Article Link: There’s Something in the Air: Podcasts in Education

This article delves into the world of podcasting in education. Gardner Campbell gives us a basic overview of what podcasting is, and how one can create a podcast. He creates a scenario where a student uses her podcast to create and present group projects for a class. She also gains pertinent information from her professors and other classmates via the podcast. The article contains web addresses to gain more information on podcasts such as where to go to create one, as well as links to some universities who are already using the technology.

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0561.pdf

Typical Example of a Podcast

The following link is to a podcast from The Web 2.0 Show. The Web 2.0 Show is a forum for discussing the various technologies surrounding web 2.0. This particular podcast is an interview with a man named David Wadler from Twistage which is a YouTube “like” distribution service.

Link to the web 2.0 Show Click to download the podcast:

http://www.web20show.com/

Podcasting Overview

Podcasting, according to wikipedia, is a digital media file that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers. The term podcasting is a word combination that stems from combining ipod with broadcasting.
There are so many different podcasts out there ranging from entertainment programs to music programs. There are even shows called “talkcasts” which allows listeners to listen and participate in live talk shows.
Talkshoe.com is just one example of a live interactive podcat.
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/main.jsp?pushNav=1&cmd=home


Podcasting can serve many purposes in education. I am an elementary teacher so I will think of the podcast in terms of elementary education. Podcasts would be a great way for students to work together on collaborative projects. For example, students can work together to create a play for the class, which would then be viewed via a webcast. Students could post their podcast to their classroom blog for class members to view. This could open up a forum for students to then comment on and leave feedback for the creators of the podcast.
Today children seem to be busier than ever running between after school activities. Podcasting would be a great way for stduents to save time and yet still participate in educational activities because students can sink content and take it wherever they go.

Educational Blogging

Blogs have many features which make it an excellent tool for teachers to use with students. I am a 5th grade reading teacher, and I think a blog would be a great tool to use for a telecollaborative project with my students. I would do this project with a 5th grade class from another school. After reading one of our required novels, it would be nice for students to have an opportunity to blog about the story. Using a personal blog that could be set up over the Internet, they could post their thoughts and questions for other to read and comment on. Students can link photos, video, and podcasts to their blog, which would open up the forum for creative expression.

The link below is just one of the many places you can go to set up a blog for your classroom.

http://www.21classes.com/

I used blogger.com in order to create my blog.

www.blogger.com

Blogs

Blogs are just one way in which the face of the web has changed. According to Tim O’Reilly, “a blog is just a homepage in the form of a personal diary. Blogs can be used in a variety of ways, especially in the educational sense. Currently I have created a blog for my telecommunications class. Using a blog I am able to explore a topic of interest, (in this case web 2.0 technologies), and discuss the role it plays in society. Because anyone can post a comment to a blog, lively discussions about a topic can ensue.

The following link will take you to Google Blog Search where you can locate blogs on a variety of topics.

http://blogsearch.google.com/

Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us

Web 2.O

In this blog I will be discussing many of the technologies related to web 2.0. With that being said it is only fitting to define web 2.0 and what it entails. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the shift from traditional sites to ones that contain user generated content. A few examples of web 2.0 features are Google, AdSense, Flickr, Wikis, blogs, podcasting, and Napster. The technologies that I will be focusing on in future blog postings are blogs themselves, wikis, and podcasting.

The article linked below is written by Tim O’ Reilly who is said to be the man responsible for coining the term “web 2.0”. It gives an overview of web 2 0 and how it came to be.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=1

Another resource related to this topic is a web page for the web 2.0 Summit Conference. The purpose of the conference is to get together and discuss the emerging technologies on the horizon.

http://www.web2con.com/