opportunity to obtain free professional learning or continued education on topics of their choice on at a time that is convenient to the teacher. Podcasts are also a way for teachers to create a community within their classroom. It can be used to talk about what is going on in the classroom, content students are learning; pose questions for students to think about outside of class, among many other opportunities.
As I become more comfortable, I may work to incorporate podcasts in to my lessons. I believe that podcasts are gaining in popularity due to their convenience and comprehensive content offerings. I will be interesting to see how podcasting changes the traditional classroom in the next several years.
Podcast on Podcasts...Is this thing on?
After watching this video, I think I need to update my team sports curriculum!