Thing 17: Podcasts: No iPod Needed!

I've listened to the Grammar Girl podcasts in the past and took the opportunity to catch up on some of the more recent ones. I also explored some of the Spanish podcasts. Under the Education headings, it was pretty easy to navigate and find interesting podcasts.

I have iTunes and have subscribed to some podcasts, which I don't keep up with faithfully. It is nice to have this medium to sort and store podcasts. They can be easily downloaded to an iPod and listened to in the car or during exercise (if you're into that sort of thing!). It amazes me that you can get expert advice for free through these podcast subscriptions.

I'm not sure how I would use podcasts in instruction. Although the podcasts are relatively short, I would be afraid that students would become disengaged. I would be interested in learning how teachers had their students create their own podcasts. It would be fun to give students a global audience and for those audience members to get to hear writing narrated by it's author.