About podcasting...

Chan and Lee (2005, p. 65) state that "Podcasts may be thought of as time-shifted radio broadcasts over the web." In their research conducted with University undergraduates they claim the benefits of podcasting include:
* low-cost, low-barrier tool
* subscription based
* content can be filtered to specific needs
* can be transferred between mobile devices
* allows content to be delivered as soon as it is available

Chan, Lee and McLoughlin (2006, p. 113)add that the use of podcasts create a sense of community and provide an additional learning modality. The concerns of podcasts as a pedagogical tool are limited although include questioning pedagogical soundness and the risk of decreased class attendance.

In a Primary school context the use of Podcasts in and out of the classroom would certainly be engaging for digital natives. The opportunity to don headsets or earphones and tune in to a personal space would appeal. In my son's Year 6 classroom podcasts have been used for delivering spelling on a group rotational basis and as an option for presentation of group projects (the students recorded their findings orally rather than as printed text). Oh! And then there's all these other reasons for including podcasts in your classroom...



Image created by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano and retrieved from http://langwitches.org/blog

More learning about Podcasting
I have just created my first podcast. I experienced initial difficulties last week and put it all to one side for a few days. I checked blog postings on blogs I am following and found that Pauline had located an easy to use site (PodOmatic) and has also created a PMI for this digital tool. Thanks Pauline!