Podcasts, please!

Semester 3 drew quickly to a close and there was no time left for hands-on podcast sessions in the lab. However, from my readings I learned that podcasts are audio blogs that prospective listeners can subscribe to and download to their MP3 players or computers. Martinez (2005) states that podcasting is " the internet's media "broadcasting" format". Given the requisite software, creating a podcast appears to be just as easy to produce as the other technologies we have worked on, and teachers and students can actually transform any piece of writing into a podcast.

Cothran (2008) explains that students can create a podcast to respond to text which they have read. This is done by writing down their reflections or interpretations, practising (to read) it, and recording it through a voice recorder or on a computer and microphone. The recording is then uploaded to a computer. Certainly, there can be many variations to this kind of project, but it is obvious that podcasting is beneficial to literacy development, in that it connects reading and writing meaningfully to promote fluency. This is because the " podcaster" will want to aim for recorded material that is flawless, so he will do repeated readings until he gets it right. The mere fact that students get to integrate technology in the process of reading and writing is quite motivating for them, and the opportunity to publish digitally is also gratifying in itself. Which child would not like to hear himself, or for his peers to hear him on an MP3 player? Colleagues, let us add podcasting to our technology toolkit.